Close to 200 homes are being built in the Nautical Cove development at Holland Road and Southshore Drive. (Staff photo)
Second in a three-part series on land use in Menifee.
Questions from our readers:
Why don’t you stop building homes?
Why can’t you save more of the rural land?
Why don’t you build more roads before more developments?
The short answers:
State mandates requiring additional housing are in effect.
The land is owned by someone else who has the right to develop it.
There isn’t enough money to build more roads until developers pay for it.
Unfortunately, explaining land development in Menifee is not that simple. In this news article, we will discuss the many factors that are involved in the development of land in Menifee. We urge readers to stay with us throughout this lengthy article and submit questions we will try to answer in future posts.
The biggest issue to consider when addressing the concern of residents regarding continued land development is the fact that almost all of the land in Menifee is owned by private individuals or developers, not the city. Other than a few parks and the 398 acres in Menifee Hills recently purchased, the City of Menifee owns very little of the land and has limited control over what is done with it.
We say limited control. Yes, the City can deny a project under certain circumstances:
— If the project does not comply with the General Plan or zoning regulations
— If the project would have significant environmental impacts that cannot be mitigated
— Permit documents are incomplete or fees are not paid
In other words, the City cannot deny a project simply to limit overcrowding. In fact, the state requires a certain amount of additional housing to be built by the end of each eight-year cycle of the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) for Menifee. California Senate Bill 330, enacted in 2019, was designed to address the housing crisis in the state by reducing regulatory barriers to residential development. It was part of Governor Gavin Newsom’s initiative to create 3.5 million new housing units by 2025.
The city’s identified need for additional housing units during the 2021-29 Housing Element cycle is 6,609 units, including 1,761 very low-income units and 1,051 low-income units. The City’s last recorded number of RHNA completed units was 2,782 in 2023. According to a staff report at the Planning Commission meeting on Feb. 25, 2026, the city had approved another 1,013 units to be constructed in 2025. That would total 3,813 housing units, leaving Menifee about 2,796 units short of the amount needed by 2029. But recent estimates indicate the number of homes built in the next few years will be well over what is required.
The really interesting numbers will come in 2029, when the next RHNA cycle is determined by the Southern California Association of Governments. The City of Menifee long ago planned for the continuing population explosion. In a 2022 rezoning ordinance, passed by the City Council to accommodate the 2021-29 NRHA, the City identified 69 candidate housing sites that could accommodate up to 8,696 additional housing units within the City. The identified candidate housing sites would accommodate units for a 32 percent buffer beyond the 6,609-unit RHNA requirement.
The increased projections beyond the RHNA requirements are the result of continued demand for affordable housing in areas that are zoned specifically residential. The question then becomes, as some residents have asked, should Menifee rezone some of its land to decrease residential or industrial building?
That sounds good in theory, but SB 330 places certain restrictions on such rezoning. It “restricts cities and counties from enacting new ordinances or policies that would reduce the number of housing units allowed, impose downzoning, or delay housing construction through moratoriums.”
According to Orlando Hernandez, City of Menifee community development director, “[Rezoning] is more difficult now because the state several years ago said because of the housing shortage, they don’t want to lose the opportunity to build residential. If you want to rezone, you need to rezone another area back to residential to compensate for it.”
Does the City deny residential development applications beyond the RHNA requirements? Hernandez says yes, but most of those never get too far in the process anyway.
“There’s been cases where we recommend denial [to the City Council] because the applicant is not willing to work with us or it’s not best for our city,” he said. “We try for them not to even submit it. It’s a waste of time and money on both sides. Any applicant has the right to submit something, — we can’t legally say no. But once it comes in, we go through the process.”
The process from application submittal to certificate of occupation has 10 steps (see chart). As you’ll notice, the Environmental Review is only about halfway through the process. So when you see Menifee 24/7 post a legal notice about the public hearing for a project’s EIR, the start of actual construction will be months or even years later.
“By the time we take it to a public hearing, it has gone on for, if not months, then years,” Hernandez said about most projects. “When it first came in, it was probably a ‘no’ because it didn’t meet certain items. That’s why we work to get it to a point where staff is comfortable approving it. Still, it’s up to the council.”
Another factor is the cost involved just to get to step 4 – the entitlement. By that time, the applicant is heavily invested, which residents may not always understand.
“Once they are entitled, they have spent millions in fees and infrastructure,” said Bryan Jones, assistant city manager. “Some of them apply for more than a single-family tract. To pull sewer, water lines … commercial retail can’t do that. Typically they go into land surrounded by homes, where utilities have all been put in.”
