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Mold, flooding, defects plague new homes in San Luis Obispo

June 26, 2024

By KAREN VELIE

For years, Gina Biegel dreamed of owning her own home. Though the dream would quickly turn into a nightmare after she purchased a new home in San Luis Obispo.

Located across from Laguna lake, San Luis Ranch is advertised as a neighborhood that “embraces the natural relationship between farming and sustainable, healthy living.” The picturesque homes set a few feet from neighbors with walking trails winding behind.

Despite the appearance, many of the homes have serious structural defects including leaking windows, black mold, doors that don’t shut properly, huge holes in walls and flooding issues.

The question is not how did the homes pass inspections, but were the homes inspected?

Before people can move into a new home in California, it is required by law to have a certificate of occupancy. The certificate certifies that a newly constructed residential building has been inspected for compliance with the California Building Standards Code and local ordinances.

While homeowners are not permitted to have utilities turned on in their names without the certificate, this requirement appears to have been waved for the San Luis Ranch development.

Biegel closed on and moved into her home in Dec. 2021. However, her certificate of occupancy was issued by San Luis Obispo’s chief building inspector on Jan. 18, 2022.

Even more concerning is the inspection dates city staff provided. For example, staff reports someone completed a sprinkler and a hydro test at Biegel’s home on Jan. 18, 2022, a day that no one from the city was at her home, Biegel said.

While the city reports Biegel’s home was fire compliant on Jan. 18, she hired an inspector who found mutiple issues including failures to meet fire safety requirements such as having a self closing door to the garage, according to the inspection report.

After Biegel moved in, shoddy workmanship caused leaks in walls and ceilings. Workers came out and cut holes in two walls and a ceiling to repair the leaks, but never came back to fix the walls. In desperation, on Oct. 7, 2022 she filed a lawsuit against Coastal Community Builders and the developer – Presidio.

A search of inspection and final reports on homes in the area show all but one was recorded sold before it received its final inspection, a home owned by a public official.

San Luis Obispo Councilwoman Jan Marx and her husband bought a home two doors down from Biegal. Marx’s home shows a completed final on Jan. 11, 2022 and a Jan. 13, 2022 purchase date. In an odd twist, while other prospective buyers say the one-story style home design purchased by Marx was restricted to low-income buyers, she appears to have paid full price for her home.

Another homeowner in the neighbor, who does not want her name in the article, said issues with mold have destroyed her home and there are currently discussion of tearing down the structure. Her backyard flooded multiple times before she hired a plumber to check her drainage system, which like others in the area consisted of a decorative only drain.

The homeowner has battled with the builder over the defects, and like a handful of residents, is also considering legal remedies.

 


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Wasn’t Rodger Maggio the Fire Marshall who conducted the inspections on these buildings during this time? Didn’t he also serve as the Chief Building Official during this time? Looking at his Linked page, it appears that now he has moved on to working as a consultant for CSG Consultants Inc, that provides expert building and fire inspection services for Arroyo Grande, Pismo Beach, San Luis Obispo and other Central Coast Cities. So glad that he moved on, and now these Cities will have competent people reviewing plans and conducting site compliance inspections for the people who rely upon them??


20

Gary Grossman has the secret handskake with the city of San Luis Obispo just as Nick Tompkins does with some cities such as Arroyo Grande, Nick’s developement at Courtland and Grand in AG, the gateway to the city, still sits as an abandoned shell years after ground breaking. I’m sure having supervisors and city officials families getting the special access to purchase Gary’s houses have nothing to do with the questionable paperwork not putting out a immediate stop order or his failure to make progress on the Prado overpass, something if “regular” people did would at least lead to huge fines and delays. Wasn’t the same thing going on back in the day with Kelly Gearhart and the developments he was involved with the north county and officals there were constantly turning a blind eyes?


42

Ernie Dalidio wouldn’t pay bribes, so he was forced to sell to Gary, who does.


7

It’s good to see so many comments from readers who see the root of the problem- the pressures put on a builder to provide X amount homes within X amount of time and must cost less than X. Cities, counties, and states and all their entities have put handcuffs on builders. Of course, builders can build higher quality…I bet they’d LOVE to, and proudly put their name all over it and not just take four plans and have a permit for a short amount of time, with a cap on what they must sell for.


-13

Get a grip folks. Shoddy tract homes are standard, not the exception. If you’re a builder, you know to never, ever, buy a tract home. But if people think these SLO homes are bad, you should look at the absolute garbage being built in places like Texas. Walls sheathed with ‘structural cardboard’ (no, it’s not hyperbole – it’s actual cardboard in lieu of plywood). Any decent builder (granted, they are few and far between) shudders when looking at tract homes – but many so-called ‘custom’ builders aren’t much better. The problem is complete lack of training. Builders are usually carpenters who’ve scraped a few shekels together to buy a truck and get a contractor’s license. None are schooled in building science – most builders don’t even know what the term means – hence why even multi-million customs have serious problems.


17

I’ve worked all over the USA as a plumber and anytime these huge building tracks are put in they also reach out to local plumbers or electricians etc. The smart ones decline the low ball numbers their looking for and wait for the real money when they all fail due to poor workmanship. It’s a service persons dream. It’s been this way ever since I entered the construction industry and that’s been 30 years. Track housing is production work and usually very poorly paid. Always do custom or remodel.


34

Of course it’s Gary Grossman’s company, Coastal Community Builders. He’s always posting photos on social media of him going to exotic destinations in a private jet. And his “friends” on Facebook are SLO city and county politicians. Surprise, surprise.


68

The building inspectors don’t know a tenth of what they’re supposed to know I look at those guys and they have calf eyes it’s like I’m talking to a wall.

Incompetence in the plancheck department incompetence in the field. lack of communication structural breakdown it’s just chaos there. San Luis Obispo is ripe for a class action lawsuit these building departments are just out of control they’re not doing the job they should and they slow everything down. It’s like a dark comedy.

The houses I built in the 80’s still look good.

It took two months to get a permit then. It takes almost two years now. They have a guy who I swear is autistic. He can’t think a half step ahead. They force you to redraw the plans they already approved and can’t make a single judgement call in the field.

Then you call the building official and he’s no help. I could build a box around all of them while they are trying to build a box and I would finish first!


62

All City of SLO jobs are political patronage, period.


34

80’s built, and the old Jack Westerman houses don’t seem to have many issues at all!


9

SLO forced out all the qualified building inspectors and went contract to people who were unqualified and inexperienced. BTW, why know Villa Toscano article? The houses are literally breaking apart because no soils work was done or verified by city inspectors.


44

Poorly built million-dollar tract homes. None of this is surprising to anyone with any common sense. What would be truly shocking is if they were well-built problem free.


39

The prices would be pretty shocking, but that’s for the market to figure out, not officials.


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