By Michele Leivas
The developer of the proposed Ortega Carriage House is going back to the drawing board after receiving negative feedback from some neighborhood residents.
A town meeting on the Ortega Carriage House project that was initially scheduled for Sept. 19 was postponed, and public hearings on its Planned Unit Development (PUD) rezoning application – Bill 2024-0611 – have been continued to Oct. 22. Property owner Gayle Bulls Dixon said the postponement was to allow for further conversations on a new proposal for development. She declined to comment further.
Residents opposed to the project have raised more than $20,000 since Sept. 4 through a GoFundMe campaign, retaining attorney Paul Harden to represent them in this matter. The GoFundMe was organized by Ortega resident Peter Hunt, who lives across the street from the intended site of the proposed development. He said the community response to the project is “overwhelmingly negative.”
“The community is all in favor of development in that location, but they would like to see something that raises up the community, not helps to bring down the community,” Hunt said. “There’s a long history of failed commercial operations in Ortega, and the last thing we want to see is another failed commercial operation in Ortega.”
The current project proposal would replace the existing structure at 4230 and 4218 Ortega Boulevard with a gated, two-story 19,000 square-foot shell building with 18 customizable units that individual owners could build out to their specifications. Dixon has previously stated she would retain three of the units – two as offices for herself and her son and partner on this project, Cameron Dixon, and the third as a clubhouse for all owners to use.
