The city got played!
Carlsbad approved 95 housing units behind Vons at La Costa Town Square: 18 three-story buildings on 7.2 acres, including 76 market-rate condos and 19 affordable units.
The justification? The housing project would generate less traffic than the previously proposed 55,000-square-foot office development, so a vehicle-miles-traveled analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act wasn’t required.
What?? Less traffic than an office project that was never built doesn’t mean less traffic than neighbors experience today.
Is this the blueprint now? Propose an intensive development, then replace it with something that generates fewer trips and use that comparison to avoid additional traffic analysis? That makes a joke of environmental review.
In my view, this project does little to help the surrounding neighborhood. Residents deserve real answers about added traffic, school capacity, infrastructure and environmental impacts—not reassurance based on a comparison with an unbuilt office complex.
These “infill” projects keep adding density to La Costa while existing residents live with the consequences. Meeting housing targets should not come at the expense of neighborhood quality of life.
By Mike Daniels, Broker Rancho Coastal Properties, Inc. (760) 822-1528 Buy - Sell - Manage
