20 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JANUARY 15-21, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com spirit of Salinas residents who embark on infill projects, will bring about more units. It doesn’t replace larger-scale developments, Kasavan says, like what is already proposed for the city’s northern growth area, or what nonprofits are building, but another way to build more homes. “This is how you deal with housing costs. You have to produce more houses,” Kasavan says. “We need the leadership and the will to implement these strategies into the zoning ordinance and support it, advocate for it, enable it and educate the community.” The city’s zoning code is set to undergo a three-phase update that will take approximately two years. On Dec. 2 the Salinas City Council heard an overview of the plan for community engagement. The stated goal of the process: prepare new zoning code that is streamlined and user-friendly, with objective standards consistent with “development needs and community vision.” Facilitating the construction of 3,000 well-built homes within five years was a bold goal but also a calculated one on the part of Regenerative California’s organizers. “We think of that number as more of a catalyst,” said Ashley Muse, Regenerative California’s attainable housing project lead, during a streaming event on Dec. 3, a follow-up to the Monterey Attainable Housing Forum one month before. The state-required number of planning for nearly 20,300 houses is an overwhelming number, she said—a goal of 3,000 is ambitious but attainable. “How can we get that catalytic first 3,000 homes out there and in doing so pave the way for other projects to follow so we can have a shot at actually meeting those regional needs?” she asked. During the Attainable Housing Forum, held Nov. 6-7 at Asilomar Conference Grounds, 60-plus people gathered to strategize how to make the goal a reality. They looked at building coalitions of employers to create workforce housing, as well as other ways to promote infill developments and other housing. Muse says there are “land stewards” in the community who are eager to provide more housing, like healthcare facilities, faith-based communities, school districts and other employers who are looking to solve their workforce housing needs. They aren’t seeking to make money on development and they don’t have a background in it. There is an opportunity, however, for employers to band together and be a common voice calling for local jurisdictions to further streamline zoning, permitting and approvals. Building the 3,000 units would take capital, and for that Muse provides an estimate that at an average cost of $750,000 per unit—taking into account all types of units from apartments to single-family homes—it would take $2.25 billion to build them. A typical project requires 20 percent of the cost in order to get construction loans, meaning $450 million of “catalytic capital” to secure those loans. Working with the nonprofit Impact Finance Center based in Colorado, Regenerative California leaders estimate the private wealth available in Monterey County is conservatively $159 billion. While not proposing to use only private wealth, they believe the community has what it needs and more to meet the goal of 3,000 units. The question, Muse asked on Dec. 3, was if the money exists, and they can show the benefit to the community, “Why can’t we unlock this?” Forum participants divided into three groups. One group is focused on finding and cataloging available land. Another is tackling ways to remove barriers to planning, permitting and accessing utilities. The third group, the Capital Fund for Attainable Housing, has the task of figuring out where to get the money. Sanders is sitting outside Alta Bakery in downtown Monterey with a cappuccino on a sunny fall day explaining the intricacies of community land trusts and raising capital to build housing. He’s been talking to local employers who understand what’s at stake if their employees can’t afford to live locally. “What it really comes down to is if this place doesn’t have a reliable workforce, the folks who made our coffees today won’t be able to keep doing that,” he says. A new face every couple of months doesn’t build relationships. “Ask any retail business. It’s just hard to keep people around,” he says. As executive director of the Opportunity Housing Trust, a nonprofit community land trust founded in 2024, Sanders is working on creative ways to acquire land for creating permanently affordable housing. Community land trusts own the land, in turn offering ground leases to owners of the affordable homes on that land, ensuring stability for low-income families. Sanders helped organize and took part in the two-day forum and is co-leading the Capital Fund for Attainable Housing with Jake Ifshin, an impact investment adviser and member of the Regenerative California advisory board. Their group is charged with uncovering the blended capital— that is capital from a variety of sources—that will be needed to achieve the goal of 3,000 homes. “We already know we have the potential for anchor investors for the capital fund locally,” Sanders says. “If people start putting skin in the game, people that are respected in the community, I think that will get even more of the same investment for those low-interest loans, combined with grants to get really beneficial projects off the ground.” With examples from other parts of the country where impact investing has led to the construction of attainable housing—projects have been built in Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Oregon—the question became, why not Monterey County? “Yes, the cost of land is higher. Yes, the cost of labor is higher,” Sanders says, “but so is the wealth.” There is skepticism that such efforts to find new capital, build small infill projects and enact change within recalcitrant bureaucracies will succeed, or even be able to produce enough new homes to make a difference. MBEP’s Huerta, who helped plan the Regenerative California forum, admits he was skeptical about the group’s goal of facilitating the creation of 3,000 homes, but by the end of the two days his attitude changed to “cautious optimism.” Huerta believes there are lessons to be learned from the world of affordable housing, capital “A,” when it comes to streamlining and investing. He advocates for taking the best tools from the marketplace and the best tools from the affordable housing space and applying it to building more units for the missing middle. Overall change will not come quickly, but Huerta believes it’s coming. “It’s not going to be as fast as everybody wants and needs, but I think this is a pivot point,” he says. “This is how you deal with housing costs. You have to produce more houses.” Monterey Mayor Tyller Williamson shares a moment with another participant in the Monterey Attainable Housing Forum on Nov. 6-7. Participants strategized how to facilitate the construction of 3,000 homes in Monterey County within five years. HANNY HSIAN
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