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At long last, the local Phelps family can move ahead with building a local shopping village on its 11-acre property at the corner of Highway 68 and Corral de Tierra.
Why now? Because the County of Monterey’s 2012 final approval of the project and its certification of the project’s Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) has survived three levels of court review. After the county issued a final okay to build the village in 2012, the Highway 68 Coalition, a small group led by Mike Weaver, filed suit in the Monterey County Superior Court. In 2015, the superior court affirmed the county’s approval and the FEIR’s adequacy, finding that the opponent’s claims had no merit.
The opponent then appealed the lower court’s decision to the Court of Appeal. In July 2017, the appellate court reaffirmed the lower court’s order finding again “no merit” in Mike Weaver’s group’s claims. Undeterred, the opponent petitioned the California Supreme Court to review the case and overturn the previous court orders. The state’s highest court rejected the opponent’s petition on November 15, 2017 finding insufficient merit to warrant a hearing.
click to enlarge
The village is a fully approved project. The family is moving ahead with construction drawings, which will be submitted to the County of Monterey for review. Once the county confirms that the drawings meet strict conditions laid out in its 2012 approval, the family can pull permits required to break ground on the neighborhood village.
The village design by Hart Howerton, an environmentally sensitive, award-winning firm that designed the Santa Lucia Preserve, was modified four times during environmental review to reduce its size and height and protect scenic views. The village will be the county’s first new-construction green LEED commercial project.
Here are the some elements of the approved Corral de Tierra shopping village:
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99,970 gross square feet broken up into nine village buildings.
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All buildings except one are single storied.
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Pedestrian paths and open air plazas connect village buildings.
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Heritage oak trees stay and are incorporated into the village.
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A forward thinking rainwater harvesting and recharge system.
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Wide, deep, planted berms on frontage roads create a green screen for passersby.
As the village moves forward, we will be updating this website and our facebook page. If you’d like to receive our newsletters, just send an email to
phelpsfamily@corraldetierra.com
We appreciate all that the Toro Area residents did to support the village in its approval process and look forward to working with you to build a community hub where local residents can get together, buy groceries and mail a package without driving to Salinas or Monterey.
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