AMID TURMOIL, PLANNERS APPROVE DOS VIENTOS SUBDIVISION.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

Short two commissioners when one left sick and the other left in protest, the Planning Commission voted 2-1 Monday night to approve a 110-home project in the sprawling Dos Vientos Ranch development.

The vote on the Courtly Homes Inc. subdivision came after commissioner Linda Parks had left the meeting when she fell ill. Commissioner Marilyn Carpenter left later in the meeting to protest hearing the case after 11 p.m., when members of the public already had gone home.

``I would not have predicted that vote, it didn't enter my mind,'' Carpenter said Tuesday. ``I acted on principle, that we should not be hearing that important a case in the absence of the public.

``It was not something I planned, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision and if I had to second-guess, I can't say we wouldn't have had a 3-1 vote,'' she said.

In a separate application earlier in the evening, Courtly Homes applied for a permit to reduce a previously approved plan for 224 detached duplexes to 208 detached single-family condominium homes. That project passed 3-2, with Carpenter and Parks dissenting.

Courtly Homes officials did not return telephone calls Tuesday.

Commissioner Forrest Frields voted in favor of the 208-unit project early in the meeting but against the second Courtly Homes project. Frields said he was concerned about the density of the second project, particularly when it is near the entrance to Dos Vientos Ranch.

``It's probably the first project you see when you go to Dos Vientos Ranch,'' Frields said. ``I just felt like the developer was wanting to put too many houses on that size land. Everything was minimal, in contrast to the project we heard earlier.''

The environmental report for the 110-unit tract also was certified by the commission in a 2-1 vote.

Overall, the nearly 2,400-acre Dos Vientos Ranch development is slated to include more than 2,350 homes, including about 350 senior apartments. About 1,200 of the homes are to be constructed by Courtly Homes, with the rest to be built by Operating Engineers Funds Inc.

Last week the city approved Operating Engineer's plan for a 584-unit subdivision in Dos Vientos. Grading for an additional 230 homes to be constructed by Operating Engineers already has been completed.