FORT BRAGG, CA., 5/15/25 — At Monday evening’s Fort Bragg City Council meeting, councilmembers approved a coastal development use permit for a 49-unit three-story apartment complex on Hazelwood Street, a dead-end adjacent to Moura Senior Housing, on a lot above the Noyo River. After developers make changes asked for by the council, the permit will come back for another approval.
One apartment in the complex would be reserved for a manager, with the other 48 slated as rentals for seniors over 62 years who earn 30-60% of Mendocino County’s median income. All units would be managed as affordable for 55 years, and they cannot be sold as condos or rented for vacation rentals.
Marie Jones, a planning consultant for the city, said in a presentation to the council that the applicant, AMG & Associates, planned a large stormwater bioswale and extensive landscaping with 34 native trees, and that the applicant requested an increase in the city’s mandated height limit from 35 feet to 43 feet for an elevator shaft and a reduction in the required parking spaces to 72 spaces, which could be further reduced by the Planning Commission to 52 spaces.
It turned out that parking and the street configuration dominated most public comment and the council discussion.
“When it was first proposed,” Jones explained, “the project was circled by a driveway going all the way around the complex.”
That plan was scrapped for what Jones referred to as a hammerhead turnaround at the end of Hazelwood and a reduction in parking spaces.
“We reduced the amount of paving and turned parking spaces into permeable paving,” Jones said. Because of the project’s location above the Noyo River, the applicants created an extensive stormwater plan, including the bioswale. Jones explained that stormwater would go into an infiltration basin: “There is an overflow system, infiltration and biological filtering built into the landscaping.”
Beep, beep, beep
Public comment centered around parking and the driveway. The first speaker said he lived close to the project, and that he was speaking for neighbors who were unable to attend.
“Commercial vehicles come in. Garbage trucks, Amazon,” he said. “Since it’s a dead end, we get beep, beep when they back up to turn around.”
He wanted the drive that encircled the project reinstated rather than the hammerhead configuration. He also wanted more parking.
“If you go to 52 spaces, you have no spaces for visitors. Caregivers will have to park on the street,” he said.
Another woman mentioned that last week she’d been awakened by a garbage truck at 5:45 a.m. “The garbage truck came, and then I realized that delivery trucks, the Apria oxygen truck, ambulances… I think we need to look at some way to reconnect that circular drive.”
Christine Stone summed it up, “We live there because it’s so lovely and peaceful and quiet. We’ve gotta do that circular drive because of the beeping. Or you’re going to see me out there in my underwear with a rake or something.”
Applicant Cameron Johnson of AMG, speaking for developer The Pacific Companies, said that he wished there could be fewer parking spaces.
“We’ve built around a hundred of these projects and found that only about half of our seniors drive.”
He said that feedback from those projects is that residents wished for less parking and more open space.
“But we want to be good neighbors, and 72 parking spaces is fine,” he concluded.
Project architect Douglas Gibson of Pacific West Architecture said that a road encircling the project would be one-way, and that he would have to go back to the initial plans to ascertain if the manner in which trash containers were situated would work with a one-way system. When questioned further by Councilmember Lindy Peters, Gibson said that they would assess going back to a circular drive.
In the end, Peters suggested giving the developers the option to add more parking spaces and that he wanted the developers to go back and look at parking and the circular driveway. Vice Mayor Marcia Rafanan and Councilmember Tess Albin-Smith both wanted the circular driveway, though Mayor Jason Godeke said he struggled with the circular driveway and all the paving it would require. He suggested that some parking spaces could be eliminated in favor of the driveway. He also wanted to make certain that “this housing is going to folks who really need it.” He proposed a method of word-of-mouth advertising locally so that those in town would hear about signups for units before they were announced online.
The council also discussed the importance of landscaping and retaining as many shrubs as possible between the new project and the Moura apartments. Given the street name, Albin-Smith advocated for native hazelwood trees.
With these cautions and amendments, the council voted unanimously to adopt the development permit.
The article might leave the impression that the parking spaces and circular driveway are just being put out there for consideration. In fact, the Council adopted a detailed, legally binding development permit including amendments requiring 72 parking spaces and a driveway around the building. It did not just throw the questions out there for further discussion.
The only caveat was that 6 to 8 parking spaces might have to be dropped in order to accommodate trash storage/pickup space in a wraparound driveway configuration. This would still increase available parking by about 1/3 and is acceptable to the neighbors as a reasonable tradeoff if necessary to return to the original “circular” drive design.
There should be no issue about lot coverage or hardscape versus permeable surfaces — the project occupies only 50% or less of the site, leaving more than enough permeable area running south towards the river.
On behalf of the Hazelwood Street Neighbors I thank our council members for their sensitivity to the neighborhood’s concerns, and thank the developer for its forthright agreement to include more parking and a driveway around the building. We look forward to seeing this needed senior housing development become a reality.
— Tim Perry
How and where can one get on the prospective tenant list?
Beside shade trees, landscaping should include apple trees, pollinator-friendly native flora, & garden space.