Encinitas planners continue hearing on Quail Meadows project to ‘date uncertain’

The Encinitas Planning Commission postponed the Thursday, Nov. 3 vote on the massive Quail Meadows apartment complex proposal after hearing that a redesign is in the works

A representative for developer Baldwin & Son told the commissioners that his company is now making some design changes in response to questions the commissioners asked at last month’s hearing and he asked if the Thursday, Nov. 3 vote could be postponed until after the revised plans are submitted to the city.

Commission Chair Kevin Doyle said he had no problem postponing the vote to a yet-to-be-determined date.

“You guys have been very responsive. You’re on the right track,” he said.

The proposed development, which commissioners have said is the biggest the city has seen, would place 485 apartments on a 12-acre site on Quail Gardens Drive, just north of its intersection with Encinitas Boulevard. For comparison, Encinitas Apartments — a recently approved project that has been intensely opposed by its neighbors in Olivenhain — is proposed to contain 250 units.

During the Planning Commission’s Oct. 20 meeting, commissioners said they had many concerns with the proposed development, particularly its plan to segregate all of the project’s 72 low-income apartments into one building, leaving the three other structures with all of the market-rate units. They said they found this troubling and said the state’s Coastal Commission would likely have issues with it, too.