Rancho Heights History
The Rancho Heights residential development is relatively new, but our area has a long and interesting history, even featuring famous characters. Read all about it below.
Our modern Rancho Heights community is centered on two main roads – Magee and Rancho Heights – and surrounded by a colorful history that can be traced back to the mid-19th century. Magee Road, named after Gold Rush settler and general store owner John Magee, was built (or perhaps discovered) around that time. Before then, it may very well have been a trail that connected the Pala Band of Luiseno Indians with the Temeeku band of Luiseno Indians. In the 1800s, Magee Road ran from Mission Road (now state highway 76) in Pala north through the hills, across the land that later became the Pechanga Reservation, and then down into Temecula, where it terminated at what is now the intersection of Loma Linda Road and Pechanga Parkway (the original location of Magee's first general store in Temecula). Today sections of Magee Road are gated off by property owners who live outside of Rancho Heights to the south, which makes it impassable, except in emergencies.
Rancho Heights Road was more recently constructed, having been cut and graded in the mid-1960s. Adjoining roads include Lost Horizon, Sunset Peak, Rancho Heights Way, Hidden Oaks, Magee Heights Way and two unnamed dirt roads – one that runs between Rancho Heights and the end of Magee Road, and another that runs from that unnamed road south past the site of the cabin once owned by Erle Stanley Gardner (more on that below). Magee Heights Way is not part of the original road agreement and is maintained by the property owners.
Erle Stanley Gardner
Though most of us have recently discovered and come to appreciate the special beauty of Rancho Heights, others preceded us and were similarly smitten. Lawyer, mystery writer, and naturalist Erle Stanley Gardner, who wrote the hugely popular Perry Mason stories and produced the television series based on those stories, once owned all of the area we now call Rancho Heights. He bought his 3,000-acre ranch in 1934 and named it Rancho Del Paisano. At some point in the 1930s he built a small cabin on property he owned in the hills above his ranch. The stone foundation of this cabin still stands in a live oak grove not far from the southeast end of the paved portion of Magee Road. (Erle Stanley Gardner died in 1970. A portion of the ranch that contains his main ranch house and other original buildings remains intact across Pechanga Parkway from Great Oak High School.)
In the early 1960s, Mr. Gardner sold the land that would become Rancho Heights to a small group of investors headed by Jesse Unruh, the flamboyant then-Speaker of the California State Assembly. The cutting and grading of Rancho Heights Road and it's adjoining roads are likely to have begun shortly thereafter. Most of the grading work was performed by property owner and founding Road Committee member Ray Lemon, the father-in-law of Speaker Unruh.
A few years later, Mr. Unruh and his partners sold all their holdings to a group of investors organized by Pamela Van Der Linden of Fallbrook Real Estate Company. It was Mrs. Van Der Linden who reportedly coined the name "Rancho Heights," which seemed appropriate because many of the properties in the development overlooked the newly formed (1964) Rancho California development in the Temecula Valley.
Road Agreement Signed
In 1972, the property owners of Rancho Heights drew up and signed a Declaration of Restrictions and Road Maintenance Agreement, a document that creates and defines the structure of community governance that remains in effect today. At the time, all roads were dirt or decomposed granite. The paragraph setting annual fixed assessments (Section 9, Article F) in the agreement originally called for property owners to pay $.50 cents per acre annually. The Agreement also gave the Committee authority to impose an additional $.50 cents per acre at their discretion in any 12-month period. The roads within the boundaries of our road maintenance agreement are shown on a map that is part of the Agreement.
In the 1980s, the Road Committee financed the paving of the first 500 feet of Rancho Heights Road and upgraded existing dirt roads with decomposed granite quarried from properties in the community. The roads were then coated with penetrating oil in order to reduce dust and improve water repellency.
In 1983 Rainbow Municipal Water District ran water lines up Rancho Heights Road and paved Rancho Heights Way, the road to the water storage tank off Rancho Heights Road. The first 7/10 mile of Magee Road, including the steep incline just above Rancho Heights Road, was paved by property owner (and founding Committee member) Jake Sturzenegger in 1990 as a condition of County approval of a parcel map.
County Service Area Proposed
During the 10 years between 1983 and 1993, the annual assessment was $1 per acre.
In the early 1990s, the Committee presented a proposal to the County of San Diego to convert the mostly unpaved roads of Rancho Heights into a publicly maintained County Service Area (CSA). The Committee's intent was to have the County annex the roads and assume responsibility for upgrading them to County standards and maintaining them thereafter. Property owners would pay a fee (initially estimated by the County to be $975 per parcel and to increase yearly as work progressed) on their annual tax bills to cover these County services. In an attempt to keep the roads passable while negotiations with the County proceeded, a special assessment of $25 per acre per year over a four-year period was proposed by the Committee in 1992 but defeated by property owners.
The CSA proposal was considered and debated, but the County Board of Supervisors rejected it in 1994 because the Board ascertained that a majority of voters registered in San Diego County who owned property in Rancho Heights did not support the initiative. Debate on the advisability of the CSA proposal continues to this day, since the County rejected the proposal "without prejudice"-- meaning that the proposal could be re-submitted at any time in the future. The general consensus among most present and former committee members is that road construction by the County would have taken too long (perhaps as long as seven years) and cost too much.
