SMC Supes Approve $11.5M To Start Building Farmworkers' Housing

HALF MOON BAY, CA — On Tuesday, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a nearly $11.5 million contract to start work on Stone Pine Cove, a new community in Half Moon Bay where dozens of manufactured homes are planned for low-income farmworkers and their families.

The proposed project will sit on five acres at 880 Stone Pine Road, approximately a mile from downtown Half Moon Bay. The new homes are tentatively scheduled to be ready for occupancy by March 2025.

The action follows a May 7 decision to allocate nearly $6 million to buy and install 47 manufactured homes from Santa Cruz-based Bigfoot Homes for farmworker families, including 19 households displaced by the Jan. 23, 2023 mass shooting at two farms that killed seven people.

"Usually, jurisdictions celebrate [and hold] groundbreaking ceremonies with special shovels and numerous officials to commemorate when work begins onsite, and perhaps someday we will hold such an event," said Supervisor Ray Mueller. "But not today. Not this week. At this moment we respond to the prayers of those waiting for a safe and healthy place to live with the urgency of this Board action."

The Stone Pine Cove property is city-owned, and the project is a collaboration between the county of San Mateo and the city of Half Moon Bay. Using manufactured homes rather than building from the ground up carries lower initial construction costs and quicker completion, the county said.

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