I chatted for a few minutes Friday with Lance Witmondt from City Councilman Brian Maienschein’s office. Maienschein’s district holds Rancho Bernardo, the neighborhood in the city of San Diego where the damage from last month’s fire was concentrated.
He brought up an interesting point — homeowners associations. In the rebuilding process for Scripps Ranch after the last fires, Witmondt said, there were many homes that were custom built to begin with. This time, the burned homes are overwhelmingly in neighborhoods like Westwood or the Trails, each with their own homeowners associations and accompanying aesthetic and proportional rules.
“I think it’ll be a little more complicated,” he said. “I’d say, if it’s not 100 percent, it’s got to be in the high 90s” of the number of homes affected in Rancho Bernardo that are in the HOA-governed neighborhoods.