The San Diego County Planning Commission has again delayed a decision on whether to allow the construction of a massive sand mine in unincorporated El Cajon, this time because officials couldn’t get the microphones to work during an accompanying livestream.
More than 150 people had packed into a meeting room at the County Operations Center Friday morning and many groaned when staffers explained that the hearing would have to be rescheduled to July 11.
The Cottonwood Sand Mine has been controversial since it was proposed back in 2018. Residents have railed against possible pollution, traffic and the destruction of hundreds of acres of vegetation while the nonprofit StopCottonwoodSandMine.org raised money to challenge the project. County staffers eventually agreed with some, but not all, of the concerns and released a report recommending the commission reject the mine.
Leaders had originally planned to consider the proposal back in April, but that hearing was postponed to give officials more time to field voluminous amounts of public .
The property is owned by Michael Schlesinger, a Los Angeles-based developer and leader of the limited liability company Cottonwood Cajon ES, which applied for the mine permit. Schlesinger previously argued that Cottonwood could create new jobs and lower the cost of housing through a “temporary, local source of essential construction sand.” He added that the plans call for the creation of new trails and 150 acres of “permanent open space.”
The mine would be at 3121 Willow Glen Drive. Proponents want to extract around 4.3 million cubic yards of sand to make cement. After a decade, the developer would spend two years re-covering the area with plants.
