Developer Patrick Orosco faced a standing-room-only crowd of about 300 residents on an unseasonably warm evening on Wednesday, March 18 and asked them to keep an open mind on his proposed 90-unit development in the heart of Carmel Valley. From the reaction, most kept their minds firmly closed shut.
Orosco warned the gathered residents inside Bobcat Hall at Tularcitos Elementary School that if he didn’t move ahead with his project to develop the 29-acre Carmel Valley airfield property under California’s Builder’s Remedy law, someone else would and the results could be much worse.
Under that law, developers are able to develop residential projects that are much larger than zoning or a general plan allows if a municipality does not have a state-certified housing plan, known as a housing element. The project must include a certain percentage of extremely low-income, low-income or lower-income units, or 100 percent moderate units.
The County of Monterey is more than two years late in achieving a certified housing element, making unincorporated areas of the county such as Carmel Valley Village ripe for Builder’s Remedy projects.
Orosco said when he learned the property was under contract with a developer from out of the area, he convinced property owner Ken Griggs, owner of Griggs Nursery, to sell it to Orosco for half of what Griggs was asking. The other developer was offering many millions more.
The local developer and Carmel Valley resident said he did it to protect the village from a builder who under the law could potentially build “600 units, minimum” on the land, which would lead to big, boxy buildings, towering over the neighborhood.
He’s proposing homes on the eastern half of the old airfield and open space on the western half. Seventy units would be market rate and 20 would be below-market rate. He said the law only required nine below-market rate units.
“I believe that this is a good solution for this particular property for you,” he said. The response was derisive laughter.
“I expected to get a laugh at that,” Orosco replied.
Dozens of residents lined up on either side of the multi-purpose room to ask questions—many took the opportunity to voice their opposition. At one point a speaker asked those in the room who were against the project to stand up. Nearly the entire crowd got up out of their chairs.
Some of the concerns raised by residents included worries over evacuation in case of wildfire, traffic on Carmel Valley Road and the availability of water.
Danielle Carson, who organizes the annual Santa Fly-In Parade, an annual holiday event that sees Santa land in a helicopter on the former airfield, just wanted to know where Santa was going to land if the project got built.
At least one person spoke in favor of the project. A few others seemed to understand the project could be built but asked if it could be scaled back. Orosco said it was too early to make changes since he didn’t know all of his costs yet. The challenge is designing a project that works out financially.
Orosco offered to do more meetings in the future, or take anyone out to breakfast who wanted to talk more.