After two rounds of voting and a lengthy debate, a 27-home development won permit approval earlier this month from the Encinitas Planning Commission.
Read more Georgia Republicans scramble to pick a candidate to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff
Repeatedly declaring that they were voting “under duress,” the planning commissioners said they could not meet the state’s high legal standard to reject the controversial project, but said they wished they could, given the number of homes the developer was proposing to squeeze into the hilltop site along the south side of Encinitas Boulevard.
“I don’t think there really is a choice,” said Commissioner William Brent Whitteker, who initially voted no and then changed that to yes after he heard more about the state regulations.
He encouraged the project’s opponents to appeal the Planning Commission’s decision to the City Council.
The project, known as Ocean Bluff, is proposed to go on 4.6 acres of a 7.2-acre site that overlooks Encinitas Boulevard just west of the Encinitas Self Storage business. Twenty-four of the 27 homes will be market-rate ones, while the other three will be set aside as low-income housing. While the proposed site is along Encinitas Boulevard, its access point is off Ocean Bluff Way. That’s because there’s a steep drop-off between the site’s developable section and Encinitas Boulevard.
The vote, which approved the project’s permits and certified its environmental impact report, was 4-0, with Commission Chair Steve Dalton recusing himself. Dalton’s architectural company hasn’t worked on this project, but has worked on other projects with Rincon Homes — this project’s developer — Dalton said before leaving the room at the start of the item.
Vice Chair Robert Prendergast, who then took over running the meeting, ultimately made both of the two motions to approve the development plans, but said he considered the project “an egregious use” of the state’s density bonus law, which grants developers exemptions from some city building standards if they agree to set aside some of their proposed homes for low-income people. Rincon Homes is receiving exemptions from a range of city requirements, including sidewalk building, roadway design and lot setback rules.
“You’re not a community member when you’re sticking (this onto) the community,” Prendergast told Rincon representative Jonathan Frankel after Frankel mentioned his company’s ties to North County and noted that this was its fifth housing project in Encinitas.
Frankel had stressed during his presentation that the project meets the state’s Density Bonus Law requirements.
Read more China agrees to boost trade for US beef and poultry following Trump-Xi summit
The project’s three low-income homes will have the same number of bedrooms as the 24 market-rate ones and they will look like the other homes, with similar fixtures and exteriors, he said.
Yes, he said in response to commissioners’ criticisms, the lot sizes for the low-income homes are far smaller than the market rate ones, but state law doesn’t require them to be the same size.
Frankel also said his company had made a good faith effort in recent months to minimize the project’s impacts on its neighbors. Rincon Homes will meet five of the seven requests put forward by one adjoining property owner, including landscaping and fencing changes to resolve privacy concerns, he said.
About a half-dozen people provided public comment on the plans, mentioning stormwater runoff, traffic and visual impact concerns.
Carol Wood, whose mother owns a home on Requeza Street, jokingly mentioned that the Planning Commission’s first meeting on the proposed development plans in November was a “fun-filled, six-hour meeting” and thanked the commissioners for their dedication. She said she would like additional documents from the developers, including a new storm drainage study and documentation about whether an endangered bumble bee is nesting on the site.
Walter Frandsen, whose mother owns a home that’s surrounded on two sides by the proposed development, said his family is still in negotiations with the developers over landscaping and privacy concerns, but the talks have been going well.
“It has been refreshing to be able to deal with them,” he said as he listed some of the changes that the developers have agreed to since the November commission meeting.
Read more Will White House correspondents’ dinner be rescheduled? Some say: ‘Let’s call the whole thing off’
