Monterey City Council signals it favors a 42-unit affordable apartment complex behind City Hall.

A 100-percent affordable housing project that could bring 42 units to downtown Monterey is another step closer to reality, after the Monterey City Council gave direction to staff and nonprofit developer MidPen Housing on Aug. 30 to proceed with plans to replace a few old homes behind Monterey City Hall with a multi-unit complex on city-owned land.

The council was presented with four versions of a site plan at the corner of Madison and Van Buren streets, stemming from a 5-0 council approval in July of last year of an exclusive development agreement between the city and MidPen Housing.

The version preferred by MidPen was Version 4, with 42 units of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, plus a playground and a community garden placed across the parking lot behind the Vásquez Adobe, which is located behind Colton Hall. It would mean reduced parking spaces in the adjacent city parking lot by 21 spots, leaving 33 still available.

Version 1 retains all 54 spaces but would only provide 36 units. Versions 2 and 3 would give the city 43 units each, but with different amounts of parking spaces, depending on inclusion of a playground area within the complex’s courtyard.

MidPen’s architect, Justin Pauly, told the council that by placing the playground and garden behind the historic adobe, instead of within the confines of the complex, it would “liberate the adobe,” by replacing “somewhat unfortunate accessory structures” facing Van Buren that hem it in. By doing that, “We bring that adobe back into the fold of the civic structure of the city that we think is really important,” he said.

“We think it’s a really solid site plan at this point,” Pauly said of the preferred version.

Comments from a long list of speakers at the council meeting were largely positive.

Gary Cursio, government affairs director for the Monterey County Hospitality Association, said his organization—representing 220 businesses which employ approximately 25,000 hospitality workers—was excited about the project.

“I think we can all agree that no project is perfect, but let me tell you, this one is very darn close,” Cursio said. “This will allow a couple of dozen workers to walk to work. It’s unbelievable.”

Jackson Everett, a senior at Monterey High School, not far from the proposed development, told the council that out of 9,574 students in the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, 22 percent qualify as experiencing homelessness, 17.4 percent in Monterey specifically.

‘Which is a crazy number and is not acceptable. There needs to be change,” Everett said. “This project can make such a significant difference in the lives of youth and their families. I would be doing my school community a disservice by not being here today [to support the project].”

There was some concern by speakers and councilmembers about the loss of parking spaces. They asked MidPen developers to be open to other ideas that might preserve spaces to ensure public access for council meetings and other city business.

MidPen is proposing that the project be permitted under Senate Bill 35, which requires that cities and counties that did not meet state-mandated affordable housing requirements use a streamlined ministerial review process for multi-family developments that meet specific criteria. It would mean no public meetings at the Architectural Review Board or Planning Commission levels. A final design draft approved by planning staff would come before the City Council at a later date.