Monterey County Planning Commission nixes a potential moratorium on new visitor-serving units.

Nearly 40 years ago, the Big Sur Land Use Plan was codified to guide development of 70-plus miles of rugged coastline between Carmel and San Luis Obispo County. Well understood by residents, Big Sur is unique – the area is bound by sheer cliffs, difficult to access, world-class in its beauty and wildlife diversity, and constrained by unstable soils, wildfire threats and floods.

Visitors and developers have long been drawn to Big Sur for its dramatic landscapes, a point emphasized in the original plan. However, the challenge of how to accommodate a greater volume of people is of increasing concern.

As the Monterey County Planning Commission works toward updating the 1986 plan, some community members asked for immediate measures. On Wednesday, Jan. 29, commissioners discussed a potential moratorium on new visitor-serving units, including hotel, motel and hostel rooms or R.V. campsites. Former commissioner Kate Daniels (now a county supervisor) and Commissioner Martha Diehl, along with others, have been addressing concerns at community meetings, particularly regarding increased congestion and how to count the visitor-serving units.

“We had some community meetings, and that’s where this call for the moratorium kept coming forward,” Diehl says.

Commissioners decided on Jan. 29 not to pursue a moratorium. Instead, they agreed the best use of time and resources would be to continue focusing on updating the Land Use Plan, which, aside from a few amendments, has not been revised since 1986.

Times have changed, and stakeholders hope to revise the plan to reflect that. “It’s different now,” Diehl says.

How visitor-serving units, or VSUs, are defined and counted is at the center of the contention. Various interest groups have differing counts on the current number of VSUs against a cap of 300 set by the 39-year-old Land Use Plan. Members of the group Keep Big Sur Wild believe that the total count of VSUs is 315, exceeding that cap, while county records indicate that there are 187 units – rooms at inns, RV campsites or hostel beds – remaining before getting to the cap.

Complicating matters further, the definition of a VSU is not clear-cut.

“We’re still scrubbing around about what that definition should be,” Diehl says. “The moratorium effort would just redirect staff from working on the update. The reason we feel really strongly that the update needs to proceed [is to] address the big-ticket items of fire and community housing.”

While a VSU is intended to include hotel rooms, cabins, yurts and RV campsites, recently introduced park model units were not part of the original plan. An updated plan could address this, along with other key issues that are urgently needed in Big Sur.

“It gets worse every year. I don’t know how all these businesses that keep wanting more don’t see that we’re on this trajectory of really destroying what makes Big Sur so special,” says Marcus Foster, cofounder of Keep Big Sur Wild.

“When you start making all these stopping points, and increase commercial businesses that need more employees, you’re just going to keep adding more cars,” he adds. “And at some point, we’re going to get to the breaking point.”