Jurupa Valley commission upholds denial of 80-unit Camino Real Terrace supportive housing project

The Jurupa Valley Planning Commission voted to adopt Resolution PC-2025-06, upholding the director's ministerial denial of the Camino Real Terrace Apartments, an 80-unit affordable housing project that included 28 permanent supportive units, a 2,500-square-foot community building and a 6,400-square-foot child care center.

The decision was the culmination of a public hearing in which staff and the city attorney said the project failed to meet objective development standards and created specific, quantifiable public-health and safety impacts; the project team and advocates argued state law and a letter from the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) support ministerial approval.

Planning staff and the city attorney told commissioners the application was processed under Government Code section 65650'the state provision that can allow supportive housing as a by-right use'but that the city found several objective problems, including absence of required sidewalks and other improvements that, staff said, would force residents to travel in a traffic lane to access transit. City Attorney Maricela Merriquin said HCD'in a notice the city received on April 24, 2025'told the city it could not rely on a site being bisected by a roadway as a reason to deny a supportive housing application and reminded the city of obligations under state fair-housing law and the Housing Accountability Act. Merriquin also said the legal issue is unsettled: "There's nothing in case law, or in the statute that provides that a supportive housing site can, in fact, be bisected by a road," she said, adding that the commission retains discretion after a full hearing.

Staff and the draft resolution cited multiple grounds for the director's denial: lack of on-site supportive services as staff interpreted the statute; missing sidewalk and exterior-access improvements that conflict with ADA and local standards; a proposed retaining wall of roughly 18 feet along Camino Real; unit sizes for some supportive units below the city's minimum; and…