The J.B. Pastor project sees a further delay after a trimmed Carmel City Council pushes a decision into fall.

Monaco developer Patrice Pastor and his representatives at Esperanza Carmel have worked for six years to get the project named after Pastor’s father built on Dolores Street behind the Seventh and Dolores restaurant in downtown Carmel. On Monday, Aug. 4, they learned they will have to wait a little longer before the project can become a reality.

The six-hour hearing that night at the Carmel City Council delved back into issues that have been debated before, namely whether the 13,000-square-foot multi-use building is too big, has enough parking or fits with the adjacent historic restaurant structure.

The J.B. Pastor project was initially approved 4-0 by the Carmel Planning Commission on April 9, although some commissioners had reservations. After a couple of scheduling delays, the matter made it to the council, but not before a bit of drama unfolded, highlighting the challenges of doing the people's business in a small town.

Mayor Dale Byrne and Councilmember Bob Delves recused themselves before the hearing could even begin, and Councilmember Hans Buder said he did recuse himself ahead of the meeting but on Friday, Aug. 1 was told by City Attorney Brian Pierik he was legally required to participate. Councilmember Jeff Baron led the meeting in Byrne’s absence.

Byrne reluctantly recused himself on the advice of Pierik. Reading from a statement, the mayor said that questions had been raised because the developer had donated money to the Carmel Cares Fund 16 months ago, a donor advised fund at the Community Foundation for Monterey County. Byrne is a co-founder of Carmel Cares and is still listed as its president and chief caring officer.

“The concern is misplaced,” Byrne said, adding that he and his wife had donated time and money to Carmel Cares as volunteers. “There is no personal gain, only shared civic pride.” He was recusing himself so that the process could continue.

“It’s disheartening when honest public service is met with suspicion,” Byrne said. He picked up his notes and left.

“So I’m right behind him,” Delves spoke up. Without naming names, he explained that one of the 11 people appealing the Planning Commission decision—restauranteur Rich Pepe—had thrown Delves a campaign party at one of Pepe’s restaurants with a value of over $1,000. To satisfy campaign finance law Delves would have had to return enough money to bring the value down to $500 or less.

As soon as Delves exited, Buder said Pepe had also thrown him a party in excess of $1,000, but Buder had returned a portion of the money so he could participate in the J.B. Pastor decision. Giving it more thought, he decided to recuse himself anyway ahead of the meeting.

When it became apparent by Friday, Aug. 1, that only two councilmembers were left, Pierik informed Buder that he was legally required to participate in order for the council to have a quorum.

After hearing from the planning staff, the appellant’s attorney, Krista Ostoich, and Esperanza’s architect, Jun Sillano of Carmel-based International Design Group, as well as the public, the remaining three councilmembers focused on five issues: whether the structure was a single building or three buildings connected by second-story outdoor walkways; parking; landscaping; whether it fit with surrounding historic structures; and, if the project should be exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act.

The council was split on the structure issue, with Councilmember Alissandra Dramov agreeing with the appellants it was a single structure, not three buildings, and therefore over the 10,000-square-foot limit in city code. Baron was willing to accept the walkways, Buder was a reluctant yes on that point.

Planning staff agreed with Esperanza that the interconnecting second-floor walkways were open space between the three buildings, but Buder said he was struggling with it and felt the city’s code was ambiguous. He said he understood from Pierik that when matters were ambiguous, he had to go with precedence—there have been buildings in Carmel with such connecting walkways.

Buder and Baron sided with Dramov on requiring more parking spaces on site, believing Esperanza could fit more than the 12 planned, with 10 as part of a parking lift system—Dramov called the system “gimmicky.”

In addition, they didn’t believe that Esperanza had been diligent enough to work in more parking, which would make them ineligible for participating in the city’s in-lieu parking program. The Planning Commission decision allowed Esperanza to pay over $54,000 to make up for a gap in required parking spaces.

All three councilmembers also believed the project did not include enough landscaping, and rejected the plan for most of it to be located on the structure’s rooftop, away from the view of the public.

The “historosity” of the project, whether it fit in with the nearby historic bank building and community room next to it at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Dolores Street, was debated, with Baron standing by a 2023 City Council resolution that he believed settled the matter, Buder again reluctantly going along with Baron, and Dramov firmly against.

Dramov contended that the 2023 council debate only focused on a decorative concrete wall next to the community room annex building, not the entire J.B. Pastor project and that the building overwhelms and “demeans” the entire project.

“Once again the entirety of the historic resource needs to be considered,” she said.

Buder gave a consistency report by a consultant in 2023 an “F.”

“They missed the question,” Buder said, arguing that the consultant never answered the actual question of whether the project was consistent with the existing structures. “It’s not the developer’s fault, just process-wise, we missed it.”

Pierik’s advice was to abide by the 2023 council decision. Buder said he would go along with it but said the past council’s reasoning “wasn’t the tightest."

The architect, Sillano, expressed his confusion over the debate that Esperanza thought was settled two years previously.

“I said earlier we’ve been to six hearings. After each hearing we are given a direction,” Sillano said. “As any applicant for the city, how do we move forward if we’re given directions, finding out later that’s not the right direction? In a sense, that’s what I’m hearing.”

Finally, the council addressed a concern raised by appellants that the city did not do enough environmental review and the Pastor building should not be exempted from CEQA. Baron was in favor, Dramov was opposed, and Buder, again, reluctantly agreed with Baron, because of the council’s 2023 decision, which found the project had met conditions of Secretary of Interior standards.

The CEQA matter wasn’t fully resolved that night. The council continued the matter to a hearing at 3pm on Sept. 8, with the option to postpone it further if city staff are not ready with wording for a resolution and motions by September.