Central Coast Continuing to Deal with High Cost of Living

MONTEREY COUNTY, CALIF. (KION,TV)- Andres Velez recently moved to Monterey County. He explained just how high some of the prices for apartments were for just one bedroom.

“The price between 1800 to 2400 is just something for one person?,” Velez said.

Although he can afford the payment, he understands why people are struggling in the area. Especially when they add fees that weren’t expected.

“They tell you that it's going to be like $1700, you know, on the plan,” Velez said. “Then when you get there, you're filling out paperwork. and then just from 1700 to 18, 19, 2000, then you're like at 2200 when you thought you were gonna be paying $1700.”

To put the issue into perspective we found the average rent for apartments on the central coast via Rent Cafe.

Monterey County says they have plans in place to create affordable housing projects.

But the county's Housing Program Manager Darby Marshall says none of that matters if the market and developers help contribute to the projects.

“We can zone all we want, but  if the market doesn’t develop or deliver,” Marshall said. “If the market looks at and goes, ‘You know, I'm only going to build the bare minimum of the very low income units required by the inclusionary housing ordinance,’ they would only get us 6% of those units as affordable.”

That six percent Marshall mentioned comes from the fact that the county is doing their sixth cycle housing element due to the state.

Under that element the county has to plan for 3,326 total new housing units. Of those total units the county has to plan for, 1,000 of those units need to be for low to extremely low income households. 

The housing element cycle is due to the state by the end of the year.