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Board approves amended Blaze Engineering permit after neighbors, county reach conditional settlement
Summary
After litigation and repeated appeals, the Board of Supervisors approved a second amendment to Blaze Engineering’s combined development permit to omit employee housing, remove two hazardous cypress trees and allow limited site changes tied to a conditional settlement with neighbors.
Monterey County supervisors voted March 18 to approve a second amendment to a previously issued combined development permit for Blaze Engineering, resolving a multi-year dispute and a pair of lawsuits between the applicant and adjacent neighbors.
The permit change implements a negotiated settlement between the applicant and neighboring property owners, the Donaldsons, that county staff said will dismiss pending lawsuits if the settlement is implemented. "We find [the conditions] entirely satisfactory," Angus Jeffers, attorney for applicant Marty Morgenrath of Blaze Engineering, said after the board's legal and environmental review.
Why it matters: The case tracks a long-running local debate about siting and uses near the Big Sur coast. The county first approved the project in 2019; subsequent amendments and appeals followed. The amendment approved March 18 removes an employee housing unit previously approved, permits a 48-foot retaining wall and a temporary 60-square-foot construction trailer, adds vegetative screening and allows removal of two hazardous cypress trees.
County staff said the changes do not expand the business or change the previously analyzed intensity of operations. "The proposed changes…do not constitute new information that would require major revisions to the adopted 2019 IS/MND," planning staff Shannon Jensen said, citing CEQA review and a supplemental mitigated negative declaration used for the amended scope.
Public comment and legal settlement: Attorneys for both sides described a negotiated resolution. "The public process has worked," Christine (attorney for the Donaldsons) told the board and urged approval. Jeffers thanked county staff for facilitating agreement and said both parties had been cooperative in the last site visit.
Board action: Supervisor Daniels moved approval and the board adopted the resolution with minor staff edits to the draft language. The motion passed after a standard vote-by-voice; no detailed roll-call tally was read into the record.
Ending: Planning staff said they will finalize non-substantive text edits in the resolution and codify conditions of approval; the county will execute the settlement agreement as part of implementation and the lawsuits will be dismissed once terms are met.
