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Coastal Commission has issues with Carlyle Groups renovation plans for Pacifica, CA Mobile Home Park
November 19, 2015 by parkguy1 · Leave a Comment
From Pacifica Tribune, Nov. 18, 2015
A high-level California Coastal Commission official wrote to the Pacifica planning director questioning the planning department’s determination in 2013 that the renovation project at Pacific Skies Estates is exempt from the city’s coastal development permit requirements for repair and maintenance.
Coastal Commission’s Nancy Cave, North Central Coast District Manager, wrote to Tina Wehrmeister, Pacifica’s planning director on Nov. 4 raising a number of issues that may change the mobile home park owner’s renovation plans.
Cave wrote, “It is our opinion that Pacific Skies Estates’ renovation project constitutes a complete redevelopment and cannot be considered a repair and maintenance. The project does not propose to repair or maintain development in its current legally established form; rather it proposes to change it completely including installing all new units and infrastructure.”
The letter goes on to state Coastal Commission’s regulations state that replacing more than 50 percent of a structure is not repair and maintenance, but instead something that requires a coastal development permit.
“This is a complete redevelopment of PSE and the exemptions afforded certain minor improvements under the Coastal Act and the Commission’s regulations do not apply,”Cave wrote.
In addition, the regulations do not allow such exemptions for bluff top development, the letter states.
“This project proposes replacement of 93 units and a complete redevelopment of the park. And there is an existing armoring structure seaward of the PSE mobile home park that raises a series of issues,” Cave wrote.
Cave asked Weirmeister to reconsider whether the exemption from a coastal development permit was accurately applied in this case, or to seek a formal ruling from the Coastal Commission.
