ENCINITAS — Planning commissioners reluctantly yet unanimously approved a 27-unit development overlooking Encinitas Boulevard during a May 7 meeting, voicing frustration over state housing laws they said left them with little choice.
The Ocean Bluff residential project would sit atop the hill just south of Encinitas Boulevard, east of the intersection with Westlake Street and Quail Gardens Road.
Of the 27 for-sale units, three would be restricted to “very low-income qualifying households,” according to city documents. The plan calls for single-family detached homes on 4.5 acres of the site, while the remaining 2.7 acres would be preserved as open space because of an extreme slope. Retaining walls would provide support for the preserved area.
That qualified the project for waivers under the state Density Bonus Law, including exemptions for setback limits, lot splitting, street radii and sidewalks.
Jonathan Frankel, representing developer Rincon Homes, said the project would provide more than 20% more parking than required, totaling 95 spaces, which contributed to the lack of sidewalks.
“This is a very careful kind of balancing act and we have to try and fit this thousand piece puzzle together in the best possible way that we can,” Frankel said.
Before voting in favor of the project, Planning Commissioner Robert Prendergast said the developer had shown “greed” in some of its design choices, namely the size disparity between the affordable and surrounding market-rate homes.
“I can’t blame the developer for having to include five bedrooms because that’s what state law requires. That’s kind of silly,” he said. “But I can blame them for building an 18,800-square-foot house next to a 3,500-square-foot home. That’s just pure greed, flat out.”
Continuing the conversation
The May 7 discussion continued a process that began in November 2023 and has since included multiple community workshops and public discussions, including an earlier Planning Commission hearing that was delayed due to unanswered questions.
Like the previous meeting, Commissioner Stephen Dalton recused himself because his architectural firm had provided services and received compensation from Rincon Homes within the last year, though he said the work was unrelated to the Ocean Bluff project.
“I’m recusing myself to avoid a conflict of interest,” he said.
Several conditions changed in the intervening months, including window designs, lighting plans and the establishment of a third-party consultant to ensure the affordable units go to qualified residents.
Frankel said he was “happy to pay” for the consultant and added the requirement to the revised motion at city staff’s recommendation.
The approach marks a departure from the practice of allowing developers to hire their own consultants.
“That condition allows the city to use a third party consultant to ensure that the affordable units are received by those who qualify for those affordable units,” said Esteban Danna, a city planner.
Frankel also said the development team had worked with neighbors immediately west of the project site and resolved five of seven concerns raised during the earlier meeting, including retaining wall modifications and the purchase of privacy trees.
“We know if you’re immediately adjacent to the site, you’re impacted in a unique way and you are uniquely situated and we should go above and beyond what we’re required to do in order to address those concerns,” he said.
Walter Frandsen, speaking on behalf of his mother, who has owned a neighboring property for more than 50 years, said that some issues involving tree limbs and trucks were still under discussion. However, he said he understood the developer’s position on the two remaining unresolved items.
“It has been refreshing to deal with them on these issues and be able to get some satisfactory answers,” Frandsen said.
Another change separated the removal of existing communications equipment from the project approval itself. Danna said the split would speed up the process.
“In this situation, since the demolition of the wireless facilities is not something that’s a controversial issue or has not had any public comments on, it can be separated,” he said. “It can go ahead and move forward while the residential component goes through the public hearing process.”
The demolition item passed unanimously.
Commissioners, residents voice frustrations
Like at the November meeting, residents used public comment to express concerns about the project’s design, including the loss of open space, geological impacts and drainage issues.
Frankel said the developer remained committed to ensuring the site was safe.
“I think the interests of the city, the community and us are absolutely aligned in this respect,” he said.
The loudest complaints centered on traffic impacts. Neighbors said additional residents could worsen congestion during peak hours and create bottlenecks during emergencies.
Abe Bandegan, a city traffic engineer, said Encinitas evaluates traffic using SANDAG standards and that the city lacked discretion over the methodology.
“These are standard practices not just [in the] City of Encinitas,” he said. “Everywhere in the county uses the same process.”
Using observed traffic data from 2022 and assumptions about commuting patterns, Bandegan said the project would generate traffic impacts below thresholds requiring additional mitigation.
“As big as 27 units are for the neighborhood obviously, what it translates to is only eight trips during the peak hour at West Lake and Encinitas Boulevard,” he said. “That leg carries about 5-600 vehicles during the peak period. So we’re adding eight trips to that 5-600 trips.”
Bandegan said the project would increase delays by about half a second per vehicle, below the city’s two-second significance threshold.
“Again, there’s no way that we would say there’s no impact to the neighborhood,” Bandegan said. “There will be impact, but it is below the significance threshold that’s set in our guidelines.”
Frankel acknowledged the project would add traffic to nearby roads but said the impacts remain within city standards.
“We know traffic is a headache that everybody has to deal with,” Frankel said. “We certainly understand that and would never claim we’re not going to add trips to area roadways. We certainly will. But, as you heard from the city traffic engineer, there are objective thresholds by which all projects are judged, and we don’t meet any of those.”
Commissioner Bridget Kimball said the calculations might overlook other roadway impacts.
“I come from a tech background so numbers are important but we don’t have the right metrics to measure to make the findings that we know are there,” she said. “We don’t have the framework to create it.”
Regarding the size difference between affordable and market-rate homes, Danna said city rules require units to be “comparable in exterior appearance and overall quality of construction” and to contain similar bedroom counts.
Prendergast called it “kind of silly” that state law allows significantly smaller homes to be “dwarfed” by neighboring properties.
“You give us a project that clearly calls out the affordable units as just being tiny, squeezed in, minimal yards,” he said.
Frankel said “the bedroom count and the floorplan associated with those units were created in order to be compliant” with state housing laws. He added that the tradeoffs would help lower-income residents become homeowners.
”Certainly we recognize that some of the features of these units are not the same as the market rate,” he said. “I can tell you firsthand in talking [with] and seeing the families that benefit from these programs, it is an absolutely life-changing experience and we’re really proud to be able to provide that.”
Commissioner William Whitteker agreed with Prendergast’s concerns.
“They’re building a five bedroom home with two baths forcing people with lower income to live that way and that’s unfair,” he said. “It’s another example of just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”
Still, Whitteker said there was little the commission could do to halt the project.
“Everything that we have thrown at them, every consideration we’ve given them, they’ve come back with an answer,” he said.
“I think what you might be struggling with Commissioner Whitteker, which is something that I am struggling with,” Kimball said, “is I don’t know that we have the right bars that we’re applying, but the bars are what they are. We can’t go back right now and retroactively change them.”
“We clearly have identified gaps in the code,” Prendergast said. “I’m not happy about it – clearly from the tone, words and descriptors I’ve used. But as strong as my tone was, the net result of the dialogue between the applicant and staff was that they had met the conditions for approval. As much as we might not like the result of it, they’ve answered all of the questions.”
Commissioner Michael Quinn, who was not part of the earlier discussion, said he felt like he was “jumping in the middle of this firestorm here.”
“I do feel under duress, like my fellow commissioner had mentioned earlier,” Quinn said. “Of course, we have a density bonus that we’re dealing with, and there’s nothing we can do about that.”
The approval can be appealed to the City Council within 10 days of the May 7 decision.
“I hope the community considers appealing,” Whitteker said. “Please do.”
