The City of Monterey and the surrounding urban area is likely the smallest region to host the conference of the California Chapter of the American Planning Association, but it punches above its weight in terms of the complexity of urban planning challenges and issues. The region lies on the border between the Central Coast and the Bay Area, hemmed in by mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
In preparation for this month’s conference, which starts September 28 at the Monterey Convention Center,
CP&DR spoke to local planners involved in conference planning to give conference-goers a preview of what they might observe on the ground in mobile workshops and in sessions influenced by the host region. Fittingly, we spoke on Admission Day, which commemorates the date when California was admitted to the Union. As the former capital of Spanish and Mexican Alta California, Monterey is the only city in the state that takes Admission Day as a holiday.
CP&DR’s Josh Stephens spoke with Monterey Community Development Director Kim Cole; Marina Planning Manager Alyson Hunter; and Salinas Planning Division Manager Grant Leonard.
How do you characterize your cities?
Alyson Hunter, City of Marina: We're a small city. We're about 22,000 people, and we've got about 3 miles of coastline on Monterey Bay.
One of the most interesting and fascinating, and, from a planning perspective, challenging parts about working for the City of Marina is that geographically, half of our city is the former Fort Ord Army Base. In the mid-’90s it was closed down, and several cities and other public entities got the land.
Historically, we've been a bedroom community, both to the base and to the other larger cities around, like Salinas and Monterey. But we are trying to create some job-producing development here. We've got exciting Joby Aviation happening at our little Marina airport, manufacturing EVTOL flying machines. We're trying to grow both residentially and commercially, with niche manufacturing to keep up with our big neighbors to the north and south.
Kim Cole, City of Monterey: Monterey is a historic town. We were the capital of Alta California, and the State of California constitution was written in Monterey. And before all of that, we were a Native American village. We have layers of history.
Building on that today, I think about our town as being focused on the environment and education. I think when you hear the debates in our town, a lot of it centers around how to preserve the National Marine Sanctuary and the city's relationship to the sanctuary.
And in terms of education, we have the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a junior college, and two of our three military bases are focused on education: the Naval Postgraduate School and the Defense Language Institute for the Army. That creates a really dynamic environment to work in.
Grant Leonard, City of Salinas: We're the largest city on the Central Coast and in Monterey County. We're an ag town, principally, also a bedroom community. We actually contribute commuters to the Bay Area. Many residents leave as early as 5 a.m. to get to work in San Jose. But we're enjoying a moment of revitalization in our downtown, which is really thriving. We're expanding our industrial and business parks, including a new Amazon warehouse and distribution center.
We're also, like Marina, trying to maximize the use of our airport through new aviation technologies. And we're a growing city. We have three future growth areas with 10,000-15,000 homes. Two of the three planning areas are entitled, and we’re currently doing the specific plan for the third one.
Those are all based on New Urbanism: more walkable communities, balance of shops and commercial and recreation opportunities, schools, but also principally housing.
Our main priorities continue to be, from the community and council, economic development and housing. We're the first city in the area to have a certified housing element this cycle. A major right now is on rent stabilization, tenant protection rights, and then “expanding the pie,” as the politicians like to say, for economic development.
How do the state’s housing shortage and affordability constraints play out in your region and cities?
Hunter: Like Salinas, Marina was also certified early for this cycle, because we are one of the few cities on the peninsula proper that has actually built a couple thousand homes over the last 15 years. Our RHNA number was very low because we're already building a ton of housing. We're trying to encourage commercial development to help meet the job–housing balance.
We have our third big master plan project just coming online under construction right now. But our number one constraint is water. We're all under different water rules, even in this small geographic area, which is another planning challenge/nightmare.
Coastal cities have had particular challenges with RHNA because of geographic constraints. How has RHNA treated Monterey?
Cole: The city has a current housing stock of about 13,000 housing units. We received a RHNA allocation of 3,654 units. We're working on implementation of all our programs, but despite all that, we're not really seeing housing growth. The reason is infrastructure constraints.
The City of Monterey and a couple of our adjacent jurisdictions are subject to a cease-and-desist order from the State Water Resources Control Board. It's been well over 20 years of our region trying to find water. We are not part of the State Water Project. There's no importing of water from outside the region.
Our region has been looking at recycled water. And we're actually importing water from the Salinas Valley, cleaning that water, and ultimately injecting it into our aquifers. The first round was successful. Our local water district is trying to expand that service.
The third arm to that is a very controversial regional desal plant in Marina. The Coastal Commission has approved it. The PUC recently made a big decision. What our region has to show is that it produces enough water over a two- or three-year period that survives drought conditions that the State Water Resources Control Board will lift the water moratorium.
