East Garrison’s ‘Town Center’ is coming, allegedly. But the rollout has been messy.

Will East Garrison, a planned community on the northeastern edge of the former Fort Ord, ever have a “town center,” as envisioned when it was approved nearly 20 years ago? Maybe. But, as always with East Garrison, it’s complicated.

The County Planning Commission got a taste of that on April 10 when they considered an application to amend the project’s plan to move forward with the development’s final phase, which is to include a town center with commercial space and a public park in the middle.

When the County Board of Supervisors approved East Garrison in 2005, the idea was that the development would pay for itself – the county didn’t want to be on the hook to pay for any services, or the upkeep of roads. It’s a development model born out of Prop. 13, which California voters passed in 1978 and which capped property taxes, and in doing so, reduced the ability for municipalities to fund basic services.

But even that, apparently, is not enough for things to pencil out. At the April 10 Planning Commission meeting, land use attorney Tony Lombardo, representing Century Communities, told the commissioners that the economy has changed from 20 years ago, and that the reason the project has not yet been finished is because as it stands, it can’t get financed – condos with shared walls, he told them, are a death knell to new development because a lawsuit is all but guaranteed in a building with shared walls and plumbing, for example.

He and others also stressed that in a post-Covid economy, the allowed 75,000 square feet of commercial space is too much – the application asks to reduce it to 30,000 square feet. It also increases the number of single-family homes, and decreases the total residential units by 16 – from 341 to 325.

Another crux is parking. Numerous residents spoke about concerns with the fact that the next phase’s affordable housing component – 66 units that nonprofit CHISPA is proposing to build concurrently with the town center – has no dedicated parking spaces.

Some planning commissioners also shared concerns, but CHISPA CEO Geoffrey Morgan told them he hasn’t yet had time to discuss parking issues for the project. (Parking for residents in that project is open, not dedicated, so it’s either on the street or in an adjacent commercial lot for the town center.) Rush added he’s less concerned about parking than providing housing to the 1,700-or-so families that he knows are in need of it.

Some commissioners also raised concerns about the timing of the park built in the center of the planned town center, and wanted to ensure that it happens concurrently with CHISPA’s project and the commercial side.

The commissioners voted unanimously to recommend that the Board of Supervisors approve the amendment the developers are seeking, but with a few, vague caveats about dedicated parking spaces for the CHISPA project and ensuring the park is built concurrently to the initial phases of construction.

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Correction (8am 4/18/24): This article has been corrected to reflect that the name of the president/CEO of CHISPA is Geoffrey Morgan, not Geoffrey Rush. The Weekly regrets the error.