Grass Valley residents want carports back after losing them in 2023 winter storms
GRASS VALLEY — Residents at three apartment complexes in Grass Valley lost their carports after they were damaged in winter 2023 storms. The residents are fed up and want them back.
The Cascade Housing Association (CHA), which owns the complex and two others nearby, says they don't have the money to put them back up, but the Grass Valley City Council says they have to.
"Luckily, my daughter had the Jeep at the time or it would've come down on my Jeep," said cedar park apartments resident tracie hicks.
The damaged carports are at the Cedar Park, Oak Ridge and Glenbrook apartments on Sutton Way. Some of them completely collapsed onto the vehicles parked beneath.
The CHA removed them completely, citing safety concerns, but residents want them back because when the carports left, so did the lighting.
"When they removed those carports a year prior, those carports had lighting on them. So the parking lots didn't have any lighting. When they came in for that new permit, we said, "Where are the carports?' " said Lucy Rollins, Grass Valley senior planner.
The city didn't realize all of them had been completely taken out, and Grass Valley requires all multi-family housing to have one covered parking space for studios and one-bedroom units, and two parking spaces for units with two or more bedrooms.
With that, the CHA was told to put them back in.
"It's like really gruesome for the kids to be getting in 110-degree-weather cars. Like, their cheeks are red. They're hot. They're crabby. I was reaching out to Facebook communities to see if we could get more people to sign the papers to send to the city council," resident Kayla George said.
George wasn't the only one. Another tenant has been leaving letters in neighbors mailboxes urging people to write to the city.
The city said the CHA appealed the planning commission's request to build more carports, citing financial hardships. The appeal then went to the city council, which unanimously denied it in a meeting earlier this month.
"They've exhausted their administrative options. They went through the planning commission, appealed that decision to city council, so from the city's perspective, now we need to move forward with rebuilding them," Rollins said.
CBS13 reached out to both the CHA and their attorney but they declined to comment. The City of Grass Valley said they are giving the CHA until the end of the month to reach out with some sort of plan.
"A lot of people would agree we need them back up for safety and for weather," George said.
The city said their engineers will sign off on the carports once they're built to ensure sturdiness to make sure it can take the weight of snow.