What has it meant for the last few years? Monterey cannot set a new water meter in our city. Every sink and toilet in our city for residential construction is counted by our regional water district, and other uses, like commercial, typically are limited to square footage.
If you have an existing retail space, you're limited to that square footage. You can't increase. So the only development we've really been doing is where they can squeak out an additional bathroom from a house, maybe take out some other extra fixtures and build ADUs. Our big project is converting an old office building on Garden Road from office to 64 residential units, 12 of which are dedicated towards our inclusionary housing program.
So, even though we received a very large RHNA number, we're unable to produce housing because of the cease-and-desist order.
So every glass of water at the conference is precious.
Cole: Yeah, so you better drink it!
How different, or similar, is the situation in Salinas?
Leonard: Kim mentioned Monterey has about 13,000 housing units total. Our future growth area has 12,000 to 15,000 housing units yet to be built, so quite a different scale.
Housing in Salinas is really a story of one farm field conversion to a subdivision after another. And home values are a little lower—you can get a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home here for probably 50 to 70% of the cost of what it is on the peninsula. So instead of a million, it'll be $700,000 over here.
What we have a real issue with is overcrowding and habitability. Our lower-income community members end up doubling up, tripling up.
I think one thing that's maybe not talked about enough in California, is people are retiring, and they're holding on to their houses when their kids move out. You have a lot of housing stock built for families that now has one or two people in it. In Salinas there are neighborhoods that are much less populated and have very nice homes, and then you have neighborhoods that are really overcrowded.
One of the things we're working on with our general plan update, Salinas 2040, is increasing the allowed density throughout the city, so everywhere can basically be upzoned. That'll speed forward some redevelopment projects that we're looking at. Our revitalization plans for East Salinas and also Chinatown all have housing as a key component.
Are you going to be annexing at all to accommodate those 13,000 units, or can it all be done by upzoning and infill?
Leonard: The future growth areas are already annexed. They were identified in the late 1980s with a memorandum of understanding with the county. They were then annexed in 2008, right as the Great Recession was happening. The planning for them for two of the three locations was finalized in 2019 and 2020, just before COVID. So, it's been a series of planning steps, and each one has seemed to be hit with a large outside factor that delayed it, whether it was no savings and loans in the 90s, and then the recession in 2008, and then COVID. But they're already annexed into the city, and we don't have plans for any future annexations, except for one business park on the north side of town. Our main focus with the new general plan for 2040 is infill and upzoning.
Is HCD sympathetic to Monterey’s water constraints?
Cole: HCD has been very proactive in their enforcement of the housing element. They’re reviewing all of our rezonings, and they’ve already required one amendment.
As far as sympathy goes, RHNA doesn’t look at water supply. The City of Monterey received more units because of socioeconomic factors. Our original allocation was about 1,600 units, but when the regional government looked at equity issues, we got double that number. Everyone knows Monterey, Pacific Grove, and nearby cities can’t build that
many units until the cease-and-desist order on water is lifted.
The real issue is environmentalism. Our region is very environmentally forward, and there’s strong concern about desalination in the National Marine Sanctuary. Desal would give us a stable water supply and allow us to lift the cease-and-desist order. But politically, it’s controversial. Many people want to protect the bay and live only on our existing water resources. In the next two years, we’ll likely see whether desal is constructed or not.
Leonard: Salinas has similarities to other mid-sized cities and ag towns. Our water issues differ from the peninsula’s—we rely on groundwater and the Salinas River Basin, since we’re not on the state aqueduct system. A new state law created the Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency, which must bring our aquifers into balance by 2050. That could mean pumping restrictions, new fees, or an “extraction barrier,” essentially a light version of desal, because seawater contamination is already moving inland.
Agriculture uses 90% of the water in the valley; urban areas use 10%. The expectation is that agriculture will take the bigger hit.
We face aging infrastructure for stormwater, sewers, and roads. Building new highway interchanges, even for safety, is prohibitively expensive. Economic development is another challenge—we’re working to retain and expand businesses, but there’s uncertainty about federal funds and real impacts on the local economy. In East Salinas, immigrant communities are fearful, which has hurt local businesses. Our United Business Association is really struggling this year.
Hunter: I've been in public planning for 28 years in Coastal California, dealing with the Coastal Commission and their various idiosyncrasies.
I'm finding it fascinating now that HCD has grown into this whole different, massive thing that did not exist a few years ago. Housing elements a few years ago were kind of like a checkbox thing, no big deal. And now it is the biggest thing.
