Planning Commission approves Carmel Valley self-storage project with conditions to protect pedestrian access and drainage

The Monterey County Planning Commission on Feb. 26 approved a five-building, two-story self-storage development at the terminus of Center Street in Carmel Valley, adopting a mitigated negative declaration and approving a combined development permit, design approval and a use permit for development within 200 feet of the Carmel River top of bank.

Staff planner Mary Israel told commissioners the revised design responds to the commission's October 2024 continuance by reducing the footprint of Building A, lowering most rooflines to about 26 to 28 feet, and creating a six- to 10-foot pedestrian passage to preserve a long-used social trail through the vacant parcel. The project proposes approximately 68,760 square feet of storage across five buildings, an on-site wastewater treatment system, the removal of one protected oak tree and landscape planting intended to screen views from Carmel Valley Road. Site coverage was reported at roughly 39.3 percent.

The applicant and architect said the design was revised to soften bulk and to provide screening. "There is a plan to screen the view from Carmel Valley Road," applicant representative Anthony Lombardo said, pointing to a planting palette and large trees intended to obscure the frontage as they mature. Architect Larry Gabriel said the massing was broken into smaller building elements, and that parapets and gables were lowered in response to commissioner direction.

During the hearing commissioners pressed staff and the applicant on three recurring local concerns: drainage at the Center Street–Berwick Drive corner, how construction and long-term operations would affect a well-used pedestrian "social trail," and the visual bulk and height of the buildings. Public Works staff said the localized ponding on Berwick is caused by two older trees that have uplifted a shallow curb gutter at the corner; Public Works said its solution would require dealing with private-property vegetation and that the storage project itself is designed to contain on-site stormwater in a detention basin and not increase runoff onto the adjacent streets.

Several nearby residents opposed the project at the hearing. Tracy Kaufman, a resident of Berwick Drive, said the proposal "is huge, obtrusive and unnecessary," and that her "biggest concern is safety and how dangerous Center Street will become" if the parcel is used for a high-volume storage facility. Opponents also raised pedestrian-safety and road‑condition concerns related to construction traffic.

Staff distributed redline language during the hearing to strengthen a condition requiring the final landscape plan to be "equivalent or greater than" the draft planting plan; the revised condition explicitly requires that the informal pedestrian path indicated in the plan set be surfaced with decomposed granite (or similar), be installed and inspected before occupancy, and be maintained and kept open for pedestrian access by the property owner. The commission discussed adding a requirement that the path connection to the public street be preserved and that temporary interruptions during construction be minimized and limited; the applicant said construction would likely make the trail difficult to traverse for an estimated three months while Building A foundation work is underway, and that the path could be reopened once the foundation is set.

The commission voted to adopt the mitigated negative declaration, approve the development permit, design approval and the use permit for development near the Carmel River top of bank, and adopt the compliance and mitigation monitoring plan, with staff-directed edits memorializing the pedestrian-path and landscaping conditions. The motion was made by Commissioner Diehl, seconded by Commissioner Mendoza, and carried by the commission.