ENCINITAS — Developer Rincon Homes held a community participation meeting on Nov. 4 regarding its plans to develop a vacant seven-acre lot at 501 Ocean Bluff Way in Old Encinitas.
If approved, the development would add 27 single-family residences to the neighborhood.
The Ocean Bluff Way project offers a range of dwelling sizes, from the smallest plan at approximately 1,850 square feet to the largest at 3,625 square feet. The development would primarily consist of market-rate, two-story homes with four or five bedrooms.
Three units would be set aside for very low-income residents to help meet the city’s affordable housing obligations, qualifying the project for a 50% density bonus. The density bonus allows the developer to build nine additional residences on the plot for a total of 27 units.
The three affordable homes would follow the smallest floor plan option: four bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms.
Rincon Homes has designed homes across Southern California, including a similar project in Carlsbad called Ocean View Point, which was approved in 2020 but has not yet broken ground. The Carlsbad project consists of 13 single-family homes on a nearly 22-acre lot.
The Ocean Bluff Way housing development is in its early stages, with plans still under review by the Encinitas Planning Commission and California Coastal Commission.
Developers held a community participation meeting on Nov. 4, where the primary concern among neighbors was the number of homes proposed.
Mostly, nearby residents are worried about increased traffic, additional street parking and the neighborhood’s access to school and work, which they say is already significantly slowed at peak times.
Residents were also worried about how the new homes would fit into the neighborhood. Nearly all the homes across from the development site are more than 4,000 square feet, with plenty of outdoor space. Roughly half of the homes have a backyard pool.
Developers said a typical distance from the fence to the side of a home would be five feet, meaning there will be 10 feet between the houses.
1 comment
27/7 = 4 du/ac, and these are single family homes on their own lots.
Neighbors who oppose this need to recognize the reality that this is the best case development they can hope for, and anything else is going to bring a lot more density, traffic congestion, noise, etc. For pragmatic reasons, I support this project, because things could a lot worse under SB9.