PG, Pebble Beach Neighbors Oppose Affordable Housing Proposal

This has not been a banner week for democratic government.

But just when you thought the process couldn't get any more heated than the standstill in Washington, local politics turned out in full force Thursday afternoon in Pebble Beach, and it wasn’t pretty.

Neighbors from the Del Monte Park neighborhood of Pacific Grove organized en masse to speak out against Pebble Beach Company’s proposed inclusionary housing apartments on a wooded strip of land near the Congress gate.

The crowd overflowed from the Pebble Beach Community Services District office, with standing room only and about 50 people left outside and unable to crowd in.

They’d come to weigh in overwhelmingly opposed to a planned 24-unit apartment complex that would be available to low-to-middle-income residents. There’s been a grassroots effort, with petition signature gathering, a Facebook page (103 members and counting) and the launch of a website DelMonteNeighborhood.org, to rally against Pebble Beach’s plan.

The complaints ranged from traffic to property value damage to light pollution to noise to neighborhood character to smell to habitat protection.

The group had come to air their complaints before the Del Monte Forest Land Use Advisory Committee (LUAC), which makes recommendations to the County Planning Commission on whether to approve or deny a project.

After hundreds of angry neighbors crowded today’s meeting, the LUAC decided to vote neither in favor of or in opposition to the project. (A motion was made in each direction, but neither motion received a second.) Instead, the committee voted 7-0 to recommend the Planning Commission put the project elsewhere, but if they can’t find a better spot, to go with a scaled-down version.

Pebble Beach’s proposal comes as a condition of its final build-out plan, approved in 2012. Pebble Beach Company had a choice: Build at least 18 inclusionary units, or pay $5 million in in-lieu fees.

This project, the 24 apartments near Congress and SFB Morse, is the company’s first effort at meeting the condition to build inclusionary housing.

When County Housing Programs Manager Jane Barr defined the threshold for inclusionary housing (though Pebble Beach is still sorting out the details of where on the range 50-to-80-percent of the median area income their proposed units would fall), the crowd laughed heartily. (Rent on a two-bedroom apartment for people earning 50 percent of the median income would be about $800/month.)

Pebble Beach Company was criticized for consolidating units into apartments, which neighbors argued was a violation of the spirit of zoning rules. The apartments themselves would be denser than the area plan calls for, but the structures would cover 1.4 acres of a 9-acre site. (Pebble Beach Co. would dedicate an adjacent lot to permanent open space if the project moves forward, brining the total area to 13 acres.)

One New York native worried this would set the stage to transform the area into concrete.

“Apartments can change the character of the neighborhood,” one person said. Others asked about whether Pebble Beach would allow only families to live in three-bedroom units, or if three single friends would be allowed. “You’re bordering on legal questions,” Barr said. “You could easily have two people who are not married.”

One woman said property values are already down. “I am being seriously damaged here, even by the rumor of this project,” she said.

Another person’s take: “There’s no Walmarts, no Targets, no 7-11s, no apartments, and there shouldn’t be in Pebble Beach.”

One person worried the units would smell like meth labs. 

One speaker said the solution to the inclusionary housing conundrum was that Pebble Beach should pay its workers more. Another described the sound at 6am she already hears as Pebble Beach employees commute to work: "Zoom. Zoom. Zoom."

One person cited concern with standing water on the property, which is owned by Pebble Beach Company, and a potential link to West Nile Virus. 

Full environmental review has not yet been completed, but preliminary studies show the project would tear up about 700 Monterey pine and oak trees. 

LUAC member Rick Verbanec acknowledged some environmental concerns, and said, "It's a disturbance, but it's not a big deal. There are no protected species."

In response, a member of the audience shouted, "What about people?"

After about an hour and a half of public comment, LUAC Chairman Rod Dewar cut the group off, saying the comments had become too redundant.

He ended the meeting by saying, “This is democracy in action. We're all weary.”

The Housing Advisory Committee will deliberate over a recommendation to the Planning Commission on Jan. 8, 2014. The audience has already requested a larger meeting space to accommodate large public turnout.