On Thursday, San Diego planning commissioners will consider a proposal to add 26 acres of designated open space to the 491-acre Sycamore Landfill. The 26-acres located on the eastern border of San Diego County is needed, according to a draft community plan amendment, to make room for expanded operations at the landfill located near the border of the City of San Diego and Santee.

Adding more space is all part of a master plan by the project applicants, Sycamore Landfill Incorporated and Allied Waste North America, to ramp up operations at the site by increasing the amount of waste dropped off at the facility, and extending the hours to 24-hours a day. It also means increasing the height of the landfill to 1050 feet above sea level, one-hundred-feet lower than the City had planned back in 2003.

But the plan isn't without its critics. Some residents believe the last thing the City of San Diego should be doing is converting open space to a space to put trash.

In a letter to planning commissioners, city staff, and councilmembers, resident Alan Francisco urged them to scrap the plan.

"We don't want to lose 26-acres of open space near Mission Trails," wrote Francisco. "We don't need 43-acres of land designated...as open space to become a sanitary landfill. We don't need open "space loss," "conflicts with conservation elements of the General Plan, native grassland loss," or additional particulate matter, carbon monoxide, or volatile organic compound increases."

The planning commission meeting begins at 9am on Thursday at City Hall.