August RSFA Board: Community Involvement

Author: Phil Trubey

Date: August 3, 2023

While the Board meeting was relatively short today, there was a number of interesting and important items for all to see.

Recreation Campus Parking Lot Trees

About a week and a half ago, a large Eucalyptus tree limb fell down near the golf club building, damaging three parked vehicles, rendering one of them undrivable. Luckily no one was hurt. The Association immediately hired an arborist to take a look at the tree stand and they recommended to cut some down and thin others. This work will be performed next week while the golf course is shut down for regular greens/fairway maintenance.

Regular Committee Updates

The Board is adopting a new policy to give Members more visibility into the work our various hard working committees are doing and to allow committee chairs to directly interact with Board members. Every Board meeting going forward, we will have one or two committee chairs present an update and/or request action from the Board.

This Board meeting had Forest Health & Preservation, and Trails & Recreation give updates.

Forest Health & Preservation Update

Anthony Alario gave a presentation in lieu of the committee chair who wasn't able to attend. FHPC is working with the Rancho Santa Fe Foundation, a local community non-profit, to allow community members to give tax free donations to the Foundation which would then be used for community enhancements such as:

• Planting trees
• Trail benches
• Picnic tables for our open spaces
• Wildflower hydroseeding of roadways
• Trash receptacles
• Dog bag dispensers
• Open area acquisition

FHPC will work with Association staff to formalize procedures. The Board gave an enthusiastic thumbs up to the proposal.

Trails & Recreation Update

Rochelle Putman, chair of Trails and Rec gave a status update:

• Our sports fields signs and benches recently received new paint and upkeep.
• The soccer field restroom project is proceeding with an architect engaged and a budget being assembled.
• Riding trail gaps have been identified and easements are being sought to fill in the gaps.
• Encroachment permits are being sought from the County to allow for more roadside walking trails.
• Trail hazards are being identified (like dogs charging fences) so that warning signs can be placed for equestrians and others.
• 14 trails have been named along with new trail signs. This will help emergency response as you can now tell operators where you are.

Last winter's rains severely damaged the trails and with various fall projects coming up (trail tree replanting, Ewing preserve cleanup, arboretum expansion), there is concern that staff won't be able to keep up with trail maintenance. The Board gave the OK for staff to exceed budget and hire outside help for trail maintenance should it become necessary.

As Built Denied

This one wasn't even close. A Member built a pickleball court on much too small of a lot (well less than the minimum 2 acres to even be considered for a pickleball court), did unpermitted grading, and ended up with a prominently viewable court. The Art Jury outright denied the as built unpermitted court, mediation didn't resolve anything, and thus it was appealed to the Board. The Board unanimously rejected the appeal.

The homeowner will now be required to jackhammer the court to oblivion. A giant waste of time and money for everyone involved.

Look, I understand. Going through an architectural review process can appear daunting. However, it need not be. Projects that are actually conforming get sailed through the Art Jury. I've personally had projects both rejected and accepted through the Art Jury. In hindsight, the rejected ones were bad ideas anyways!

If you follow the RSFA Regulatory code, you shouldn't have a problem with your project. If you are unsure about your project, the Building Commissioner is a nice guy who will visit your site and tell you what will fly and what won't. Help is literally a phone call away.

Dish Wireless Antenna Denied

Dish Wireless, a new cellular operator that isn't yet operating in San Diego, requested to install a wireless antenna on top of a Village building. The Board unanimously denied the application.

Silence on a Noise Regulation

The RSFA Association does not have a noise regulation. Almost a year ago, I wrote an article about possibly working towards creating a noise regulation. In today's RSFA Board meeting, I brought it up as a discussion topic among Board members.

Examples of prohibitions could include:

• Prohibit construction noise on Sundays and maybe Saturdays.
• Ban gas powered leaf blowers.
• Have a noise curfew time

The Patrol chief stated in the Board meeting that he gets a reasonable number of noise complaints every month. Usually when they ask the noise offender to quiet down, they comply, but sometimes they do not, citing lack of a regulation to do so.

My ask was that the Board would direct staff to research an appropriate noise regulation for the RSFA. There was enough pushback from others on the Board that we decided to table it until the strategic planning meeting later this month or even beyond.

What do you think? Do we need a noise regulation? Send feedback to memberinput@rsfassocation.org.

Fine Schedule

Finally, the Board voted to keep the fine schedule amounts the same and adopted some cleanup language to make the regulation less ambiguous.