Tom’s Priorities & Values

Monterey Peninsula Airport District (MPAD). Many residents have shared concerns about the impact of the airport’s proximity. Over the years, the airport has expanded to help connect Monterey to almost anywhere in the world, but requiring early departures and late arrivals to accommodate connections at major hubs.

The MPAD has a voluntary noise abatement program, encouraging pilots to avoid flying over neighborhoods. However, this guidance is often ignored, with some flights heading directly over District 1 as early as 5 a.m.

By collaborating with the MPAD and the Monterey County Airport Land Use Commission, we can improve compliance with the noise program.

Monterey needs a water supply that is:

• Reliable and affordable

• Environmentally responsible

• Scalable to accommodate future growth

• Planned alongside other infrastructure constraints, especially transportation

Monterey residents are familiar with the region’s long-standing shortage of potable water and how it has shaped development—from small home additions to large hotel projects. The challenge is compounded by the myriad of regulatory agencies involved and slow and overly complex permitting processes.

We need thoughtful planning to build sustainable growth without endangering the water supply.

How much water is enough?
Enough to support existing needs and a sustainable level of growth for the Peninsula, especially District One.

What’s the best way to grow the water supply?
Because growth timing is unpredictable, the best approach is modular, scalable supply projects. Efforts like Pure Water Monterey and expanded use of surface water from lakes and storm flows offer adaptable solutions.

Are there other environmental or infrastructure constraints?
Yes. Increased development in Pacific Grove and New Monterey will worsen already serious congestion on Lighthouse Avenue and Highway 68. This is likely to be a greater challenge to growth than water.

Will the water be affordable?
Monterey’s water rates are already among the highest in the country. Large speculative infrastructure projects risk creating stranded assets, shifting unnecessary costs onto ratepayers.

Before asking residents to approve new taxes or fees, the City should first take a close look at where its money is going and where savings may be possible.

This means understanding the true cost of City services—not just employee pay and benefits, but also the cost of buildings, equipment, utilities, insurance, and major maintenance. Without this information, it is difficult to make responsible budget decisions.

Some City facilities, including the Monterey Sports Center and Wharf II, require sudden bail outs from the General Fund and the Neighborhood Improvement Program (NIP) for predictable true costs. More of the true costs should be shared by users and businesses depending on the facilities before new revenue is requested from residents.

Neighborhood Improvement Program (NIP)

The City Charter requires that 16% of hotel tax revenue be set aside for neighborhood improvement projects through the NIP fund.

The NIP process gives residents a direct role in setting priorities for improvements in their neighborhoods, with the NIP Committee recommending projects and the City Council making final budget decisions.

Because voters approved these funds for neighborhood improvements, they should be used for City services and predictable true costs only as a last resort. If needed during fiscal emergencies, only unallocated funds—not money already committed to approved projects—should be considered.

Making Tough Decisions

If budget reductions are needed, they should be targeted and thoughtful—not across-the-board cuts that reduce service quality or drive away City employees.

Budget decisions should:

• Protect essential services

• Be made with empathy for those impacted

• Guided by clear financial information

• Include meaningful public input

An advisory vote allowing residents to weigh options such as service adjustments, fee increases, or tax measures would improve transparency and support long-term financial stability.

Housing in Monterey is expensive because demand is high and supply is limited. Monterey is a job center, a military community, a college town, and a place people from around the world want to live. At the same time, the Peninsula has limited land, traffic constraints, and delicate ecosystems that restrict large-scale development. 

High housing prices are pushing middle-class families out and turning single-family homes into corporate investments, vacation rentals, and part-time residences. This reduces the number of homes available for people who want to live in Monterey long term.

Monterey depends on service workers, educators, and nonprofit employees, yet many cannot afford local housing, especially with single-family homes priced in the million dollar range.

As a result, many workers commute from outside the area, increasing traffic on Highway 68 and Highway 1. In some cases, housing costs even within commuting distance are too high, making it harder for local businesses and organizations to fill essential jobs.

Therefore the most urgent need is investment affordable workforce housing—housing for the people who work in Monterey but cannot afford to live here.

What’s Driving High Housing Costs

Several factors are will continue pushing prices up:

• Limited land area suitable for building

• Inflation and interest rates

• Military housing allowances that influence rents

• Students seeking housing near campus

• Second homes, short-term rentals, and vacant units

• Corporate ownership reducing available housing

Why the Current Approaches Won’t Work

The goal is not simply more housing or helping residents make use of existing housing, but the right housing for the people who live and work in Monterey.

Simply building more market-rate housing will not solve Monterey’s affordability problem when demand pressures will continue to drive prices up even if available land reaches capacity. Recent state laws allowing up to four units on many single-family lots ignore Monterey’s unique constraints. On a narrow peninsula with traffic chokepoints like Lighthouse Avenue, already shared with heavy tourist traffic and relied on by Pacific Grove residents as well, additional density without planning could worsen congestion, strain the water supply, and put pressure on the natural environment that supports Monterey’s economy. Pacific Grove is also planning additional housing and new visitor-serving development that will depend on the same limited road network. Without careful local planning, well-intended state policies could make daily life here more difficult without making housing more affordable.

Over the past several years, the City’s main action on rental housing has been creating a rental registry that costs renters and property owners more than $300,000 per year but has not reduced rents in a meaningful way.

The focus should be targeted on increasing the supply of housing for local workers, not expanding administrative programs that add cost without solving the problem.

Practical Housing Solutions Targeted Toward Workers

Instead of indiscriminate housing growth that encourages more speculative investment or additional second-home ownership, the City should take a multi-pronged approach to meet the needs of workers.

