Planning Commission advances 115-unit affordable housing project 

The Palm Springs Planning Commission on Tuesday approved a fully affordable 115-unit apartment project at the northwest corner of West San Rafael Drive and McCarthy Road. 

The project, proposed by Pacific West Communities, will include a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom units spread across four three-story buildings. Other amenities will include a pool, a dog park, and a play area for young children. The future project is located on a currently undeveloped 4.04-acre lot, just south of the city’s Navigation Center, which serves people experiencing homelessness. 

The project utilizes the state’s Density Bonus Law, which allows developers to request a certain number of waivers to the city’s requirements if the project includes a certain amount of affordable housing. Pacific West Communities requested a waiver to the city’s height requirements, allowing the project to reach 30.3-feet, above the 24-feet height typically allowed under the parcel’s zoning designation.

The company also requested a waiver to the city’s maximum density of 15 dwelling units per acre on the site. The project’s density will instead be 22.6 dwelling units per acre. 

The Planning Commission unanimously approved the project’s development permit, with a few small requests such as adding benches and potentially tweaking one of the buildings. The Architectural Review Committee will review the apartment complex’s landscaping, building elevations, and proposed walls and fencing at a later date. 

While this project will be Pacific West’s first in Palm Springs, the company currently has “almost 2,000 units” constructed or in the works across the Coachella Valley, a company representative said Tuesday, with affordable housing projects underway in Indio, La Quinta, and Rancho Mirage. 

Back in November, the Planning Commission approved a fully affordable 82-unit affordable housing project nearby at 305 West San Rafael Drive, associate planner Glenn Mlaker said Tuesday. At a community meeting earlier this month, some residents of the Desert Highland Gateway Estates neighborhood expressed concerns over whether affordable housing and supportive services are becoming overly concentrated in one area of the city. 

But determining whether or not there’s an overconcentration of affordable housing units in a particular area is not part of the Planning Commission’s purview while deciding whether to approve a project, Mlaker said, adding that back in the 1970s, three separate workforce housing projects were built in the same area near City Hall. 

Two nearby homeowners appealed the Planning Commission’s approval of the 82-unit project, sending it to the City Council earlier this month. The City Council voted to uphold the commission’s November approval. 

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