Pacific Grove adopts 2023–2031 housing element, certifies EIR amid neighborhood opposition

The Pacific Grove City Council on Dec. 17, 2025, certified a final environmental impact report and adopted the city’s 2023–2031 housing element, approving related zoning-code and land-use map amendments intended to make the element eligible for full certification by the State Department of Housing and Community Development. The council recorded the vote on the residential package as 6–0–1, with one member absent.

The action implements the city’s regional housing needs allocation of 1,125 units for the 2023–2031 planning cycle, staff and consultants said. "The regional housing needs allocation is 1,125 units," consultant Cassandra Gale told the council, and the housing element and associated rezones create a sites inventory and programs the city says are necessary to meet that state-determined obligation.

City staff and consultant Rincon Environmental presented the final EIR, which analyzed a conservative maximum-buildout scenario for the sites identified in the inventory. Rincon project manager Kaylee Limbach said "the project in and of itself does not develop housing" and that the EIR identifies some impacts that are potentially mitigable and three categories (cultural resources, greenhouse gas emissions and noise) as significant and unavoidable. Because of those…