‘Today you could not pass that project’: Controversial Harmony Grove project hit with new legal challenge

After the San Diego County Board of Supervisors again backed a controversial North County housing development in October, angry members of the public shouted “see you in court” at the dais.

That promise continues to be kept.

A new lawsuit — the latest legal challenge to the proposal — is challenging Harmony Grove Village South over fire safety concerns, and could drag it into more courtroom battles between the county, residents and environmentalists.

Wildfire concerns, specifically how future residents and surrounding communities would evacuate during a wildfire, have been a rallying cry for opponents of the development for nearly a decade.

The new suit, filed Friday, says the county improperly relied on a dated fire protection plan for the proposed project.

The development’s fire protection plan dates back to 2018, when supervisors approved the project the first time before a series of successful legal challenges.

Since then, there have been updates to state fire code that were not considered by the plan, the lawsuit says, noting the county did not re-review the plan to consider these updates.

“We’re not going to get into a debate on how safe or unsafe it is,” said J.P. Theberge, vice chair of the Elfin Forest Harmony Grove Town Council, which sued alongside the Endangered Habitats League.

“That argument has already been made,” Theberge said. “The argument here is they didn’t actually review it.”

The lawsuit f...