California: ‘Agrihood’ proposal may be used to help win passage for latest city housing plan

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It’s one variation of an “agrihood” — a growing, national movement that combines new homes with farm crops and livestock production. More than 100 agrihoods exist nationally, with the nearest in Rancho Mission Viejo.

By Barbara Henry
San Diego Union-Tribune
Jan 14, 2018

The rough, tentative proposal calls for rezoning about half of a 21-acre, flower-growing parcel at Quail Gardens Drive and Leucadia Boulevard, so that it could contain about 250 high-density homes. Plans call for the remaining land to be transformed into a community-focused farming operation that would serve the needs of the new residents.

Business magazine articles have recently described agrihoods as the next likely big housing development trend, saying they could well replace the once-popular golf course as a key project amenity.

Bob Echter, owner of the flower-growing company Dramm & Echter Inc., initially put forward his Encinitas agrihood proposal in early November as a replacement option for his previous controversial plan to commercially grow marijuana on part of his land. After much public outcry about the marijuana idea, the City Council decided in October to put the matter up for a public vote in 2018 and Echter then backed away from it.

His willingness Wednesday night to tweak his new proposal and consider signing a memorandum of understanding with the city barring marijuana-growing on the agrihood farmland areas and upping the number of low-income houses on the other part of the property are reasons to support it, Boerner Horvath and Mayor Catherine Blakespear said.

Read the complete article here.

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