Carmel pushes back against state housing goals.

How do you solve a massive problem like California’s housing crisis? If you’re the State Legislature, by throwing a lot of potential solutions at the wall and making a good-faith effort to create new tools for development of housing units, without walking back reasonable planning principles. If you’re Carmel-by-the-Sea, apparently by sitting this one out and effectively saying: Not my problem.

Back in May, Carmel City Council voted 3-2 to adopt a resolution in support of local control on housing and zoning issues, joining dozens of other cities including Gilroy, Palo Alto and Beverly Hills. The majority of state bills, the resolution stated, “usurp the authority of local jurisdictions to determine for themselves the land use policies and practices that best suit each city and its residents.”

Those housing bills include, from this year’s legislative session, Senate Bills 4 and 423, intended to make it easier to build housing, including on properties owned by faith-based organizations. They include, from 2021, Senate Bills 9 and 10, which aim to streamline high-density residential zoning near transit hubs, envisioning a different kind of urban center in California, one that is less car-centric than today’s.

According to a statement from the author of several of these bills, State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, “The era of saying no to housing is coming to an end.”

According to statewide group Our Neighborhood Voices, which is now gathering signatures to get an initiative on the 2024 ballot seeking to overturn these laws, “The politicians are taking away our ability to speak out when developers damage and gentrify our neighborhoods.”

The local group Helping Our Peninsula’s Environment endorses Our Neighborhood Voices and adds, “Sacramento politicians have ripped away our city planning and CEQA, giving developers authority to cause major damage to our neighborhoods and our environment!”

That’s according to a flyer I received upon walking into a housing forum on Oct. 23 hosted by the Carmel Residents Association. The evening featured Carmel’s two representatives in Sacramento, Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, and State Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz. They made an effort to thread the needle of politics – telling their audience “one-size-fits-all” legislation doesn’t work for places like Carmel-by-the-Sea… and yet.

And yet Carmel – like all jurisdictions in California – is obligated by the state to produce an eight-year plan for where new housing units could be built. Carmel is required to plan for 349 new units, calculated in the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) process.

“Perhaps the RHNA numbers are too large for Carmel, that I’m hearing loud and clear from this audience,” Addis said, to audience applause.

And yet, she continued: “If it’s not these RHNA numbers, then what is it? We should not stop ourselves by saying ‘bad state, good us.’ If we can’t get Carmel to 349 units, how far can we get? And how are we going to diversify our communities for the health of all of us and our future?

“There is a younger generation that wants to build wealth, they want to own homes, they want to live in a place like this, and they feel like they can’t.”

Per real estate website Redfin, the median home price in Carmel is $2.9 million. Most people, even with 349 new units, will never be able to live in Carmel. But the charm of this singular city relies upon a workforce that commutes in to run restaurants and hotels. Carmel cannot and should not exempt itself from being part of the solution.

Yet three members of City Council – Alissandra Dramov, Bobby Richards and Mayor Dave Potter – voted yes on the resolution declaring Carmel such a singular place that it should oppose statewide solutions. Members Karen Ferlito and Jeff Baron stood apart.

“Keeping things the way they are doesn’t necessarily make our village a welcoming place,” Ferlito said at that council meeting in May.

When I spoke to Ferlito after the CRA forum in October, she reiterated that point. “[State legislation] is not a punishment,” she says. “It’s an opportunity.”

Every place will change. We can welcome it and shape that change or, like Carmel, we can fight back. Given that change is inevitable, the latter would seem to be a losing proposition.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@mcweekly.com