After airing their concerns over height, traffic and design over several hours in a meeting that extended past midnight, Half Moon Bay planning commissioners approved modified plans for 40-units of senior farmworker housing in downtown.
The commissioners were under pressure from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last week said he’d threaten legal action if the city continued to delay the project at 555 Kelly Avenue.
Farmworkers and Latinos in Half Moon Bay rallied behind the proposed apartments, saying that the housing for older farmworkers is desperately needed, especially after last year’s deadly shooting pulled back a curtain on farmworkers’ desperate living conditions.
Plans for the project predate the shooting — it was first proposed as a four-story building in 2022 by nonprofit developer Mercy Housing and ALAS, a nonprofit supporting Latinos in Half Moon Bay.
But after meetings with farmworker advocates and city staff earlier this year, Mercy Housing swapped out some of the studios for larger one- and two-bedroom units. That pushed the building up another story — a move that ended up being one of the primary concerns of planning commissioners.
The commission approved the project, sending it to the City Council, which will must give the final OK.
