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Did a San Luis Obispo developer build an uninhabitable home?

May 5, 2025

By KAREN VELIE

Less than a month after moving into their dream home, a San Luis Obispo couple began noticing “egregious construction defects.” A few years later, their San Luis Ranch home is uninhabitable because of black mold, according to a lawsuit filed last month.

Matthew and Jeannie Pleasant, along with their two children, moved into a new home built by Gary Grossman’s Coastal Community Builders in Oct. 2021. In less than a month, the couple observed “bowing walls, cracks in drywall, misaligned trim, and water intrusion near door jambs.”

The Pleasants submitted dozens of written requests for repairs. Subcontractors patched drywall and painted surfaces, but failed to fix the structural defects, according to the lawsuit.

In June 2022, the developer provided the Pleasants an investigative report that concluded their home did “not suffer from any structural deficiencies.”

However, a third-party contractor, hired by the Pleasants, identified “substantial
structural deficiencies, including a warped garage header, out-of-plumb kitchen walls, and a sagging balcony,” according to the lawsuit.

In March 2024, DJ Design provided an estimate of $437,500 to re-frame walls, replace
the balcony system, mold remediation, and correction of grading and drainage.

Less than a month later, a licensed mold remediation professional “confirmed active mold growth and elevated moisture content behind bathroom and shower walls, resulting in an additional repair estimate of $45,000.”

“As a result of Coastal Community Builder’s substandard construction and repeated failure to remedy known defects, plaintiffs have experienced severe disruption, out-of-pocket expenditures, health concerns related to mold, and significant diminution in the value of their home,” according to the lawsuit.

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, leading to multiple lawsuits against the developer.

The Pleasants’ lawsuit seeks reimbursement for their medical expenses, relocation and storage expenses. In addition, the lawsuit seeks attorney fees, and compensatory and punitive damages.

 


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Only in SLO can you buy a brand new “teardown” for over $1m.


13

Bought a new construction home once and will never do it again. You have little idea what the place will look like in five or ten years but you can be quite certain it will be worse than you expect. I’d much rather buy a home that’s been lived in for years, where a home inspection is more likely to be meaningful.


9

Shameful the Pleasant family’s hard earned money was taken from them for a home that apparently has exposed them to years of the reported undisclosed toxic mold health hazards.


Disgusting the City and the Pleasant’s neighbor, Mayor Marx, seem to turn a blind eye that this family is apparently being exposed to reported toxic mold resulting from apparent failures in inspection, construction, testing, sales and disclosure processes.


The stress, fears of long term impacts from the mold and harassment to their lives sounds untenable and costly.


12

Mayor Marx got hers. She took one of the very few low income homes, bragging that it was OK because she, “paid market price.”


6

RRM is the project Architect, and proud of that fact.

“Raze, Rebuild, or Move”


16

The building inspectors should be held accountable as well. It is their job to assure the building codes are being met. It sounds like they may as well developed a mobile home park rather then the hot mess coming apart at the seams that this neighborhood is turning out to be.


26

I have little use for “building inspectors”, but they are not there to assure quality construction to a homeowner. Their job is to protect the government from liability to third parties (e.g. a visitor who is injured when a building collapses). If you don’t believe me, try suing a building department for shoddy construction.


9

It’s not the building inspector’s responsibility to protect the buyer from a contractor’s choice of materials (warped header) or level of craftsmanship (out of plumb walls). None of that is in the building code. Historically construction quality has always been understood to be “workmanlike”, but in practice it’s a malleable standard.


10

I don’t really know what people expect. You bought a shoddy speed built track home that sits on and adjacent to marshlands. They look like dog crap and apparently were built like them too. I preferred it as a open field with eucalyptus trees and old barns


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