Monterey County has settled with California over its years-late housing plan, and the deal comes with new high-density zoning in unincorporated areas that builders will want to look at. Attorney General Rob Bonta and the state Department of Housing and Community Development announced the settlement Nov. 5, after the county adopted its housing element and finished the rezoning the state required by a Nov. 3 deadline (via California Attorney General).
The county missed the Dec. 15, 2023 deadline for its sixth-cycle housing element, the state-required plan for how a jurisdiction will make room for its share of new homes. Statewide, the current cycle calls for planning for about 2.5 million homes. "Counties have the same obligation that cities do to plan for their communities' housing needs," Bonta said in the release.
What the settlement requires
Under the agreement, as the AG's office describes it, the county will:
- Stick with the rezoning its Board of Supervisors has approved and adopted
- Pay $300,000 in penalties into its local housing trust fund for affordable housing
- Dedicate at least one planner, plus budget money, to the next housing element cycle
- Turn in a draft of that next plan to the state before the deadline
The state can go back to court if the county breaches the deal. Monterey County NOW reported that missing any condition would add another $10,000 payment.
The vote and the numbers
Supervisors approved the plan 4-0 on Nov. 3, with Supervisor Chris Lopez absent, Monterey County NOW reported. The Planning Commission had backed it 7-0 in October.
The county's state-assigned target, its regional housing need allocation, is 3,326 units for unincorporated areas: 1,070 very low income, 700 low, 420 moderate and 1,136 above moderate, according to the housing element. The adopted plan shows capacity for nearly 5,900 units on 56 opportunity sites, well above the target.
The county's housing plan rezones sites to high-density residential at 25 or 30 units an acre, with 30 where water and sewer are available, and a minimum of 20 units an acre. It also raises the general plan's high-density cap from 20 to 30 units an acre.
Some of the notable sites, per Monterey County NOW's reporting:
- Las Lomas, between Sill and Hall roads in North County, jumps from 1 to 4 units an acre to as many as 30. MidPen Housing told supervisors it wants to build affordable and farmworker housing there.
- The old Carmel hospital site and a Stevenson School property in Pebble Beach move to 5 to 30 units an acre.
- Site 52, Tarpy Flats across Highway 68 from Monterey Regional Airport, was shrunk after neighbors in Fisherman's Flats raised wildfire evacuation concerns.
By-right approvals, and the builder's remedy question
For builders, the key provision is speed. Under the county plan, multifamily projects on these sites that include at least 20% lower-income units get by-right approval, and projects at 20 units an acre or more with 20% lower-income units are handled ministerially, without a discretionary hearing.
Then there's the builder's remedy, the state-law tool that lets developers propose projects that skip local zoning when a jurisdiction lacks a compliant housing element. Monterey County NOW reported nine such applications are pending, including about 1,000 units at Highway 68 and Laureles Grade and a 90-unit project on the Carmel Valley Village airfield. The paper also reported that the county still has to send the plan to HCD, which gets 45 days to review it, and that full protection depends on HCD's sign-off. The AG's release describes the element as compliant. Watch for HCD's decision around late December.
Why it matters for Contractors
If you build in unincorporated Monterey County, the map just changed. Sites that allowed a handful of homes per acre can now take 20 to 30, and projects that set aside 20% for lower-income households can skip the discretionary hearing process. That's real time and risk out of the entitlement process, which matters most to small and mid-size builders who can't carry a project through years of hearings.
Pull the housing element's site list, check which parcels near you were rezoned and to what density, and talk to the nonprofit and affordable developers likely to go after them. They'll need GCs and subs. If you're tied to one of the pending builder's remedy projects, keep an eye on HCD's review. How that shakes out will decide whether those projects move ahead under the old rules.