That takes us to question 3 at the very beginning of this article – infrastructure. This will be examined more in part 3 of our series, but the fact is that developers pay for the roads and utilities needed for new projects – not the city.
Transportation Uniform Mitigation Fee (TUMF) is a program run by the Western Riverside Council of Governments (WRCOG). It is a regional fee charged to developers to help pay for major road improvements in Western Riverside County such as freeway interchange upgrades and regional traffic improvements. Menifee collects the TUMF fees and passes them along to WRCOG to help fund major road projects.
Development Impact Fees (DIF) are charged by the City of Menifee to developers to fund city infrastructure. That’s how you get your new roads, parks, and storm drain systems as part of a new housing development, as well as public facilities such as police and fire stations.
TUMF and DIF did not exist in their present form in the 1980s, when the Lusk Company built Menifee Lakes. But through the various developer agreements involved, Lusk funded roads, parks, utilities and drainage systems with approval of Riverside County.
Recent and current housing projects have generated millions in fees that developers have paid to produce more roads to accommodate extra traffic as well as storm drains, parks and other necessary amenities. The following chart shows the estimated TUMF and DIF fees that will be or have been paid for some of these projects.
Then there is the matter of commercial/retail development. Here’s where all the resident demands of “Build more restaurants”, “Give us Trader Joe’s”, and “Build more entertainment venues” comes in. Again, the City doesn’t build any of these things. However, the City’s Economic Development Department is actively pursuing such businesses to come to Menifee and purchase open land from current owners to accomplish this.
A lot of this comes down to demographics and the complex formulas retailers and restaurant chains use to determine whether Menifee is a good fit for them. In many cases, the sheer number of Menifee’s total population doesn’t impress these potential clients as much as the clustering of rooftops around a certain available area does.
Case in point: Stater Bros. apparently loves Menifee and wanted to put another store at Menifee Road and McCall Boulevard – a site where Heritage Lake residents have wanted a grocery store for years. But in communications with the City, Stater Bros. indicated that it was waiting for more clusters of housing around the area. Now Legado (1,000 housing units) is being built over the hill to the west, and the Menifee Valley Specific Plan south of Heritage High School will include 1,550 housing units. Now, Staters Bros. is breaking ground at the new site.
“Those people lived in those homes for a decade or more, and it finally made sense for [Stater Bros.] to build that store,” Jones said. “It’s not just the number of rooftops, it’s the concentration. Builders ask, ‘How many would I be supporting in that circle? Are there farms in between?’ Now they see Legado, Menifee Valley, they see the homes coming in Winchester for people who drive along McCall.”
“The City is actively reaching out to those businesses,” added Hernandez. “They say, ‘You don’t have enough rooftops. Newport has enough, but elsewhere, they say we don’t have the customers. What comes first, the chicken or the egg?”
Jones reports that the long-awaited Wal-Mart superstore recently submitted “substantial conformance” documents on prior entitlement – the next step in building at the northeast corner of Scott Road and Haun Road. A Costco facility is in environmental review for the location just south of Lowe’s on Haun Road. The former contractor for the ill-fated Krikorian theater complex has assumed ownership of the property in Menifee Town Center and is working on plans for a similar type of entertainment complex.
And, as reported here last week, city officials are working on a long-term vision for the undeveloped stretch of economic development corridor on Haun Road south of the proposed Costco site. Plans are being explored for shopping, dining, and entertainment in that area – perhaps expanding the sense of “downtown” people seem to want.
In that news article, Economic Development Director Kayla Charters said that Menifee has about $2.2 billion in “unmet demand” from residents who spend money in other communities. In addition, about 90 percent of the city’s workforce commutes outside of Menifee. Such a project would both increase sales tax revenue for Menifee and create more jobs for its residents.
Will all this happen soon? You know the answer to that. “Coming soon” signs are the brunt of jokes throughout Menifee. But as with any developing city, progress comes at its own pace. You may not like how slowly it comes or that it comes at all, but it’s coming.
If you’ve read this far, congratulations. You care about Menifee and what lies ahead. Obviously, the situation is complicated. All this is what city officials try to explain to residents in private correspondence and programs such as the Menifee Citizens Academy – an eight-week course on Tuesday nights that educates residents about the development process, in as well as many other functions of local government. The next session begins Aug. 11. Residents may register on the city website.
Tomorrow: In the last installment of our three-part series, we look at the subject of warehouses and industrial buildings.
The Legado development will bring about 1,000 homes to Menifee. (Staff photo)
