Pebble Beach Company Proposes 24 Affordable Units—Enough For 1.5 Percent of the Labor Force

It’s no secret that real estate fetches high prices on the Monterey Peninsula. A decade ago, the Monterey County Grand Jury voiced outrage over that fact, writing, “Lack of affordable housing has become a crisis on the Monterey Peninsula.”

Pebble Beach Company is proposing to build 24 apartments on a 13-acre parcel in the Del Monte Forest, where low-to-moderate-income staffers would qualify to live.

The company employs about 1,500 workers – meaning 24 apartments would house about 1.5 percent of Pebble workers and their families.

“I think we’ll have a waiting list of people who want to live in the Pacific Grove School District, close to work, close to services,” says Mark Stilwell, Pebble’s executive VP of real estate. “We might have to do a lottery.”

Residents of P.G.’s Del Monte Neighborhood aired concerns at an Oct. 3 meeting of the Del Monte Forest Land Use Advisory Committee (LUAC) about the inclusionary units – and who would live in them.

The crowd laughed when County Housing Program Manager Jane Barr told LUAC the threshold to qualify for inclusionary housing, based on area median income. A family of four is considered low-income with annual household earnings up to $57,000, and moderate-income up to $82,000. “The great bulk of our employees are in those two categories,” Stilwell says.

The County Housing Advisory Committee in January will review the proposed configuration and make a recommendation to the Planning Commission. LUAC voted Oct. 2 to recommend approval of the project on an alternate site.