Reaching Out Across Devil's Slide

Pacifica and the Coastside are more intertwined than many of us might think. We both deal with Coastal Commission issues in development, Montara is closer to Linda Mar than it is to Half Moon Bay, and the Devil's Slide Tunnels are going to bring us both a lot closer. And Pacifica has been a lab for a lot of bad development practices that we can take lessons from here on the Coastside.

BARRY PARR
Publisher and Editor
COASTSIDER

Comments

[Kathryn Slater-Carter]

Pacifica continues to push the bad ideas forward. For instance, at today's Pacifica Planning Commission meeting is a project called the "Prospects."

It consists of 34 units: 17 condos and 17 townhouses. Besides adding even more traffic to an already congested road in the morning and evening, there are other problems associated with this. Even at that, staff recommendation is for approval. Please come to Pacifica City Hall, Planning Commission meeting tonight.

All parking for the complex is in an underground garage, which requires lots of excavation. The land where the project is to be built is currently zoned open space residential with one house per five acres. The owner has two adjacent but not legally linked lots and according to draft EIR will not be legally linked. The upper lot, which is harder to build upon, is zoned for 33 units. so the idea is to take the housing unit total, flip the zoning, and build on the spot that was designated in the 1980s general plan to be open space residential.

If you are driving up Fassler, the project's driveway would be where the unofficial driveway is now blocked off on the north side of the street. There is a big promo on community gardens, trails, picnic area, amphitheatre, meeting space, but there are only two regular and one handicapped parking spot for nonresidents. Asked about this and the response was that this is all for the residents despite this being pushed as one of the benefits for Pacifica. (If they won't be honest about this, what can you count on?)

Building on this property requires the City Council to do a general plan amendment. Of course, if the zoning can be changed here to suit the developer's desires, I am sure you can imagine what else can be changed. Pacifica has been doing planning by piecemeal changes to its general plan—clogging the roads, ignoring the need for additional job-creating business, and creating the ultimate residential tax burden for a city with a surplus of housing compared to available jobs.