The new M:OME/Bridge Street Project is a proposed mixed-use workforce housing residential + commercial community that is environmentally friendly, sustainable, and affordable. Imagine a cost-effective, repeatable design incorporating an economical steel structure with ecologically sensitive wall systems. Imagine buildings that generate their own electricity (grid linked); hot water and heat from the power of the sun. The intent of the M:OME/Bridge Street Neighborhood Project is to bring eco-friendly development to a wider market, while doubling the city’s inclusionary housing requirements for affordable housing units pursuant with Federal Affordable Housing Standards.

The M:OME/Bridge Street Project endeavors to addresses crucial issues of housing, development, and the environment while creating a project that expresses our collective moment in history. It is a new millennium, and we as a nation, a state, and a city, are still addressing our urgent housing needs with developer-driven tracts of resource depleting units based on last century’s model, when the earth’s entire population measured 16% of its current numbers. Furthermore, we are developing this type of construction as if the equally urgent threat of environmental demise was not a critical issue facing the world today.

As a direct response to these pressing issues, the design team has developed a project comprised of responsive, cost-effective “green” units that will save the property owner money throughout the years via low life-cycle costs, without sacrificing the modern conveniences we have all come to appreciate and expect. Components such as live/work, alternate transportation, and community gardens will allow ultimate lifestyle flexibility and encourage a wider and diverse user group to consider this proposed “neighborhood” as their new home in San Luis Obispo. In addition, this integrated, mixed-use project will become a model for true “carbon-neutral” development, in which an integrated live and work community obviates the reliance on fuel-burning vehicles.

This application seeks to entitle and develop a portion of an existing 7.73 acre split-zoned parcel within the city of San Luis Obispo into a new prototype of mixed use development. The proposal to rezone just 2.19 acres of “M” zoned property to R-2 residential while retaining 0.56 acres in the “M” zone, will yield a 5.05 acre remainder parcel which will remain in CO/S open space zoning. The existence of the “M” and “O/S” split land use designation of this property, coupled with the physical and developable nature of the 2.67 acre portion of land under consideration, create a viable scenario for this mixed use project to be realized, a project that would bring much needed relief to the housing crisis in San Luis Obispo.

This proposal will create a 24 lot Mixed Use Planned Unit Development, creating 27 total new units, with a mix of (8) commercial units, and studio, one, two, three and four bedroom attached and detached homes, with the larger single family houses also containing “granny” units to encourage maximum living options and economic sustainability. Initial financial proformas indicate a doubling of the city’s affordable unit requirement could be realized, even without the use of city fee reductions, waivers or incentives. However, by partnering with the City of San Luis Obispo, we hope to achieve an even higher percentage of affordable units, creating a vibrant, cutting-edge mixed-use project that will set a new standard in design, sustainability and affordability in San Luis Obispo.