SALINAS Development experts emphasized an approach of developing a neighborhood one block at a time, by local developers and with local interests in mind at a public forum this week entitled, “The Salinas Community’s Action Plan; A Results Oriented Solution to Housing Production.” Part of the city’s month-long series of housing discussions, about 100 local government officials, business leaders and community members gathered at Salinas City Center on Thursday for the presentation. The event brought development experts Charles L. Marohn, Jr., co-founder of the national nonprofit Strong Towns, and Ryan Terry, a real estate developer and urban designer with the Incremental Development Alliance, to recommend near-term strategies to develop Salinas. Both Marohn and Terry emphasized an approach of “incremental development.” “You take a little piece of town and work on it. tiny little buildings, tiny little lots in neighborhoods that people love,” said Terry. Terry said that if typical large-scale, corporate development is like extractive strip-mining, then an incremental approach is like farming, focused on sowing the seeds of long-term growth, with small, gradual steps. Marohn offered some practical ways to implement this incremental approach like allowing single family homes to convert into duplexes and triplexes, permitting all neighborhoods to install accessory dwelling units, which he preferred to call “backyard cottages” and eliminating minimum lot size requirements to allow developers to construct small starter homes. For Marohn, these changes, while simple, are part of a cultural shift necessary to meeting housing needs in an ever more expensive real estate market a shift in culture he called “the most boring revolution possible.” According to Marohn, local government is key to supporting this kind of development. Salinas’ Mayor Dennis Donohue expressed enthusiasm toward supporting the strategies recommended by Terry and Marohn. “This is one by one (approach), over a long period of time is very similar to farming. as the mayor, I certainly applaud that and support that,” said Donohue. Donohue said the event served as, “an invitation for individuals or organizations to step forward on a very local basis.” The free public forum was hosted by the Salinas Planning and Research Corporation and the Salinas Valley Chamber of Commerce in partnership with the City of Salinas, the Community Housing Improvement Systems and Planning Association (CHISPA), Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action (COPA), Central Coast Builders Association and Monterey County Farm Bureau.
https://www.montereyherald.com/2025/11/21/experts-recommend-incremental-development-in-salinas/
Experts recommend ‘incremental development’ in Salinas
