Dear neighbors,
We put this packet together so you do not have to wade through seventy pages of County paper to know where Silvergate actually stands. Linked are two documents: the Board’s September 14 memorandum, Silvergate: Where Things Stand, and the County’s August 28 Final Major Pre-Application Scoping Letter (PDS2026-MPA-26-002). This note is only the front porch. It tells you why we wrote the memo, what the County letter really is – and is not – and how the two belong together.
Both papers are posted here: [Letter and Scoping Document]
Why we wrote the memo, and why it matters now
Two stories are making the rounds. The first is that Fair Housing, AB 2011, or some other housing statute will let the applicant build almost whatever it wants. The second is that if this project is stopped, something denser or worse will go up instead. Neither one is a right. The memo answers both in plain language, with the law, the Covenant, and the history of this same corner of the Ranch.
Here is the short version of what we want every neighbor to know.
Nothing has been approved. There is no formal application, no map, and no environmental study circulating for public review. The August 28 Scoping letter from the County is a homework list for Silvergate, not a green light. The Association and the County each have their own job.
The Association is supposed to apply the Protective Covenant we all live under. The County applies zoning, the General Plan, and environmental review. Clearing one desk does not clear the other. A County permit does not rewrite the Covenant.
Last year’s Board resolution did not settle the Covenant question. Resolution 2025-102 talked about use classes. It never addressed Paragraph 1 – the separate rule against building and running an institution on Covenant land. Fair Housing protects a neighbor’s right to live in a home the Covenant already allows, with care in that home if it is needed. It does not require the Association to approve a licensed campus.
Stopping this project does not entitle anyone to something bigger. Coverage limits are a ceiling, not a promise of more units. Height is still two stories. State density-bonus rules attach to the County’s already-low rural zoning, not to the Association. The state streamlining bills people cite need a commercial-style zone. If Silvergate does not proceed, the land stays County Rural Residential / General Plan Semi-Rural SR-2 (about one dwelling per two acres). Denial does not rezone the site. A campus of similar size still needs a discretionary Major Use Permit. Anything denser than the SR-2 envelope would also need a General Plan Amendment – and likely a rezone – at the Board of Supervisors. Finally, any identified CEQA problems travel with any substitute plans of comparable size: VMT, fire and assisted evacuation, major grading and imported fill, floodplain, sewer and water, and possible LAFCO annexation. They were flagged in the August 28 scoping letter and in PRSF-TR-01. They do not disappear if this application is withdrawn.
That is why the memo matters now, while the project is still only a pre-application. What we put in the file today shapes what the County has to study. Once an environmental document is published, we are arguing about a scope someone else has already set. Section 8 of the memo tells you whom to write, what each body can decide, and why three short letters – each aimed at the right desk – are stronger than one letter sent three ways.
What the County scoping letter is – and what it is not.
On August 28, County Planning and Development Services issued its Final Major Pre-Application Scoping Letter for Silvergate, file PDS2026-MPA-26-002. When neighbors hear that “the County sent a letter,” it can sound like progress toward approval. It is not.
A scoping letter is the County’s punch list. It tells the applicant which studies, plans, and corrections have to be finished before the County will even accept a formal application. It is processing guidance. It is not permission, not an environmental decision, and not a finding that a project of this size belongs on Calzada del Bosque. The letter describes a licensed care campus of about 168 units on roughly 28.7 acres at 5708 and 5844 Calzada del Bosque – 94 assisted-living apartments, 30 cottages, and 44 memory-care suites – inside the Covenant, on land the County itself calls Semi-Rural. It then flags the problems that, on present information, may force a redesign or will drive time and cost.
In ordinary language, those problems are the ones neighbors already live with: traffic and how far people have to drive; whether our roads can handle the extra trips; fire and evacuation on a single driveway in a High and Very High Fire Hazard zone; water and sewer, which may need a LAFCO annexation; grading and floodplain work; and whether a campus of this bulk can meet the County’s own compatibility findings – scale, neighborhood character, street capacity, and public services. The County has already heard from a great many of us. If a full Environmental Impact Report is required, the County’s own estimate is that it will cost Silvergate two to three years in time and $200,000 to $450,000 in County processing costs alone.
The letter also says, in so many words, that Art Jury review “is a separate process from the County’s permitting process.” That one sentence is why we are sending you both papers. The scoping letter tells the applicant what the County will study. The memo tells us what the Covenant still forbids, what the County letter does not decide, and what neighbors can usefully put in the file while the plans are still moving around.
What we hope you will do
Read the memo first. Keep the County scoping letter next to it when you write. Section 8 of the memo tells you whom to write and what each body can actually decide. Please do not ask the County to enforce the Covenant, and please do not ask the Association to make County planning findings. Put your name, your Covenant address, and a phone number or email on every letter. Ask each office to place it in the file and to tell you when they choose an environmental path.
The most useful letter is the one only you can write. Make it personal, like telling them what Calzada del Bosque is actually like at 7:40 on a weekday morning. Say how long you have lived here. If you have tried to leave these roads in a fire, say what that was like. Please do not send a form letter. Fifty copies of the same paragraph count as one comment. One neighbor’s own morning on that road is evidence the County has to answer. If the applicant changes the project, the questions do not get easier. They get asked again against a new description. That is why a single, honest project description – how many acres, how many units, how much parking, how much dirt moved – is the first thing the County itself is asking for, and the first thing we ask you to keep in view.
Thank you for reading this, and for helping to look after the special place where we live.
Sincerely,
The Board of Protect Rancho Santa Fe
Russell Penniman, President
Enclosures
1. Member Memorandum, September 14, 2026 — Silvergate: Where Things Stand
2. County of San Diego, Final Major Pre-Application Scoping Letter, Silvergate Rancho Santa Fe, PDS2026-MPA-26-002
(August 28, 2026)
