“A Temblor Strikes” was the headline of the Carmel Valley Association Weekly Bulletin on Jan. 22, alerting readers to a proposed 90-unit housing development slated for 17.4 acres of the former Carmel Valley airfield located on Lupin Lane in Carmel Valley Village. CVA President Marianne Gawain wrote that the community was “rocked” by the news.
“The former airfield has served not only as valued open space but as an important staging area for firefighting crews,” she said. She raised broader issues of increased traffic and difficulties evacuating during fires.
“We are very distressed about this proposal,” Gawain says, adding it’s too early to say more – CVA is still researching the project. The Carmel Valley Master Plan dictates that only 24 units are allowed on the parcel, currently being used by Griggs Nursery to store plants.
Twenty-four units would be the case if the County of Monterey currently had a state-certified housing plan, called a housing element, but the element is over two years late, leaving the county open to Builder’s Remedy, which under state law means that as long as a project includes a certain percentage of affordable units, the county is limited in how it processes the application. As long as the project meets certain standards, it must be approved even if the number of units exceeds current zoning.
The letter came with a preliminary development application that calls for 20 below-market and deed-restricted duplex units – 11 low-income and nine moderate-income – well above the nine units that would be required by the state. The remaining 70 units would be market-rate single-family homes.
Developer Patrick Orosco of the Orosco Group in Monterey says that under state rules with a target density of 20 units per acre for housing opportunity sites, the 29.5-acre former airfield could be developed to 590 homes. The surrounding neighborhood is four units per acre, while his project is three per acre. The 24 units would never be feasible.
Orosco says he spent months considering how to reduce “threats to the landscape, culture, traditions and community fabric of the Valley” in planning the project. His answer was to preserve assets the community values, including Santa’s Fly-In, a 67-year tradition, as well as a jogging path used by residents. His goal, he says, is to build modest homes that attract families who will live in the village full time.