Murrieta’s Rezoning Creates a Buyer Beware Situation

Imagine buying a dream home in a quiet rural neighborhood and then finding out that the city council had rezoned the property to commercial and no new single family residential development will be permitted on the property. All residential use is now considered “nonconforming” to the new zone that does not allow single family residential use.

The Title company did not find it in their search and the County will not check the zoning status of the property until after it is sold. Worse, now that you own a commercial lot, the County can reassess to the market value of commercial property.

That is the situation for many parcels in Murrieta that were rezoned under the five year review of the General Plan. The single family homes were built legally and under County “conforming” status for zoning at the time - before cityhood. Soon after cityhood the land was rezoned to mixed-use which allowed for residential use and business use on the same parcel. The single family homes could be converted to multifamily if the second unit was attached and a detached building could be built as well for a wide variety of commercial uses including residential use for a caretaker or employee. All was good.

But last year, the current council, current staff and city manager decided to take a walk of the neighborhood and came up with a new vision - high density housing and Research Park zoning that is intended to eliminate all single family housing from Hawthorne to Ivy Street on the east side of Adams Ave. This affects approximately twenty property owners with single family homes on a half acre to 3 acre parcels of land. They not only lost market value in the homes they built but in the flexibility of business use that could have been attractive to a wide variety of self-employed buyers.

And for the neighbors on the west side of Adams, this means high density apartments and condos will affect their market values in the future. Buyer beware indeed.

Plus, now these property owners are finding out that if their home is vacant in excess of 180 days, as has been reported for one rental property, that structure is now in a state of “Loss of Nonconforming Status” (development code section 16.32.050). The loss of nonconforming status means the owner is no longer “grandfathered” for continued use as a single family residence.

How is the city enforcing the code? How is the city protecting a future buyer with full disclosure before escrow closes? No answer from city hall to date.

What does Research Park mean? The city created a special violet color code on their zoning map for it but they don’t actually have a document defining its use.

In the interest of good government, the council should reconsider their vote and restore mixed-use here. It is election season and maybe incumbents are not your best choice. Tell Randon Lane and Doug McAllister you expect to see this as an agenda item in September, or sooner, so you will know where they stand on property rights before the election.