.Tiny Village Moves Ahead at Church in Watsonville

A tiny home development for 34 homeless people slated for the parking lot of Westview Presbyterian Church in Watsonville can move forward after the City Council on March 11 denied an appeal by a neighbors’ group that has been battling the placement of the project since its inception in October 2023.

The development is officially called Recurso de Fuerza Village and nicknamed the Tiny Village.

The so-called low-barrier navigation center—defined as a temporary shelter focused on providing services and getting people into permanent housing—has drawn alarm from residents in the dense neighborhood who say it’s the wrong place for such a use.

State law allows for expedited review of such projects, and prohibits local governments from requiring conditional use permits and discretionary approval.

As such, the council was limited in its deliberations to whether the zoning administrator erred when it approved the project.

The issue began in 2023, when Monterey County received a $7.9 million Encampment Resolution Funding Grant to build the Recurso de Fuerza Village, which officials from both Santa Cruz and Monterey counties see as a way to reduce the numbers of unhoused people, and to clear encampments along the levees in advance of a major restoration project.

The project was approved in 2024. The Watsonville Zoning Administrator determined the project met applicable zoning standards, a largely ministerial decision that determined only whether it checked all the legal boxes.

The neighbors appealed that decision in October, which was denied the following month on Dec. 3. The group appealed again two weeks later, leading to the March 11 discussion.

Several people addressed the board during the three-hour discussion, many of them in favor of the project.

Officials in both the City of Watsonville and Santa Cruz County have long said that they were blindsided by the placement at the church, whose property is bordered by neighborhoods.

Councilwoman Ari Parker stressed that the city is not against helping the homeless. Instead, the pushback comes from the process that circumnavigated the city’s discretionary approval.

“I am just really upset, and I can’t let that go on the one side of my job to say that this was so poorly done,” she said. 

Parker also questioned whether Community Action Board—the nonprofit chosen to manage the Tiny Village despite having no experience taking on such a role—could do the job.

“We feel like the part where we are part of the process in our own city was taken away from us,” she said.

Advocates say the development will be bordered by fences, including security and a set of rules designed to keep both residents and neighbors safe. 

But those promises are cold comfort to Catalina Torres, who says that the people who live on the levee have threatened residents, who contend with burglary, drug dealing and trash including syringe waste.

Torres leads the neighbors’ group, which filed the appeals.

“All children’s parks are not safe either, filled with discarded needles, and residents having been chased by people carrying sticks and machetes,” she said. “I am one of them.”

Torres said she and her fellow neighbors agree the homeless population needs help. But the site is in the wrong location, she said. 

“We have never opposed this project,” she said. “Our concern is solely about the location. You plan to place a low-barrier shelter in downtown Watsonville. It’s troubling. It feels like you’re creating a conveyor belt of troubles for us.”

Marta Buliach, also part of the neighbors’ group, said that the potential problems at the tiny village could be compounded by a shortage of 15 officers in Watsonville Police Department. 

Buliach also said that the city has ignored zoning rules to allow the project.

“This neighborhood deserved better than what you did here,” she said. “This is not competent and virtuous zoning.”

In a letter to the city, attorney William Seligmann—who is representing the neighbors—said that the project “will drastically change the character and intensity of the current use of the properties.”

“Instead of simply providing religious services, the church properties now will also offer transitional housing and navigation services to a currently unhoused population in addition to the current religious services,” Seligmann wrote.

But Interim Assistant Community Development Director Matt Orbach said that the low-barrier navigation center is a new use that was established lawfully and therefore was not a basis to grant the appeal.

Monterey County Homeless Services Director Roxanne Wilson said she was “truly saddened” by the group’s feeling that the neighborhood is “suffering from the results of people experiencing homelessness.” 

Wilson acknowledged that the neighbors’ concerns are valid, but said that the Tiny Village offers a solution that will ease those problems.

“While at full capacity, there will be 34 people who are not going to be sleeping in your parks, not going to get food down the street, not lingering in your streets at night looking for a safe place to lay their heads, not digging through the trash looking for survival materials for the night,” she said.

Councilwoman Kristal Salcido said the council’s job was simply to apply the law.

“Listening to the legislative intent, reading the four sections of this code section, I believe that there has been enough evidence shown to justify the planning commission’s denial, and the zoning administrator’s granting of the use of this facility,” she said.

Now, she said, the council is tasked with making sure the Tiny Village is run correctly.