By Neil Farrell ~
A controversial project to extend Gilbert Avenue in Cayucos is finally starting to make the rounds with a couple of hearings coming up in Cayucos before it goes to the County Planning Commission.
The “Gilbert Property Owners Association” has submitted plans to extend Gilbert Avenue some 1,300 feet (the 3100-3200 blocks of Gilbert) and pave the way for the eventual development of 30 residential lots. Concerned neighbors and citizens calling themselves “Preserve Cayucos” have been keeping a watchful eye on the proposal for about two years now, after a town hall meeting was organized to air concerns with the proposal.
That hillside is steep and residents, especially those whose homes sit immediately downhill, fear the hillside could become unstable and endanger their homes. Concerns were also raised about the potential for rain run-off to flood the homes downhill, and questions have been aired about the in-out egress for what would become a new neighborhood.
While others question whether the town’s water supply can handle such developments. Indeed, two other small subdivisions are also starting the process with the County at the dead end of D Street.
The issue is scheduled to go before the Cayucos Citizens’ Advisory Council’s Land Use Committee at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30 at the Vet’s Hall in Cayucos. It is scheduled to go before the full CCAC at its Wednesday, Oct. 7 meeting starting at 7 p.m. at the Vet’s Hall.
In a statement, Preserve Cayucos director Ralph Wessel said, they believe “that seeking to build a road across this landslide of a hill on a Conditional Use Permit/Development Plan violates proper planning criteria and may not take into consideration the safety of the citizens’ who live in the area.
“We need to insure that the entire potential build out is considered now, not piecemeal, and that questions about landslide safety and wastewater run off are not met with the admonition that it will be looked at in the future.”
Gilbert was first recorded on the town’s subdivision map in 1928, (part of the Morro Strand Tract Unit 1), as a 50-foot right-of-way. The property owner offered it but it was never accepted by the County and so never graded and put in. “The right-of-way has since reverted to an easement, currently a dirt road, to the benefit of the abutting lot owners,” reads the CUP application.
Gilbert does now extend a ways in the subject area, serving four existing homes. This proposal would extend it and the “legal, conforming” lots would be down slope of the roadway, the report said. It also notes that these lots abut the edge of the urban reserve and urban services lines, the limits to expansion of the community in that direction.
Lands to the east and uphill from this project area are listed in the Estero Area Plan (Cayucos’ general plan) as reserved for ag or open space, though they are in the rural lands category of land use. Building the roadway, according to the County, needs a land use permit, in the form of a minor use permit, would also constitute a coastal development permit under the County’s Local Coastal Program and the California Coastal Act.
This project was first proposed in the mid-1980s and since then the owners and County Public Works (the lead agency) “have worked together to define the project, the environmental constraints, and a pathway forward to process the project.”
Readers can check out the proposal themselves online at: www.slocounty.ca.gov/Assets/PL/referrals/coastal/DRC2015-00025_GILBERT_PROPERTY_OWNERS_ASSOC_CUP.pdf.
