North Monterey County Unified School District explores building workforce housing at an abandoned middle school.

In the 20 years since Moss Landing Middle School closed, North Monterey County Unified School District officials have explored options to repurpose or sell it. In 2023, the property was in escrow with the soccer club Santa Cruz Breakers F.C., but that deal never materialized. Now the district is exploring turning the abandoned Highway 1 campus into employee housing. In March, the board approved a $42,000 feasibility study.

It makes NMCUSD the latest local school district to push for workforce housing, in an effort to find solutions to recruiting and retaining teachers and staff.

On May 9, Soledad Unified School District held a groundbreaking for a 20-unit apartment complex. (The $13.5 million project is expected to be complete in summer 2026.) In 2023, Salinas Union High School District opened a 50-unit workforce housing project on Abbott Street. In November, voters in Monterey Peninsula Unified School District passed Measure A, a $340 million bond that includes funding for a workforce housing project.

“That is the trend because everyone is dealing with the same crisis,” says Martha Chavarria, a board member for NMCUSD, of the ongoing staff shortage.

NMCUSD has had a librarian position open since February. Superintendent Matt Turkie says they found the right candidate, but she turned the job down because housing options were scarce and expensive.

“We lose a good few people every single year for the exact same reason, and these are people who explicitly turn around and say: ‘I can’t afford to move to your area,’” Turkie says.

The Moss Landing concept is still in its early stages. A survey among current staff found that most expressed interest in two-bedroom units.

To move the project forward, the district will need to work with the county and state agencies, including Caltrans and the Coastal Commission.

Preliminary conversations with Coastal Commission staff about a soccer stadium at the site focused on issues of water, traffic and habitat impacts, according to a Coastal Commission spokesperson. Turkie hopes the housing proposal is more straightforward: “If you think of about 15,000 people coming in and out [for soccer], that’s very different from workforce housing. That’s what they were against,” he says.

Especially with the recent appointment of Monterey County Supervisor Chris Lopez to the Coastal Commission, Chavarria is hopeful the housing project will advance. (Lopez has voiced interest in streamlining affordable housing projects.) “I’m feeling now even more confident that we’ll be able to push this through,” Chavarria says.

Permitting is one thing, funding is another. School districts generally rely on voter-approved bond measures to construct housing. NMCUSD’s most recent facilities bonds, Measure E and F, failed at the polls in 2017. Chavarria thinks a project like this could change public support: “I think the community will come to back us up on [housing], because they want us to hire qualified staff,” she says.