1. Public-Private partnership to quickly build workforce housing at scale

Partner with major employers, nonprofits, and educational institutions to create housing for teachers, health care workers, hospitality employees, service workers, public employees, and students. Employers are harmed by the distance employees must travel and unfilled service positions due to the high cost of living. Reducing bureaucracy, amending commercial zoning near highways and fast tracking strategic projects will accelerate construction, reduce costs, and build trust with partners.

2. Use local funds strategically

Programs like the Neighborhood Improvement Program (NIP) may help support workforce housing when used carefully and with community input. The City can retain an ownership interest to protect its investment and long-term affordability.

3. Support smaller, well-planned housing types

Adjust zoning and build infrastructure that supports housing types that fit Monterey’s neighborhoods, strategically placed to avoid traffic bottlenecks and utilize less environmentally sensitive land, including:

• small apartment buildings

• condominiums and planned developments

• co-housing communities

• tiny homes and modular housing

• transitional and supportive housing for the unhoused

4. Protect and encourage temporary housing for students, interns, and residents between homes

Temporary housing options like hostels or furnished micro-apartments targeted at shorter-term residents and reduces pressure on long-term rentals and help keep workforce housing available for residents. The City should consider creative strategies to reserve these units for true short term residents rather than tourists, particularly during car week.

5. Sparing use of rent stabilization and control

While rental increases should be predictable and not outrageous for residents, the City must stay mindful that construction and maintenance costs are unavoidably high in the area and that too stringent controls or controls that kick in too soon after building of new units could disincentive investment in the exact multi-unit housing types needed in the area.

6. Address and monetize housing kept off the market

Second homes, vacation rentals, long-term vacancies, and corporate ownership reduce the number of homes available to residents. The City should support policies that discourage housing from sitting empty or being used only part time. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and similar corporate ownership models should be carefully regulated. Where these uses continue, the City should apply targeted taxes and fees and reinvest the revenue in improvements that benefit local residents.

7. Push back against the state’s one-size-fits all “build more” policies

State housing laws are changing zoning across California, even places where genuine physical and environmental constraints rather than NIMBYism . The City Council should work with state leaders to ensure housing solutions reflect local conditions.

Traffic in Monterey has steadily increased and now affects safety, parking, and quality of life. New Monterey and Pacific Grove share just two main access routes, Lighthouse Avenue and Highway 68. Lighthouse Avenue carries 80% of the Peninsula’s traffic and regularly becomes gridlocked during peak tourist periods and impassable during major events. During Car Week, traveling less than a mile can take 45 minutes or more. This level of congestion is not sustainable.

The situation will worsen. Pacific Grove has opened the Kimpton Mirador Hotel, is planning additional hotel rooms at the former American Tin Cannery site, and must accommodate more than 1,100 new housing units. At the same time, Monterey Housing Element revisions supported by Councilmember Barber place additional housing density in New Monterey and allow up to six units on some residential parcels. In Old Town, where parking is already highly constrained and many units lack off street parking, additional density will constrain the ability to come and go, especially given the limitations of our regional public transportation.

Encouraging growth without addressing traffic capacity risks making daily travel more difficult for residents while reducing neighborhood livability.

Practical Steps to Reduce Congestion

Several targeted actions could help improve traffic flow and reduce impacts on neighborhoods:

• Test closing Washington Street between Franklin Street and Del Monte Avenue except for left and right turns and eliminate the Lighthouse Avenue signal phase at that intersection to improve throughput.

• Require pedestrians to use the Portola Plaza pedestrian way rather than the crosswalk which crosses Del Monte at Washington.

• Encourage visitors to park east of the Lighthouse Tunnel and use shuttle service to Cannery Row by applying parking taxes to private lots and public parking spaces in the Cannery Row area and using the revenue to support city services.

• Work with regional partners, including Pacific Grove, Carmel, Seaside, the Monterey Peninsula Airport, the Monterey Fairgrounds, the Transportation Agency for Monterey County (TAMC), and the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG), to better coordinate housing growth, transportation planning, and major events such as Car Week.

• Coordinate event schedules, shuttle options, and traffic management across Peninsula cities and major venues to reduce peak-period gridlock during large visitor events.

Monterey’s Neighborhood and Community Improvement Program (NCIP) directs a portion of hotel tax revenue to neighborhood projects approved by voters. The Neighborhood Improvement Program (NIP) Fund is the account where that money is held, and the NIP Committee is the resident-led group that recommends how the funds should be spent. Together, they were designed to support improvements that directly benefit residential neighborhoods and help offset the impacts of Monterey’s tourism economy. 

Monterey is a Charter city, so the City Charter establishes how NCIP and the NIP fund are to be used. The program was originally intended to address “front porch” neighborhood priorities and improve quality of life for residents and the charter specifies that the funds can only be diverted from neighborhood and community improvements for “ordinary and necessary services.”

The City Council, including Councilmember Barber, has repeatedly used NIP funds to help address general budget shortfalls and deferred maintenance while still funding nice-to-haves well outside the bounds of “ordinary and necessary services” such as Fourth of July lawn parties, holiday lights and banners, and unessential services. Even worse, this past year they directed the NIP Committee to review already approved neighborhood projects for possible cancellation to free up money. While this may be legally permitted, it conflicts with the intent of the Charter and the expectations of voters.

After investigation of these abuses by the Monterey County Civil Grand Jury resulted in findings against the City Council, the Council responded in part by renaming the fund and the committee involved. Today the term “NCIP” is often used to refer to the program, the fund, and the committee interchangeably, which obscures the critical role residents are meant to pay in determining how to improve their neighborhoods.

Using NIP funds to balance the budget should be a last resort, not a routine solution. If Monterey cannot resolve its structural budget deficit without using NIP funds, the issue should be put to voters in a citywide election. These funds were set aside for neighborhood improvements, and any major change to their purpose or a retooling of the program should be decided by the public.