Apartment building would tower over South Oceanside neighborhood

A developer has proposed a six-story building with five floors of apartments or condominiums on a single 5,168-square-foot lot surrounded by older single-family homes and one- and two-story apartment buildings in south Oceanside.

The South Tremont Street neighborhood is between South Coast Highway and the railroad tracks, a beach neighborhood where long-time residents have lamented the continuing transition to vacation rentals and taller, multi-family buildings. The trend has picked up with the help of recent state laws encouraging higher, more dense construction to address the regional housing shortage.

The property is occupied by a single-story, 1,872-square-foot, three-bedroom house built in 1979 that last sold for $1.2 million in December 2021, according to the real estate website Redfin.

Owner and developer, Daniel Steele of Valley Center, met with city planning officials recently for a conference to go over details of the proposal.

“A developer’s conference … is an opportunity the city offers as an informal forum for prospective applicants to receive preliminary input … on conceptual plans that may or may not ultimately evolve into formal application submittals,” said Oceanside Development Services Director Darlene Nicandro.

“Neither a pre-application or formal application have been submitted to the city,” Nicandro said. “The plans provided by the applicant are typically high-level conceptual plans for discussion purposes.”

Plans submitted to the city show one commercial unit and seven parking spaces at ground level beneath five floors with a total of 18 one- and two-bedrooms apartments or condominiums. The plans also say the development qualifies for three accessory dwelling units “post construction,” though it’s unclear how that might work.

“The South Tremont project is still very early in coordination with the city,” Steele said Wednesday. “The current concept (is) designed under Oceanside’s mixed-use zoning and consistent with state housing policy encouraging walkable, transit-oriented housing near services.

“The design is evolving, and we’re working closely with (the city) staff to provide up to 20 on-site parking spaces while keeping the project pedestrian-friendly and aligned with the Coast Highway corridor plan,” he said.

Oceanside has been working for more than a decade on its Coast Highway corridor plan, which extends along both sides of the road, also known as the old Pacific Coast Highway, from Harbor Drive to the Carlsbad border.

An environmental impact report approved by the City Council in 2019 for the corridor outlined proposed roundabouts, lane reductions from four lanes to two, additional crosswalks with flashing lights, improved sidewalks, raised medians, bike lanes and more. Construction could begin next summer, pending the allocation of funding.

“We’re local owners and long-term investors in Oceanside,” Steele said. “Our focus is on thoughtful infill that strengthens the City’s housing mix and coastal character.”

The project at the southeast corner of Tremont and West streets is one of many throughout the region that use state housing laws to build taller, denser, multi-family developments by locating near transit centers or including affordable housing for qualified low-income tenants.

“This is the first of many terrible projects that developers plan for Oceanside as the result of Sacramento’s latest one-size-fits-all housing mandate eliminating local control,” said Joel West, of the group Save South O.

“More expensive market-rate units along the coast are not going to solve the city’s gap in affordable housing,” West said. “Under SB79, this project is claiming unprecedented concessions for providing four affordable units alongside 14 full-priced units.”

The concessions provided under state law allow the developer to exceed the limits of city code requirements for things such as parking, setbacks and landscaping.

The building in the 1000 block of South Tremont would cover 87% of its 5,168-square-foot lot with a 10-foot front setback and no setbacks from the side and rear property lines.