Todd Refling, project manager for Lennar, stands near the top of 11,000-foot Rattlesnake Mountain in Santee, where bulldozers are preparing sites for the construction of 371 dwellings ranging from townhomes to five-bedroom homes.

At the top of Rattlesnake Mountain, 1,100 feet above the floor of Santee, Todd Refling can look southwest and see Downtown San Diego 18 miles away. On a cloudless, windless day, he marvels at the panoramic view.

“It’s not very often that you have a master planned community like this where almost every home will have a view,” says Refling.

Rattlesnake Mountain lies in the southeast portion of Santee, so close to Gillespie Field —the county’s busiest general aviation airport — that people walking its slopes can trade waves with the pilots of passing aircraft. Refling, project manager for Lennar, a Miami-based residential and commercial builder, is standing on land that Lennar purchased earlier this year to build single- and multi-family homes on 377 acres on the western side and top of the mountain. All around him, bulldozers are plowing dirt and making roads. Some model homes have been built; others are in varying stages of construction.

Lennar’s development is called Sky Ranch. When built out in 2009, its four neighborhoods will contain 371 dwellings — 148 attached townhomes and 223 single- and two-story homes — with prices ranging from the mid-$300,000s to over $1 million. It is part of a residential building boom in Santee where more than 1,600 new homes, condominiums and apartments have either been built or gotten under way in the past few years.

And more are coming. Another 1,500 homes in 14 residential projects are under review by the city. That includes the 2,600-acre Fanita Ranch in the northern portion of the city where Barratt American wants to build 1,380 single-family homes on lots ranging from 6,000 square feet to a half acre in four villages over the next seven to 10 years.

“Fanita Ranch will really change the residential character of Santee,” says Russ Valone of Market Pointe Realty Advisors. “It is a nicely planned community, well over half of it in open space, and many amenities, but a little on the pricey side.” By the time it comes online, adds Valone, Fanita Ranch will offer an alternative to the Interstate 15 population corridor.

Besides Barratt American and Lennar, major developers putting up other large projects include Standard Pacific Homes, William Lyon Homes and Pulte Homes.

Santee City Manager Keith Till says the recent home building flurry kicked off about five years ago. Builders started paying attention after 2002, when the city updated its general plan and rezoned several unproductive commercial sites to residential uses. William Lyon Homes took advantage of that by building Treviso, a 186-unit condominium complex on the former site of a closed K-Mart. Other projects followed.

Design of the four-bedroom home that Lennar will build at Eagle Point, one of four communities that make up Sky Ranch on Rattlesnake Mountain. Prices in Eagle Point start in the low $1 millions.

“Prior to that time, we didn’t see any major residential developer showing an interest in Santee,” says Till. “But they all seemed to discover Santee at the same time. The land was still relatively affordable in comparison with other ZIP codes in the county.”

Till says Santee’s freeway accessibility to major employment centers is one of many “attractive features in livability” that have drawn the builders, who can advertise the city’s quality of life as well as its expanding commercial base to prospective home buyers. “Just ask the person who has invested $600,000 in a new home,” says Till. “That’s a person having considerable faith in the quality of the community.”

City officials paint Santee as a growing family-based community of 55,000 residents where 71 percent of the homes are owner-occupied and 65 percent of its housing stock is in single-family dwellings. The median household income last year was $74,321 — highest of all East County cities and the seventh highest among the 18 cities of the county. The median price of a home was $464,000 in 2006.

Suzie Ek, vice president of sales and marketing for Standard Pacific Homes, lives in Bonsall, works out of a Carlsbad office and markets homes in Santee, where she grew up. “A lot of people don’t seem to realize how close Santee is to everything,” she says — a sales pitch. “It’s 20 or 25 minutes to Petco Park and La Jolla shores. Qualcomm Stadium is even closer. It’s very convenient.”

Ek’s company is building Canopy Park and Stoney Creek at Riverwalk, two developments on 21 acres north of Town Center Community Park and Aquatic Center. Standard Pacific purchased the land from Priest Development. Canopy Park will contain 147 “San Francisco-style” row homes starting at $400,000. Stoney Creek, an enclave of 71 single-family homes, has prices starting at $500,000. Eighteen homeowners will move into Canopy Park in December while 27 owners have settled into Stoney Creek.

Standard Pacific Homes is building 147 attached homes (above) as part of Canopy Park, and 71 detached homes in adjacent Stoney Creek. Both are part of Standard Pacific’s Riverwalk project.

Because of the housing slowdown, Tom Farrar, senior project manager for Standard Pacific, is unable to say when final buildout of Riverwalk will occur. “It’s unpredictable,” he says. “We were expecting two years, but the slowdown is extending that quite a bit. We could go as far as 2010.”

At Sky Ranch, about 30 homes have been sold. “The market is not the best, but since it is a unique place, sales haven’t been bad,” says Refling. “We are possibly doing better than other developers.”

Lennar is building four neighborhoods in Sky Ranch: North Star’s 148 townhomes priced from the mid-$300,000s; Crest View with 89 single- and two-story homes starting at the mid-$700,000s; Stone Ridge’s 67 single- and two-story homes beginning at the mid-$800,000s; and Eagle Point — the most expensive — where 67 single- and two-story homes will be built on half-acre lots priced starting at the low $1 millions.

Several other housing developments have been approved by the city. Among them:

• Treviso, 186 Tuscan-style homes to be built by William Lyon Homes at West Hills Parkway and Mission Gorge Road. The units have one- to three-story floor plans and attached garages and start from the mid-$300,000s.
  
  
• Aubrey Glen is an 87-unit townhome development by Pulte Homes on the south side of Mission Gorge Road, east of Hiser Lane. Two- and three-story floor plans are offered at prices starting in the low $300,000s.
  
  
• Black Horse Estates at Northcote Road at the east end of Santee will contain 60 luxury single-family homes on 104 acres, three to five bedrooms, three-car garages and 67 acres of open space. Priest Development is building the project, where sales start at the low $800,000s. (Priest also built Prospect Glen, 48 two-story detached condominiums, which were finished last year. They start from the low $500,000s.)