Traffic and water among Moss Beach coastal housing concerns

The project has been in the works for years and has gone through changes as community members and officials provided input on its design, the most noteworthy change being the more than 50% reduction in the number of units included in the proposal.

But residents are still concerned with aspects of the project including its location, size and access to resources, and shared those concerns with planning commissioners who held a scoping meeting Wednesday, Dec. 14, to allow for more public input on a draft environmental impact report.

A key concern about traffic is fueled in large part by the project having a single entrance and exit point on Carlos Street which will push cars out onto Highway 1. The project, if built, would generate fewer than 100 vehicle trips a day, according to a traffic impact analysis of the proposal, but residents still raised concerns the additional vehicles would exacerbate congestion in an area they say already experiences high levels of traffic.

They also shared concerns that some Cypress Point residents would struggle to access amenities like grocery stores or schools given that the location is not well connected to public transportation or pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. Some pointed out that residents would have to cross the busy highway to get to a bus stop and those in cars would have to frequently take “blind turns” onto Highway 1.

Beyond transportation, residents also shared concerns that strained water wells and other water infrastructure in the area would not be able to support a major influx of residents and what modifications that would be made would cause increased charges on neighbors.

And the site was once a military training ground and has since become an illegal dumping ground for appliances, furniture and other trash, likely leaving behind decades of contaminants.

“I am not anti-housing but I am anti-housing being located in a semi-rural area with only a single lane, Carlos Street, being the main thoroughfare,” wrote Megan McDow, a Moss Beach resident, to the Planning Commission. “I know I’m part of a majority of neighbors who have major concerns regarding this project. Please don’t force this on the neighborhood without doing due diligence and confirming the area isn’t toxic and upgrading sewer and infrastructure to accommodate this large number of new units.”

Commissioners briefly shared they either agreed with some of the public’s concerns or that they were very interested in seeing how MidPen and its team responds to the issues raised.

Commissioner Fred Hansson acknowledged that EIRs are typically “extremely extensive and cover almost anything that is possible,” but encouraged staff to attempt to provide a best guess for what the state of the environment will be by the time the project would be developed.

“I fully understand that when I reviewed my first EIR in the 1970s we said then that we would be in a global cooling by the year 2000. Missing [projections] is part of it. You take these things with a grain of salt but given what we know I would like to know where we think we’re going to go,” Hansson said.

He and Commissioner Lisa Ketchum also noted their interest in seeing the public’s transportation concerns more adequately addressed including, for Hansson, how future residents are to be expected to access basic amenities.

The development team has pointed to potential solutions to some of the concerns in the past, including assuring the public that soil contaminants can be properly removed and making promises to help push forward initiatives like Connect the Coastside, a transportation plan intended to improve mobility and safety for coastside residents and visitors. Additional mitigations will also be called out in the DEIR.

Public comments made during the scoping process will be considered during the drafting of the DEIR and, once that document is complete and published, the public will have another 45 days to provide additional input.

The Planning Commission will also hold a public hearing to discuss the document before it goes to the Board of Supervisors for final approval.

“Staff has quite a bit of stuff that they need to cover on the EIR and I look forward to seeing what that looks like,” commission Chair Manuel Ramirez said. “There’s obviously major concerns by the public that need to be addressed.”

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