Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Protect Rancho Santa Fe submitted another letter to the RSFA BOD on August 19th regarding the proposed Silvergate Senior Living project. The letter addresses serious and unresolved conflicts between the current proposal and our Protective Covenant, Regulatory Code, and Residential Design Guidelines. We asked the Association to apply the Covenant and Regulatory Code now – rather than wait until the end of Art Jury review – and to take no further formal action on the project until several clear threshold problems are resolved.
The Core Issues
Memory care is not a permitted use
The proposed memory-care component is an institutional use expressly prohibited by Article I, Paragraph 1 of the Protective Covenant. California law treats a small home of six or fewer residents as Residential housing. Silvergate’s proposed 24 to 48 memory-care suites are far larger and are treated as Group Care or institutional. Even the Covenant’s district “K” meant for hospitals still repeats this ban. The Association never applied that rule. Resolution 2025-102 treated memory care as “similar to” a dormitory or boarding house and did not mention the Covenant’s primary prohibition. The Association’s authority to interpret the Covenant does not include rewriting the list of allowed uses or setting aside a basic restriction. Fair housing laws do not require that the Rancho Santa Fe Association allow Memory Care at this scale. They protect the right of people with disabilities to live in housing that is otherwise allowed. They do not require a private covenant community to approve an institutional campus that the recorded documents expressly forbid. The only lawful path to allow such a use is a formal modification under Covenant Paragraph 164, which requires the written consent of owners of at least two-thirds of the property by both area and number. That process has not occurred.
Many of the apartments are too small
The Regulatory Code requires at least 1,750 square feet of enclosed living space in each multifamily unit. Fifty-two of the proposed apartments are 1,440 square feet. The memory-care rooms are 375 square feet. In October 2024 the Art Jury itself said a variance must be sought or the units redesigned. That requirement was later softened and then dropped from the record. No variance has been processed.
The berms appear to sit in the wrong place
The current plans show large earthen berms along Via de la Valle and Calzada del Bosque that appear to occupy Association setbacks and, in places, County road right-of-way, in conflict with Chapter 41 of the Regulatory Code.
No full Environmental Impact Report has yet been prepared
No full Environmental Impact Report has yet been prepared or circulated. The Association should take no formal position on the project until that review is complete.
What We Are Asking the Association Board to Do
1. Place each of these issues on a noticed agenda for formal consideration.
2. Either complete the required two-thirds owner approved modification process required to modify the Covenant before going further, or require that the Memory Care component be removed from the project.
3. Require the apartments to meet the 1,750-square-foot minimum, or process a proper variance with notice to nearby owners.
4. Require the berms and grading to be moved entirely onto private property outside the setbacks, or process a proper variance and obtain County permission as required.
5. Confirm that the Association will take no formal position on Silvergate until a full County Environmental Impact Report has been prepared, circulated, and reviewed.
6. Halt further substantive review until these threshold problems are resolved, and provide written confirmation of the Board’s actions to the membership. The letter is supported by an independent land-use analysis from a former County zoning manager (Land Use Info LLC), a legal analysis of the institutional-use and fair-housing questions, and the unit-size findings of consultants who previously served in Association management.
The full letter, together with all supporting documents, is available here.
We will continue to keep you informed as the Association responds. Thank you for your ongoing support of Protect Rancho Santa Fe and our shared effort to uphold the Covenant and the character of our community.
Questions or comments may be sent to Protect Rancho Santa Fe at info@protectrsf.com.
Sincerely,
Russ Penniman
President of the Board
Protect Rancho Santa Fe
