Carmel meets Sacramento - a Coastal Community Town Hall
on California State Housing Legislation
Held Monday October 23rd at Carmel High School Center for Performing Arts

Carmel Residents Association hosted our California State - Sacramento - Senate and Assembly Representatives for our Coastal Community.  Moderated by Paul Miller, Carmel Pine Cone Publisher, Senator Laird and Assemblywoman Addis addressed your questions regarding the latest in recent Housing legislation.   

  • HERE is our program video YouTube. 
  • Here is our program Transcript
  • Here is the KSBW Coverage evening of Oct 23rd 
  • Here is the Carmel Pine Cone coverage - article and editorial, publishes 10/27/2023
  • Here is the Monterey County Weekly followup article published 11/2/2023  
  • Here is a blog summary as written by the Pacific Grove Lives residents organization
  • Biography's of our Panelists: Dawn Addis HERE, John Laird HERE and our Moderator Paul Miller HERE. 
  • Our Program Handout is HERE that includes our legislators direct contact information.
  • Visit this page for more on relevant content, legislation and local contol organization's efforts underway.

      

Creativity, size, height, parking, pre-approved ADU's, lots splits, fourplexes, and repurposing sites are many of the changes likely needed to embrace incremental housing tied to recent State mandates and laws. We discussed legislation and how to protect Local Controls of Land Use and Zoning in our Monterey Peninsula Community. 

Whether you live in Carmel-by-the-Sea or reside in areas that surround us - safety, architecture character, our natural resources (trees, beaches, parks...), water, utilities, roads, infrastructure, traffic, parking, and so many other factors are just some of what will be impacted with these State required new housing units. These Sacramento laws can override local land use and zoning controls (County & City) and with SB423 will override the Coastal Commission authority, and if not compliant will apply penalties if you do not have an approved Housing Element and meet the RHNA requirements.

And specific to Carmel-by-the-Sea...

In early August, the Carmel-by-the-Sea City staff submitted our proposed/draft Housing Element to California State Housing and Community Development for the 90 day review. In the AMBAG (Area Monterey Bay Area Governments) RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) process Carmel-by-the-Sea was allocated #349 net new housing units for the coming 8 years. Our Village government does not build housing - but is accountable for identifying potential sites inside our 1 square mile and creating incentives for property owners to add new housing - all with little to no open land.  
Carmel-by-the-Sea has welcomed and housed far more residents into our amazing Hamlet in decades past. So how can we embrace more in the future?  With the invaluable charm, character of our forest, beach and architecture - plus the amazing shops, galeries, perfomances, events, dining and wines...our Village attracts many visitor from far and wide, actually worldwide. Many of these visitors have made our Village their full-time home and for some we are their second home - which leaves many homes empty for parts of the year. For our benefit and those of our visitors, there are many who are concerned that these State requirements will negatively impact what we love about where we live, work and play.
To learn more about this topic - critical to the character of Carmel-by-the-Sea:

    * visit our City's webpage on their work to draft and submit our Housing Element for approval and
    * visit our CRA webpage covering the Village housing efforts, that will continue in the year to come.