Monterey County Court Challenge - Paraiso Springs
This proposed Resort Development is one more example of how future promises - of money to both the developer and county coffers - outweighs public safety concerns and ignores State Fire Safe Regulations.
In 2019, the Monterey County Planning Commission approved a large commercial development project and reinstated it again in 2022. The project proposes a 103-room hotel and 73 timeshare units, restaurants and spa facilities located in a canyon at the eastern base of the Santa Lucia Mountains. The development area is bordered on three sides by the Santa Lucia Mountains and on the east side by grazing farmlands. The area has experienced several destructive wildfires since first noted in 1891.
In 2022, the County overrode CalFire’s denial of development on a dead-end road and granted the developer a 5-year extension to allow them to start construction by 2029.
Background: The developer applied to CalFire for an exception to the dead-end road limitation, which CalFire denied in 2021. However, the county subsequently granted a questionable exception to the State Minimum Fire Safe Regulations public safety standards and ignored the fact that State law gives CalFire ultimate inspection and enforcement authority.
Issue - Substandard Road: The narrow 1.9-mile dead-end road creates evacuation risks for current residents as well as those from the project. The narrow single-access road violates the State Minimum Fire Safe Regulations as it does not provide safe concurrent firefighter access and civilian evacuation.
The Office of the State Attorney General also opposed the proposal and wrote several letters in 2019 to the Monterey County Planning Commission, asserting that the project did not provide adequate evacuation and does meet the 20-foot minimum road width and 1-mile dead-end road length limitations of the State Minimum Fire Safe Regulations.
Landwatch, Monterey County also opposed the project as it creates a significant wildfire and evacuation risk.