I'm observing this clash of the titans between these two state agencies, where previously nobody messed with the Coastal Commission—they were in charge, and whatever they wanted happened. I'm finding this new dynamic fascinating, and I'm curious what this group thinks. Hopefully this will come up at the conference, because it's a critical component for coastal communities trying to deal with their housing requirements.
Cole: I would expand it in terms of the clash of the titans at the state level that we're experiencing. It's the Coastal Commission, it's HCD, it's the State Water Resources Control Board, and now it's fire regulations.
If you look at Monterey, we are a heavily forested community. A huge portion of our city is in a very high fire hazard zone, or in a sea level rise zone. And my question is, for the state, who's going to win, or who's going to arbitrate? I don't know if we can achieve it all.
Right now, each state agency tries to achieve perfection in their own area, and they all have jurisdiction over Monterey. The question is: how are we going to find some middle ground? Some days the Coastal Commission area may lose out, other days housing may lose out. And the Caltrans Division of Aeronautics. We have an airport in our city. We're 8 square miles, and when you layer and layer and layer, it's really hard to push development forward. There's going to need to be some middle ground.
Hunter: That makes me wonder about regional planning, and how we might need to divest ourselves of our small municipal boundaries, and really start—especially with sea level rise, coastal hazards, wildfire—we might need to have that conversation.
A lot of planners would not go on the record saying “divest power.”
Hunter: Infrastructure-wise, things are regional. Kim's talking about their regional airport. In Marina, just outside our city limits, we have the regional sanitary landfill attached to the regional wastewater treatment facility—a gigantic operation that serves the whole region. I think we're going to have to talk about it eventually.
Which new state regulations have affected you?
Leonard: Just on state regulations—where it’s really affected Salinas has been on the housing front. ADUs are being allowed by-right; we’re processing hundreds each year. We’re getting SB 330 applications to streamline or circumvent local regulations, making everything objective design standards, removing discretionary review. We’re even seeing some SB 9 applications. It might have taken a couple years, but we’re seeing the full effect of those 2019–2020 housing laws now.
Hunter: For Marina, we’re fortunate. We’re not under the thumb of HCD as much, since we’ve already built our RHNA numbers for this cycle. But it’s still a struggle—there are only two planners in Marina right now, myself included. Staffing is difficult everywhere, and implementing new laws constantly coming at us is very challenging.
Cole: ADUs are working because they don’t require new water meters. SB 9—we allow up to six units on a single-family parcel, exceeding state minimums. But we’re not seeing that development because we can’t set new water meters.
You’ve got a couple hundred planners coming to the region, all interested in these issues. What would you like them to notice about your area as a whole and your respective cities?
Cole: We've been talking about rough patches, but we've had regional successes too. The groundwater replenishment program is a major success. The busway that's about to start construction, two regional bike paths, the coastal trail, rental assistance programs, historic resources. There’s a lot to see on the peninsula, between all the cities. And then there’s the agricultural powerhouse of the Salinas Valley, plus the military bases. There’s a great classroom for planners to see what has been done.
Leonard: There's going to be one mobile workshop to downtown Salinas. Salinas has a lot of history—John Steinbeck, Cesar Chavez, the labor movement. In the 1930s, because agricultural technology advanced, even though it was the Depression, Salinas was a very wealthy city. We've got a lot of architecture from that period—Craftsman, Queen Anne Victorians, Art Deco. We had three movie theaters in a two-block radius downtown, two of which still exist and are designated historic.
Plus, we'll present our East Salinas District Identity Master Plan, which combines neighborhood branding, public art, economic development, and streetscape improvements to create a unique feel for the neighborhood. It's not about gentrification—we want to revitalize what’s there so the community stays and benefits.
Hunter: There’s going to be a bus ride mobile workshop through the former Fort Ord, touching on some of the Marina development. Marina is super-interesting. We are a young city, incorporated only in 1975. We came up as a service community to Fort Ord, similar to Seaside but much smaller. After just 20 years, the Fort Ord closure doubled our size and caused tremendous growth. It's safe to say Marina has had some growing pains, but we’re moving forward, modernizing, and getting our feet on the ground with new master plan developments.
Contacts
Kim Cole, Community Development Director, City of Monterey,
Alyson Hunter, Planning Manager, City of Marina,
Grant Leonard, Planning Division Manager, City of Salinas,
Image Credits
Marina State Beach: California State Parks
Salinas Arch: Wikimedia Commons
Monterey Harbor & Downtown: Wikimedia Commons
