As the Monterey County Board of Supervisors moved ahead to approve the County’s housing element on Tuesday, Nov. 3—in part to put a stop to Builder’s Remedy projects with potential negative impacts on neighborhoods—supervisors had another more urgent deadline hanging over their heads from California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
State officials had recently negotiated a settlement with the County based on being nearly three years late in producing an amended housing element, Bonta announced in a press release on Thursday, Nov. 5.
That settlement required passage on Nov. 3, or face a civil lawsuit. In addition, County officials agreed to pay $300,000 into the County’s Inclusionary Housing Trust Fund.
It stems from a notice of violation issued on May 28 by the California Department of Housing and Community Development because the county had missed the December 2023 deadline, violating state law.
The agreement requires the County to submit the amended element and its zoning changes to HCD by Nov. 6. HCD officials will then have 45 days to review the plan. The County must also submit the element to the California Coastal Commission by Nov. 10.
The element covers the eight-year period of 2023 to 2031, known as the Sixth Cycle Element. The Seventh Cycle element covers 2031-2039. Under the agreement, the County must turn in its Seventh Cycle element 120 days before the official deadline, or face penalties. To do that, the County is required to assign one planner to working on the element. Officials must also provide enough funding to get the job done within the two years leading up to the deadline.
If the County fails in any of those requirements, officials will have to pay an additional $10,000 into the inclusionary housing fund.
In return, HCD agreed to provide dedicated technical assistance to county planners.
The vote to approve the current element on Tuesday was 4-0, with Supervisor Chris Lopez absent.
The main threat discussed in the lead up to the vote was Builder’s Remedy, a state law that allows developers to submit applications for housing developments that go beyond local zoning requirements, as long as a certain percentage of units are set aside for low and very low-income residents. There are currently nine Builder’s Remedy applications before the County’s Department of Housing and Community Development.
Many speakers who appealed to the supervisors on Tuesday were urging them to approve the element to prevent more Builder's Remedy projects, including some Carmel Valley residents who are already upset with one such proposal for a 90-unit development on the old airfield in Carmel Valley Village.
Not everyone wanted a speedy approval, however. Residents from the Fisherman’s Flats neighborhood in Monterey in particular were adamant that the Supervisors remove one potential development area, Site 52, from the plan, where some affordable housing could be built. The site, part of Tarpy Flats, is located across Highway 68 from Monterey Regional Airport.
Tom Rowley of the Fisherman’s Flats Homeowners and Residents Association, a Monterey neighborhood near Site 52, boiled down his concern to two words: “public safety.” Based on a traffic study commissioned by the association earlier this year, he asserted that people would not be able to evacuate safely during a major wildfire.
County staff reported that in response to earlier public comment they had already conferred with the County’s Emergency Management Department and the Monterey Regional Fire District and made adjustments.
In addition, Craig Spencer, the director of the County’s Department of Housing and Community Development, shared that they had reduced the size of Site 52, in order to connect the already protected viewshed from Highway 68 with property that was recently received by the Ohlone/Coastanoan-Esselen Nation from the Big Sur Land Trust.
Site 52, Spencer said, is considered a high economic resource area, and as such is needed for following the state’s mandate for Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, which requires jurisdictions to encourage affordable housing near affluent areas. In addition, he said the site is already adjacent to a site within the City of Monterey for additional housing.
Supervisor Kate Daniels emphasized that the County needed Site 52 in the housing element to meet that requirement and maintain a “buffer” of units in addition to the state-required number of units. (The original Regional Housing Needs Allocation number for the county was 3,326. The amended element plans for nearly 5,900.)
Daniels reprised her past admonishment to Tarpy Flats neighbors who have been fighting for removal of Site 52 for months, telling them that instead of fighting they needed to help the County find an alternative site to replace Site 52.
Once the element is adopted by the state, and they want Site 52 removed, “then we get together, we roll up our sleeves and we find an even better site,” she said. “We can do that.”
Daniels praised Spencer and his staff for the final element, saying the plan “might not be perfect, but I would say it’s pretty damn good.”
Another site in the North County is being eyed for development by at least one nonprofit developer. A representative of MidPen Housing, which has developed other sites in Monterey County, told the supervisors they would like to build affordable and farmworker housing on the site in Las Lomas.
The approval of the element included new zoning for the lot sandwiched between Sill and Hall roads, increasing the density from one to four units per acre to up to 30 units per acre.