HALF MOON BAY – After a mass shooting left seven farmworkers dead last yr and exposed farmworkers' squalid living conditions, city officials and residents here agree there may be an urgent need for higher housing for a few of San Mateo County's poorest residents .
But plans to construct just that in downtown Half Moon Bay are met with a standard refrain: Please, just not here.
Citing concerns about design, height and limited parking capability, the Half Moon Bay Planning Commission is moving ahead with plans for a five-story, 40-unit inexpensive housing project for older farmworkers on Kelly Ave. 555 only slowly. At a gathering Tuesday, commissioners voted to accomplish that – for the second time in two weeks – to ward off on their decision to approve the project, which could lead on to possible delays that the developer said could prevent them from getting the cash needed to start construction to use for funds.
“You’re going to see this building, and it’s not a small building,” Planning Commissioner Rick Hernandez said. “How does this affect the character of Half Moon Bay?”
Commissioners said that while they support the concept of more farmworker housing, they need more time to contemplate whether the project suits into town's Coastal Land Use Plan, which governs development along the California coast.
“The main goal … is to protect coastal resources – period. “A second consideration is providing affordable housing,” said Hernandez, who works as an executive at a logistics company. “The character of the downtown area, the access to the beach and the coast for recreational purposes as a visitor town – these are resources that we need to protect.”
The project's supporters — who outnumbered its critics Tuesday — were quick to indicate the contradiction between initial enthusiasm for improving farm staff' living conditions and current opposition.
“We see the injustice, we are appalled by the living conditions and we are all Kumbaya,” Half Moon Bay resident RJ Jennings told commissioners Tuesday. “But when it comes to making change, it’s the people in your position who decide that something like parking can stop growth.”
“You have been given the best opportunity to make a difference for farmworkers,” said Rita Mancera, executive director of Puente de la Costa Sur, a nonprofit that supports farmworkers in nearby Pescadero. “You deserve better housing…don’t miss this opportunity.”
The shooting in January 2023 dropped at light the unlivable conditions wherein farmworkers lived and brought a way of urgency to a difficulty that activists have long sought to bring attention to. Housing on the 2 farms where the shooting occurred – Concord Farms and California Terra Garden – was demolished and staff relocated to temporary housing. One of the employees who lived on one among the farms, 67-year-old Chunli Zhao, is accused of killing his fellow farmworkers and is now charged with seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.
Commissioners asked if the developer could move the parking spaces to the underground garage as an alternative of taking on a part of the bottom floor, but Mercy responded that will be too costly. The developer also said it cannot relocate a few of the first-floor office space because a part of the general public funding it receives to construct the project requires the supply of property management and certain support services for on-site residents.
Mercy currently has nearly all of funding for the $43 million project – including sources from San Mateo County and a land donation from town of Half Moon Bay. They can even depend on federal low-income tax credits to finish the project, but must get approval from town to be eligible for those funds. The project can be delayed by a yr if the Application on July 2nd Deadline is missed.
Carolina Carbajal, an organizer at ALAS, said farmworkers couldn't wait any longer.
“Latinos do the work that other people don’t want to do … and we do it with joy,” she said through an interpreter. “It’s time we created housing in Half Moon Bay for the people who really worked for it.”
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