In 1995 the Committee proposed a one-time special assessment of $1,800 per benefit unit to finance the paving of as much road surface as possible with a minimum of 1.5 inches of asphalt (some of the steeper slopes were to be covered with 2 inches of asphalt). The benefit unit structure proposed was the same one previously proposed by the County as a means to pay for CSA annexation and associated construction costs. (See attached Resolution.) The proposal was eventually approved by more than 65% of property owners. A portion of money was collected and, in 1997, five miles of road were paved resulting in the road system we have today. In 1998 a seal coat was applied, funded by monies from the same special assessment. Due to increased efforts on the part of the Committee to collect payments in arrears, the final outstanding payments from the 1997 assessment were finally collected in 2005.
Benefit Unit Structure Adopted
In 1997, the three culverts that divert Pala Creek waters under Rancho Heights Road – the most vulnerable stretch of road in the community – were encased in re-inforced concrete to create an "Arizona crossing." It's likely that this structure prevented a washout of Rancho Heights road like the one that twice washed out Pala Road at Pechanga Creek during the heavy rains of 2004-05 and inconvenienced property owners in Rancho Heights by preventing them from driving directly to and from Temecula for several weeks.
In 1999, the committee, anticipating a future need for more money to repair the roads, proposed that property owners adopt a permanent benefit unit assessment structure (based on one the County devised to pay for road work in their standard CSA agreements) to raise construction and maintenance funds on an annual basis. The permanent benefit unit structure was included in an Amendment giving the Committee authority to set the annual assessment at a figure between $100 and $200, although the assessment for the first year, 2001, was to be set at $100 per benefit unit. In 2002 the assessment remained at $100 per benefit unit. At the 2002 annual meeting, at the urging of a majority of the property owners present, the Committee voted to set the annual benefit unit assessment at $200.
In 2001 and 2002, additional late payments from the 1995 special assessment were utilized to pave parts of Rancho Heights Way and the bottom of Lost Horizon.
Power Comes to Rancho Heights
As late as 2000, there still was no power or telephone service on Rancho Heights Road past the Y. Committee members Stephen Bochinski and Phil Burke worked with the utility companies and property owners on Rancho Heights Road and spearheaded the effort to bring Rancho Heights into the 20th century. Property owners on the upper section of Rancho Heights who desired those services paid a voluntary special assessment and in 2001, poles, power lines, and telephone lines were installed on the upper section of Rancho Heights Road by San Diego Gas and Electric and SBC Communications. Approximately $25,000 remaining from this voluntary assessment after the bills were paid was used to repair damage to the road caused by trucks and heavy equipment during the installation of poles and lines.
In 2001, responding to the interests of the growing resident community, the Committee proposed installing an electronic security gate at the bottom of Rancho Heights Road. The subject of a gate had been raised periodically in quarterly Committee meetings going back to 1988. The Committee agreed that a gate would substantially improve security and privacy in the community and proposed a special assessment of $200 per parcel to pay for the gate. The proposal was passed by more than 65% of property owners in 2002. The gate became operational in August of 2005. Stucco and ornamental finishes were completed in August of 2006. Because the cost of the gate exceeded original estimates (based on projections that included donated construction materials and labor, which were not forthcoming), the Committee approved the use of annual road assessment funds to complete the project.
2003 Drainage Improvements
In 2003 extensive improvements and alterations to road drainage systems on both Rancho Heights and Magee Roads were completed. Much of this work was performed by Committee member Pokii Seeman who procured donated building materials and provided his labor free of charge.
The torrential rains in the winter of 2004-05 -- the second wettest winter on record -- caused extensive damage to the pavement and the underlying roadbed at many places along our roadways. The Committee authorized spending all available funds and solicited bids to repair as much of the damage as possible. A contractor was hired and the work was undertaken in the summer of 2005. Unfortunately, funds available from annual assessments were insufficient to repair all damage.
To continue repair work and provide funds to upgrade the entire system of roads, in the summer of 2005, the Committee presented two separate proposals: a special assessment of $1,600 per benefit unit and an increase of $200 dollars (to $400) per benefit unit in the annual assessment. Property owners rejected the special assessment proposal by a wide margin and rejected the increase in the annual assessment, as well. Although the latter proposal had majority support, it did not receive the 65% of votes required for passage.
The Next Chapter is up to Us
The history of Rancho Heights is a 50-year-long story written by men and women who had vested interests – both business and personal – in seeing this beautiful landscape made easily accessible and safe for those who might choose to live here. Many people worked hard to create the system of roads (however imperfect) that we, the present owners, have inherited and utilize to access the properties in which we now vest our interests. But history is inevitably an unfolding story. It is shaped by people and reflects their strengths and weaknesses in any given period of time. Things don't automatically work out for the better – they are worked out, for better or worse. Ten years from now, in the year 2016, the condition of roadways in Rancho Heights will reflect – either adversely or favorably – on those of us who are determining the future of those roadways today.
--by Doug Eaton