Is bigger always better? Housing development plans divide Contra Costa County officials, neighbors
MARTINEZ — A seemingly simple three-story, 24-unit apartment complex has pitted Contra Costa County’s top legislative officials against their own appointed housing advisors — illustrating a stark difference in opinion about how local governments should build homes in the East Bay.
Located less than two miles inland from the Benicia-Martinez Bridge, a proposed 22,000-square-foot building is poised to replace long-overgrown weeds on a 0.77-acre lot near the intersection of Windhover Way and Pacheco Boulevard — a plot of land that has sat vacant in unincorporated Martinez since 1989.
Blueprints for the Windhover Terrace apartments project aren’t overly flashy: 12 one-bedroom units, 12 two-bedroom units, 40 parking spaces and a covered carport for 16 of those stalls. The developer, West Coast Land and Development, also has agreed to build two communal gathering areas, 7-foot walls around the project perimeter and pay the county $150,000 for other community improvements.
The proposed three-story proposal, however, was still too overwhelming for the county’s seven-member Planning Commission, even though the parcel has been zoned to accommodate multifamily high-density and act as a transitional buffer between higher-use areas and residential streets for more than three decades.
Commissioners rejected the project in August 2023, largely concerned that the project was too tall, dense and traffic-heavy to adequately fit in the adjacent neighborhood of townhouses, duplexes and single family homes.
Commission Chair Kevin Van Buskirk said he was discouraged that county officials pushed for the density bonus that added more units to the complex — arguing that the move gave developers full reign without any opportunity for local recourse.
“I’m not a fan of what the state has done over the years,” Buskirk said last year, adding that he would consider moving if “apartments of this magnitude” were allowed to be built next to his single-family home. “I could probably go drop an (accessory dwelling units) in my backyard, which shouldn’t have an ADU, because the state says I can. But it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.”
However, Contra Costa County Supervisors vastly disagreed and unanimously voted on Tuesday to overturn the Planning Commission’s denial and resurrect the project — trumping the handful of neighbors who spoke up in opposition.
Board Chair Federal Glover supported the development’s push to enhance a long-underutilized site while increasing the county’s affordable housing stock. The site is in close proximity to job opportunities and public transportation along Pacheco Boulevard’s commercial corridor, which connects other multifamily housing complexes, restaurants, schools, small businesses and gas stations nearby.
“Infill projects are difficult, and certainly it’s difficult when people have lived in an area to find anything that they’re going to find totally satisfying,” Glover said, adding that the project was approved with several concessions made after the planning commission’s denial. “Although I understand what neighbors are saying, this is a project that I think in terms of what we see there today — a very blighted area — is something that will give some improvement.”
Additionally, Supervisor Ken Carlson said that while the apartment complex is three stories, the project’s proposed 34.25-foot height is still lower than the 35-foot maximum allowed in neighboring residential districts. Supervisor John Gioia was absent Tuesday.
Despite public pushback against broader plans that can support more units, county staff assigned to the project said density bonuses that allow for that kind of expansion are vital — helping make plans financially feasible for developers, especially for infill properties like Windhover Terrace.
Case in point, the current plan is the fourth attempt to build housing on that property; previous developers obtained approvals for complexes featuring between 16 and 18 units, but each were forced to abandon their plans because of “overwhelming monetary and conditional hurdles” tied to the property and neighbors’ complaints.
The current project isn’t progressing too much faster; plans were first submitted in October 2021 and approved by the zoning administrator in February 2023, prior to being appealed to the county planning commission last year.
Yet, several Contra Costa County residents left the supervisors’ chambers this week disheartened that the project is still moving forward at all.
“Our kids played in that field for years growing up, as did others in the surrounding area,” said Wendy Slaney, who lives down the street from the proposed Windhover Terrace apartments. “We weren’t ignorant to think that something, someday would be built there. We just didn’t realize or dream that it would be a three-story apartment complex.”