Encinitas Planning Commission delays decision on Melba Road housing project (original) (raw)

A decision on whether to allow 30 homes to be built on a nearly 6.5-acre property near Oak Crest Middle School in Encinitas will have to wait at least a few more weeks.

In a 4-1 vote Thursday, with Commissioner Brent Whitteker opposed, the Encinitas Planning Commission decided to continue its debate on the item to its next meeting, which will be Sept. 19. Left unresolved by Thursday’s vote was whether any additional public comment will be allowed at the Sept. 19 meeting.

Representatives for the Melba Alliance for a Safe and Healthy Environment — a group of mostly neighboring residents opposing the development plans — had pleaded with the commissioners to hold off on hosting Thursday public hearing, arguing that it was unfair to host a hearing on such a controversial item during the week of the Labor Day holiday. They said they were given very little advance notice of the hearing and said their attorney, their scientific experts and many fellow opponents were all unable to attend.

“I really wish you could give our whole group more time for this,” Jeryl Anne Kessler, a longtime project opponent, told the commissioners.

Commissioners Robert Prendergast and Susan Sherod said they also didn’t think the hearing should have been scheduled for the Labor Day week. Sherod said she hadn’t expected in August that the item would come up for debate Thursday, so she’d scheduled a vacation for Labor Day weekend. She said she’d just returned and wasn’t fully prepared to discuss the item that night. Prendergast said the city met the minimum legal standards for public noticing for Thursday’s meeting, but failed when it came to being “open and transparent” and granting the neighbors enough time to read the 1,100 pages of project-related documents.

“I just felt it was somewhat rushed, to be honest with you,” he said.

Others commissioners strongly disagreed with his statement. Whitteker voted against continuing commission debate on the item to the Sept. 19 meeting, while commission Chair Steve Dalton and Commissioner Chris Ryan said their fellow commissioners should have known when they agreed to serve on the commission that they might have to have meetings on major development projects near holiday periods.

Ryan said that if the commission postponed Thursday’s hearing that would set a precedent for other controversial projects, and “I really don’t want to set a precedent here tonight.”

While Thursday’s hearing was the project’s first before the Planning Commission, project representative Bryan Staver told the commissioners that the developers had hosted their own meetings with residents — some 15 gatherings in all since they began exploring the project concept five years ago. He said they had made changes to their plans, particularly related to the preservation of trees, due to neighbors’ concerns.

The development plans call for building 27 “market-rate” homes and three low-income ones on the 6.46-acre property, which is in the 1200 block of Melba Road at its intersection with Island View Lane. The site, part of which was initially purchased by Staver’s family in the 1950s, has about a dozen immediately adjacent neighbors, including Oak Crest Middle School.

Developer Torrey Pacific Corp. is following state regulations that permit a fast-track, city approval process for high-density housing projects containing low-income units, so the city has little flexibility to change the project’s proposed design, planning commissioners said Thursday. When they meet again later this month, they’ll be asked to approve various project-related documents, including design review and coastal development permits.

Typically, the Planning Commission would be the final required city vote, but planning department staff members have offered the commissioners two options when it comes to a tree preservation issue along Melba Road, and that may alter the standard process.

The staff’s Option A would require the developer to meet city sidewalk standards and eliminate three Torrey pines and a live oak tree. Option B would waive some of the sidewalk improvement requirements in order to preserve the trees. Commissioners indicated Thursday they would likely support Option B, and that choice will require City Council approval, city planning department employees said.

Originally Published: September 11, 2024 at 6:23 p.m.