The Encinitas City Council on Wednesday overturned a decision by the City’s Planning Commission and gave the green light to a controversial 199-unit apartment development proposed east of Interstate 5.
Before the vote, Mayor Catherine Blakespear said it was “extremely difficult to hear the real anguish” in the voices of opponents as they urged the council to “vote their hearts” and say no to the development proposal, but it was a responsible, legal decision to allow the development to go ahead. moving forward with respect to state housing regulations.
“I don’t think we are in a position to make a decision that says no to this project,” she said.
Councilman Tony Kranz said the proposed development site was one of the most contentious of the 15 sites city officials selected years ago when the state required Encinitas to identify sites where the city could eventually accommodate higher-density housing. Neighbors’ concerns about the condition of the road nearby are justified and the city needs to improve, but it still has to give permits for this project because this location is on that list that the state obliges, he said.
“I think this is one of those projects (where) we need to do what’s in the best interest of the city as a whole,” he added, noting that Encinitas lacks multifamily housing and that this development would be within walking distance of a major city center. employers — Scripps Hospital.
Proposed by Western National Properties, development plans call for 15 three-story buildings on the 6.22-acre site, bordered by Union and Pueblo streets and west of Poinsettia Park.
When city planning commissioners voted 4-0 in early August to deny the project the permits it needed to proceed, they stressed they had no problem with the buildings’ design. They were concerned about the impact the large development would have on nearby, narrow, old roads, they said, noting that those roads would not be renovated as part of the proposed development. In their denial, they said the developers should have been required to do a full Environmental Impact Report and said the developers should have made more of an effort to reach out to Spanish-speaking residents of the neighborhood.
Both the project’s designers and a group of opponents appealed the Planning Commission’s decision, but for different reasons. The developers, Western National Properties, wanted the council to overturn the Planning Commission’s decision, while an opposition group, the Clark Development Action Group, sought to re-enforce the commission’s action, saying there was even more reason to support the denial.
Marco Gonzalez, the attorney who represented the developers, repeatedly stressed to the City Council on Wednesday that the project was a “real” development because it had previously been identified in the city’s state-approved housing element plan as the location where a high-density residential neighborhood would be located. allowed. Gonzalez said that under state law, city officials now cannot use “subjective judgment” to deny building permits and called the opponent’s complaint an “inconvenient” document.
“They really don’t have anything to hang their hats on,” he said.
Craig Sherman, who represented the group of opponents, said opponents filed the appeal to provide “more complete and robust” documentation of why the commission should have denied the project permits.
“The health and safety risks are pretty obvious,” he said.
Almost 20 residents spoke to the council and all urged them to reject the building permit applications. Opponents included former City Planning Commissioner Gene Chapo, who told the council that Union Street would be greatly impacted by additional traffic from the proposed development.
“Of all the 15 sites you picked (for higher density housing in Encinitas), this has got to be the worst,” he said.
