The Paso Robles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to reserve 154 housing units for a proposed Ardmore Townhouse development on land that isn’t currently zoned for residential use.
“Tonight is not an approval of the project,” Warren Frace, the city’s community development director, told the council. “We’re not really discussing the pros or cons of the project. We are looking for concurrence so we can reserve those units and then allow the applicant to move forward.”
The Ardmore Townhouses proposal, submitted by Covelop Inc. and MD3 Investments, proposes building 154 semi-attached, for-sale townhomes on a 12.9-acre parcel at the eastern end of Union Road. Because the property is currently zoned for commercial and light-industrial use, the developers will need the city to rezone it to allow up to 30 units per acre, Frace said during the meeting.
But before any rezoning request can move forward, the developers also needed what Paso Robles calls “surplus residential density units.” Associate Planner Darcy Delgado explained that these are essentially extra housing units the city is allowed to approve under its general plan but hasn’t assigned to any project yet.
When the general plan was adopted in 2003, the city set a population threshold of 44,000 and allocated most of its allowable housing density to large projects such as Chandler Ranch, Olsen Ranch, and Beechwood.
By 2013, city planners revised the general plan and discovered that the number of people per housing unit had dropped since 2003, meaning Paso Robles could add more homes while still staying below the population cap, Frace said.
The city created a pool of these units to account for that change in 2020 as part of the city’s housing element update. Paso Robles had 246 units available (before the Nov. 4 vote) and a population of 31,061, according to the staff report.
Delgado said reserving the units gives the developers a level of certainty and assurance.
“The reservation will not constitute a project approval,” she said. “If the units are not incorporated into the project, they would remain unallocated and available for other development projects.”
The Ardmore project qualifies for units because the developers have already invested in engineering, design, and technical studies, Delgado said.
Damien Mavis, principal at Covelop, said the project was shaped around the idea of “affordability by design.”
Covelop and MD3 are also working on a separate affordable-housing contribution. City staff said the project is proposing to model their affordable housing component after San Luis Obispo County’s regional housing incentive program.
“They’re using a point-based system, and it’s designed to simplify access to development incentives similar to the state affordable housing density bonus program,” Delgado said. “The applicant has proposed to contribute an in-lieu fee equivalent to two points in the county system payable to the city for use in any future tax-credit affordable housing project.”
Several residents spoke in support of adding more housing, though Paso Robles resident Linda George questioned whether any new construction can truly be affordable.
“No contractor can build a house more affordable than the next contractor,” she said during public comment.
The townhouse proposal will next head to the Planning Commission for a public hearing before returning to the City Council for a final decision. ∆
This article appears in Nov 6-16, 2025.