Land stability is a major concern for Morro Bay residents opposing a 48-unit housing development on Panorama Drive.
“My family has owned property in North Morro Bay since the early 1960s … during a very wet year back in the ’80s, my father put a stake out [into the ground to observe land stability] and observed,” Morro Bay resident Joan Martin Fee said. “It moved 3 feet.”
Fee was among the Morro Bay residents who showed up en masse to the Nov. 7 Planning Commission meeting to express their concerns about the potential development.
According to resident Theresa Pena, building on the land would pose a danger to those who live west of the proposed project, like herself.
“My foundation is already sloping, and my gates are no longer even,” Pena wrote in a letter to the commission. “This has worsened over the last 10 years, and I can’t help but imagine that it’s possible that this development may add to this problem for many of us.”
According to the city’s project lead, Nancy Hubbard, the land on which the development is being considered served as a former Navy jet fuel storage site. It was decommissioned in 1992 and has since had several owners and undergone an environmental cleaning process.
In 2021, Morro Bay applied to the SLO County Local Agency Formation Commission to annex the property by Panorama Drive as part of its general plan efforts to develop new housing. The annexation was approved in January 2022 despite similar ground stability concerns.
Planning Commissioner Bill Roschen noted that the commission wouldn’t be taking action on the proposal, rather just hearing discussion on the project, because the project’s environmental impact reports weren’t complete yet.
“We have not seen the reports on the environmental impact or what cleanup efforts might entail at this point,” Roschen said.
Many of the public commenters also took issue with the traffic and parking problems the project could create.
“Our whole way of life is going to be destroyed by speeding cars,” one resident said, noting that the people often speed onto Panorama Drive off of Highway 1.
The Planning Commission will hear the proposal again at its Dec. 5 meeting.
“[There is] documented catastrophic risk to the property and safety of the residents living directly below this project,” resident Susan Hammond said. “When significant disruption of the ground [potentially] triggers a landslide, [this] should compel city leaders and staff to render the project too unsafe to proceed.” Δ
This article appears in Nov 9-19, 2023.