County to decide if extensive Montara/Moss Beach property will be open space or houses

UPDATE:  The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors did not make a decision about this important issue at the hearing on March 28.  It’s not too late to send your comments to the address at the end of this article.

When the Devil’s Slide tunnel is finally built, CalTrans will be left with a big chunk of Montara’s and Moss Beach’s back yard. And the fate of that space is the subject of a struggle.

If you live in Montara, you’re probably familiar with the bypass, a strip of empty land, some of it cultivated, running east of Elm Street.  The original plan was to run a freeway through the back end of Montara and Moss Beach and down to the Half Moon Bay Airport.  Even after that plan was abandoned for a bypass a little further north, and the second plan was dropped for the tunnel, Caltrans has hung on to the land for these routes until the road is built.

One condition of building the tunnel was that the northern portion of the original Right of Way be sold to the California State Parks system. But now it’s time to decide what to do with the part that runs through Montara and Moss Beach. Will it be kept open, or developed for more houses?

In its recommendations for the update to the County’s Local Coastal Plan (LCP), the Midcoast Community Council (MCC) recommended that the CalTrans Right of Way be rezoned from residential to open space. Other Local Coastal Plan recommendations urge Caltrans to voluntarily merge existing subdivided lots within the ROW and then sell the resulting single parcel to a public agency at a price not to exceed its original cost. This would promote the use of the property for trails and other open space uses.

The San Mateo County Association of Realtors (SAMCAR) has a different vision. In a letter to the County Board of Supervisors, SAMCAR said that it opposes designating the old Caltrans freeway bypass in Montara as open space because "being adjacent to the new tunnel, these properties would be ideal sites [for homes] given their proximity to transit."

People already use this land for recreation. I walk my dogs there and see a lot of my neighbors there as well. It could be used for a recreational trail, inland away from Highway 1, stretching all the way from the Half Moon Bay airport to Pacifica.

"A lot of people already thought this land was protected," says Montara resident Jonathan Garfield. Garfield has been working getting Montarans interested in this issue.

What you can do: The Board of Supervisors will hold a hearing on the LCP revisions on March 29. The hearing will be at Board of Supervisors Chambers, 400 County Center in Redwood City at 10:00 am. At the previous meeting of the Board, nearly all the speakers were Realtors pushing for their vision of an LCP. This is a good opportunity for Montara and Moss Beach residents to make it clear that they have another vision.

If you can’t attend the hearing, you can mail a letter to the supervisors:

San Mateo County Board of Supervisors

Board President Rich Gordon

Members Mark Church, Jerry Hill, Rose Jacobs Gibson and Adrienne Tissier

400 County Center

Redwood City, 94063