Farmworker housing delayed for 2nd time in Half Moon Bay

The site applies state density bonus law qualifications for 100% affordable housing, contradicting the Local Coastal Program and Land Use Plan — which authorizes only up to 10 units on the site with workforce housing overly designation.

But advocates, who gathered en masse at the four-hour meeting to express the community’s dire need for farmworker housing, said the positives of the project outweigh the negatives.

“On the one hand we have concerns like parking, traffic and structure height. On the other, we have grandparents, uncles, mothers, friends in their sunset years, often after decades of grueling work for the rest of us to eat,” coastside resident Sophia Layne said. “We can come up with an infinite number of reasons why this or really any solution is not perfect, though I would encourage us to keep these concerns in perspective … as we move forward and provide this desperately needed lifeline.”

Project opponents expressed concerns around impact to the surrounding downtown — including parking, traffic, congestion and development design — suggesting another location would be more appropriate.

Eventually, deliberation was pushed back, with the Planning Commission suggesting that the developer put up story poles — three-dimensional, silhouette structures that outline location and mass of a construction project.

Commissioner Steve Ruddock was in support of making a decision at the meeting, he said, although the suggestion wasn’t taken.

“Continuing with this vague request that applicant and staff make some improvements is unlikely to be successful,” he said. “These potential changes belong at City Council, I believe.”

Mercy Housing leadership expressed the importance of an expedient decision on the development’s California Environmental Quality Act exemption and Coastal Development Permit and Architectural Review applications as the possibility of sending the project back to the Architectural Advisory Committee or making large-scale changes was raised.

“We are in a place where we are trying to position ourselves collectively for funding rounds, and we need land use approvals, we need approvals to be able to do so,” Ramie Dare, Real Estate director for Mercy Housing, said. “The ask for us to do more studies, I guarantee you, will eat up another six to nine months at least. We will lose a whole year trying to get funding for this development.”

While the project has promised funding at the city, county and statewide level, further state financing can only be obtained with the relevant land approvals in place, Kelly Hollywood, associate director at Mercy Housing, said.

Planning commissioners David Gorn and Rick Hernandez both raised the possibility of eliminating the first floor of the proposal, where an ALAS-run farmworker resource center and a property management office would be located.

The services were a requirement for financing services and had been included in the design since its inception, Hollywood said.

“To me, you’ve got an opportunity here to solve the problem. The only opposition that’s material that the community expressed is from a design perspective — it doesn’t fit into Half Moon Bay,” Hernandez said. “We’ve got the land to work with. … If you walk around Half Moon Bay, there are examples of this that already exist. We could either expand the footprint of the project slightly or get rid of the parking and the office space on the first floor.”

On-site resources are integral to serving the senior farmworker population the housing is intended for, City Manager Matthew Chidester said. While the Half Moon Bay City Council had expressed preliminary support for the project, policy-level considerations like this could be broached to them again, he said.

“In order to serve vulnerable populations, you need to have on-site services available to support them. … It hasn’t been a question,” Chidester said. “That can be a decision brought to the City Council.”

Derek Kulda, a local business owner who is also an active parishioner at nearby Our Lady of the Pillar Parish, said he was moved for support for housing but that some at the church were concerned around the scope of the project, parking issues that could arise and felt other locations were better suited.

“Aligning as a community to support the housing needs of our brothers and sisters feels good, and it is good, but that doesn’t make every proposal for it good,” he said. “We are in support of affordable housing but not in support of the magnitude of this project in this location.”

State density bonus law prohibits the Planning Commission from limiting the height of the project or requiring parking to alleviate traffic flow concerns, the city’s legal team said repeatedly throughout the meeting. Gorn continued to express concerns around being asked to “ignore” their issues with the development.

“I get the housing is 100% affordable. It doesn’t mean you need to have a floor of administration. You could solve the height problem by eliminating office space,” he said.

“I also have issue with the idea the Planning Commission, the city is supposed to ignore setback, open space and CEQA and density and traffic on city-owned property.”

The job of the Planning Commission is to only to apply law to the proposal before them and approve or deny permits, Deputy City Attorney Winter King said, while the City Council has “broader policy authority” on whether the city should move forward at all.