Esselen nation asks P.G. to respect sacred site, deny proposed home.

To the untrained eye, the gray boulders jutting up from the ground on a vacant lot less than a block from the ocean in Pacific Grove appear to be ordinary, but they are sacred, the remnants of an ancient Native American village, says Louise Ramirez, a tribal chairwoman. Dotted across the top are carved-out mortars, used by her ancestors to prepare meals.

Plans call for building a two-story, 5,900-square-foot home at least 50 meters away from the boulders on Lighthouse Avenue. That distance is not enough for Ramirez. To her, the very soil of the entire 7,800-square-foot lot is sacred and must be left undisturbed.

“I’m asking the city: You have destroyed so many of our sites, leave this one. Leave it protected,” says Ramirez, chair of the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation.

The proposed home on land owned by Kevin and Linda Smith came before the city’s Site Plan Review Committee on Jan. 11 for a preliminary review of the site plan. The project next goes to the Architectural Review Board and then the Planning Commission.

City Planner Wendy Lao told the committee there is a requirement that the home be built 50 meters from the boulders. The Smiths’ architect, Joseph Rock, says the home would sit at the upper end of the lot, more than 50 meters from the outcropping.

Ramirez wrote a letter to the city, asking that they leave the site undisturbed.

“I understand that the owners paid for the land, but I also understand that so many of our sites have been destroyed within Pacific Grove,” Ramirez says. “We’re just asking that these sites be protected.”