A three-hour-long City Council hearing in Half Moon Bay on Wednesday evening, where the Council unanimously voted to deny three appeals to an affordable housing project for senior farmworkers, closed with chants: “¡Sí se pudo! ¡Sí se pudo!” “¡A la bio, a la bao, a la bimbombá!”
The decision allowed a 40-unit housing development and farmworker resource center near downtown Half Moon Bay, known as 555 Kelly, to move forward after months of public discussion and debate.
Approving the development has been an uphill battle in a community that has suffered in recent years. In January 2023, a deadly mass shooting at two farms, California Terra Garden Inc. and Concord Farms, took the lives of seven immigrant farmworkers and exposed unpermitted employee-provided housing for farmworkers in the Coastside region of San Mateo County. Farmworkers were living in uninsulated shipping containers and sheds with no running water, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in January 2023.
However, the need for safe and affordable housing in Half Moon Bay was an issue long before the tragedy spotlighted the small seaside community. Rents have risen roughly 9% between 2009 and 2019, home prices have nearly doubled since 2012, and development has slowed in the last decade partly because of a local measure meant to slow growth, which went into effect in 2009.
According to the city’s draft Housing Element, only about 300 housing units have been built since 2010, yet the population has grown by 9.8% between 2010 and 2020, according to census data.
“The reason that people who farm Half Moon Bay food cannot live in Half Moon Bay is in large part because the city has not allowed enough housing to be built in the last 50 years,” said Jeremy Levine, the policy manager for Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County, a nonprofit that supports housing growth to address shortages.
Approximately 9% of renter households in the city are severely overcrowded and those who earn lower wages are at a higher risk of overcrowding and displacement, according to the city’s 2023-2031 Housing Element, which has not yet been approved by the state.
Half Moon Bay resident Yajayra Sonoqui is among those living in overcrowded conditions. She lives in a three-bedroom apartment with eight other family members, including her father, who was a farmworker in Half Moon Bay for more than 40 years.
(Farmworkers) give too much to this community for us not to support them.
Yajayra Sonoqui, Half Moon Bay resident
On Wednesday evening, Sonoqui stood in front of City Council while holding a photo of her father in the fields and shared her support of the senior farmworker housing project on his behalf. He is currently recovering from surgery, she said.
“My dad came to Half Moon Bay 42 years ago to work at a farm,” she said during a public comment period. “One of his goals is to have a decent place to live and rest his last years of life with my mother.”
Before her public comment, Sonoqui told El Tímpano that she hoped her parents would be able to move into one of the few two-bedroom apartments at the development so that they could live out their days more comfortably and have space for one of their family members to move in and care for them.
“He’s always on the go and now that his health has declined, it’s been hard on him,” Sonoqui said of her father. “(Farmworkers) give too much to this community for us not to support them,” Sonoqui added in Spanish.
Half Moon Bay farmworker Rocio Avila lived in overcrowded housing for more than a decade, she says. Her experience drove her to advocate for affordable housing for several years, participating in local meetings and marching monthly through the town to bring attention to the community’s housing needs.
“I am pleased, I’m happy,” Avila said in Spanish after Wednesday’s meeting ended. “My hope was ‘Okay, (the City Council members) want this too.’ How are they going to be able to oppose this project that has been fought for for so long?”
Avila, who immigrated from Guanajuato, Mexico to Half Moon Bay in 2010, works on her brother’s ranch, harvesting beans, flowers, peas and other produce. Until four months ago, Avila says she, her husband and their three children crammed into a single room in a house shared with her three brothers.
“The four of us slept in bed, (one) on the floor, without having a space where they can do their homework, where they can play. And yet we are privileged compared to other families because we lived with our family, but there are people who don’t have that, who cannot leave the room to be able to enjoy the living room or to be able to enjoy the kitchen or for the children to be able to go outside,” she added.
Four months ago, Avila said her immediate family of five was able to move into a three-bedroom mobile home, which gave her children more space to grow and play.
“Now (my children) are so happy, so calm, so at ease,” said Avila. “They said ‘I want a desk.’ We have a small desk for everyone. That was what they wanted, a space where they could do their homework.”
555 Kelly was years in the making
In 2022, affordable housing developer Mercy Housing and nonprofit Ayudando Latinos A Soñar (ALAS), which works closely with Half Moon Bay’s Latino community to support everything from arts and cultural programs to Medi-Cal registration, partnered to submit a joint proposal in response to the city’s request to develop the city-owned property at 555 Kelly Avenue.
In May 2024, the Half Moon Bay Planning Commission approved the project after three public meetings and scrutiny from Gov. Gavin Newsom for the commission’s slow action.
Shortly after the approval, three appeals were filed against the planning commission’s decision, which slowed the process and cost the developers a competitive funding opportunity from the county.
“There’s a lot of work to be done when you’re doing a housing project, which is a natural course of it, but it’s also been an emotional process because this is one of the most vulnerable communities that we know: senior farmworkers,” said Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga, the executive director of ALAS in a June 13 interview. “Our community has been through so much with the mass shooting, with the flooding, with the COVID (pandemic), with our farmworkers at the helm.”
On Wednesday, the Council voted 4-0 to deny the appeals and allow the project to progress. The fifth city council member, Mayor Joaquin Jimenez, recused himself because he once worked for ALAS.
The 40-unit development, located at 555 Kelly Avenue on city-owned property near Half Moon Bay’s downtown, will provide housing for farmworkers 55 years old or older who are considered very low-income or extremely low-income based on classifications set by the California Department of Housing and Community Development. According to 2023 data, a two-person household making $74,600 or less annually is considered very low income in San Mateo County.
The new development will also house a farmworker resource center, equipped with a commercial kitchen and office space for ALAS and other organizations.
Vocal opposition slowed project
While the project has been in the works since 2022, the past several months stirred up vocal opposition from some Half Moon Bay residents while receiving support at the state level.
Many of those who spoke in opposition of the project said they had concerns regarding traffic and parking, the proximity to a school and downtown, the building’s proposed height, and how the development might affect Half Moon Bay’s character.
Among the concerns raised by both community members and some city officials was how the project proposal had changed within the two years that Mercy Housing and ALAS submitted a response to the city’s request and the final proposal approved by the planning commission.
The project was always intended to be 40 units for senior farmworkers and include a farmworker resource center, however the initial proposal planned for a four-story building and 40 studio apartments. Instead, the approved plans include a mix of mostly one-bedroom apartments, along with studios and two-bedroom apartments. The project now also includes a fifth story, the first of its kind in Half Moon Bay, and a larger space for the farmworker resource center.
Luis Enrique Bazán, the assistant director of ALAS, said that throughout the process the senior farmworker community provided feedback and shaped the final project proposal. He said that reverting back to the initial proposal would have meant ignoring the voices of the community for which the project is meant.
Forty studio apartments wasn’t necessarily going to meet the needs of this entire population.
Kelly Hollywood, Mercy Housing, Associate Director
“We want to create communities that are culturally responsible and reflective of those individuals that we are serving and so we often look to the community to really understand what those needs are,” Associate Director of Mercy Housing Kelly Hollywood said in a June 20 interview. “Forty studio apartments wasn’t necessarily going to meet the needs of this entire population.”
To date, Mercy Housing has secured several million in funding for the project, yet they are still applying for funds to finance the estimated $40 million development and will need to work with the city on development and leasing agreements before breaking ground.
While Wednesday’s meeting cleared one hurdle, the project is still years away from completion. Hollywood said Mercy Housing hopes to break ground in mid-2026.
