Is Half Moon Bay ready to change growth limits?: Potential for November ballot measure allowing voters to change population measure maps 

Half Moon Bay has been at odds with the state over Measure D, with California officials asking the city to bring a ballot measure to voters that would exempt accessory dwelling units from Measure D entirely. The City Council rejected that request in January, but acquiesced to reducing ADUs and junior accessory dwelling units to .5 of a Measure D allocation or less, a move that may not require voter approval. 

Councilmembers also expressed interest in a ballot measure that would change the Measure D allocation maps, aligning it with the Local Coastal Land Use Plan and incorporating more land into the downtown Measure D area, which accommodates up to 1% population growth. The outside-of-downtown area accommodates the other .5%. 

But Planning Commissioner Christopher DelNagro argued that the new maps went beyond the scope of Half Moon Bay’s true downtown, incorporating industrial and commercial land. 

“I don’t understand the purpose of being so caught up on aligning two maps. For me, it’s about the logic of where is infill needed — where does the development of infill happen?” he said. “I’m concerned we’re not actually promoting infill, we’re promoting expansion.”

The decision to put the new map on the ballot is a politically motivated choice to appease the California Department of Housing and Community Development, which has sparred with Half Moon Bay over its housing development decisions, Planning Commission Chair David Gorn argued.

“I think that the reason we’re doing the map is because of HCD,” Gorn said. “They don’t like Measure D. They’ve done everything they can to kill Measure D. They wanted the City Council, first to put on the ballot something to repeal it. They wanted to do the ADUs. And then this is sort of what they’re settling for.” 

Measure D was a voter-sponsored effort to mitigate oversized growth in the community, Gorn said, but the ballot measure to amend the maps is coming from political leaders and could insinuate to residents that “there’s something wrong with Measure D.” 

Both Gorn and DelNagro voted not to recommend that the City Council place Measure D on the upcoming ballot, with Commissioner Steve Ruddock absent and Commissioner Jim Rems recused. 

Vice Chair Rick Hernandez was the only member of the commission who was in support of putting the map before the council, arguing that the Local Coastal Land Use Plan the map matches was intentionally designed to concentrate development in areas that could handle it and prevent urban sprawl. In addition, although it would reallocate where development certifications are meted out, it would not change the zoning laws in those areas. 

“We spent six years working on the LCLUP update. I was very involved in that process, and we defined a town center as part of that process,” he said. “The whole point was we wanted to concentrate development in this specific area.” 

If ADUs were excluded from the Measure D process, the issue of long wait times to receive development certificates would be largely eliminated, Hernandez said. 

“It creates a lot of friction in the community because people see obstacles to getting their project done, so they don’t even want to start something, because it seems so overwhelming,” he said after the meeting. “If we want to solve for housing, we need to make it easier to build ADUs.” 

The Planning Commission did approve that a summary of their debate on the topic be forwarded to the City Council, so that councilmembers could review it while making the final decision on whether a Measure D ballot measure will appear in November.