Where Else Could Big Wave Be Built on the Coast?

It’s been well over a month now since the California Coastal Commission put a kibosh on the Big Wave Project, the office park and housing complex for the developmentally disabled that would include 225,000-square-feet of office space and housing for about 50 developmentally disabled adults in separate buildings.

The Coastal Commission’s decision was based on concerns over how to provide water and wastewater treatment, environmental worries, the potential for traffic and a host of other problems they cited.

Many opponents maintained the Princeton plot behind the Half Moon Bay Airport was not the right place. Big Wave proponents say the Commissioners ignored the six-year County process that led to unanimous approval, a 6,000-page environmental impact report, and overwhelming community support.

“We own no other land for this project. The future residents live on the Coastside now, this is their home, and they want to stay here. This land is zoned for development, which is why we purchased it,” said Big Wave president Jeff Peck, who asserts that the Big Wave team, made up of community members and a Board of Directors chosen from a cross section of financial, business, professional and educational leaders, is not considering any other piece of property to build the live/work community for developmentally disabled adults.

Although if somebody donated five acres on the Coastside for the Wellness Center and 15 acres for an adjacent business park “that will provide jobs and funding for the Wellness Center in perpetuity as the present project will provide, we would listen,” he said.

So does such a piece of property on the Coastside exist? If so, where and who would have the means to donate it? If the Coastal Commission maintains that the Princeton plot behind the Half Moon Bay Airport is not the right place, then where is?

One Half Moon Bay Patch reader suggested the property that POST now owns behind Stone Pine and the Half Moon Bay Post Office along Highway 92:

“The infamous ‘weed’ lot / pseudo-park, 20 or so acre property,” he wrote in to Patch. “Someone should try to do something other than having that ugly lot sit there for years and years at the entrance to town. There’s a creek there that POST wants to protect. If someone agreed to develop part of the property, within reason, they would need to rehabilitate the creek buffer, provide some commercial space back there — well-situated, like the existing space is between Stone Pine and the post office. Maybe the wellness center with office would work there. Close to downtown and ‘services.’”

What do you think? Or do you have another location in mind?

Given the need for housing for the developmentally disabled, the Coastal Commission’s decision to nix the Princeton plans, and the Coast’s limited access to available property, where do you think the Big Wave project should be built?

Tell us in the comments.

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