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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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It’s Grossman who has buddied up with the city of Grover Beach to build massive high rises along several blocks of Grand Ave.


32

That’s just gross, man!


31

The Grand Plan for Groovy Beach Grand Ave. At one time it was “the home of the common man.” Soon it will be GrossMan Beach accessed by Grand Canyon with 55 foot high rises on both sides of the street.


6

The developer investigated himself and found no wrong doing. Shocking.


57

Just like police departments investigating officers, they investigate themselves and find no issues…..


21

This is horrible and not acceptable. I have heard other homeowners from this development express similar concerns. I don’t know about most folks but this would be financially devastating for me. Who is going to hold Gary Grossman’s Coastal Community Builders accountable? I’m guessing these homeowners are going to be “tied up” in the legal litigation for years.


56

Crazy that the builders would not just fix the problems rather than suffer the bad publicity. Especially when they are making millions off this development


50

With the love affairs Gary Grossman has with cities he could care less about publicity and with cities, such as Grover Beach right now, so dependent on developer fees they won’t hold the developer responsible for quality construction, just keep the money rolling in.


30

The Grossman MO — a new kind of Catch & Kill. Now instead of the Enquirer catching a story and killing it before it gets out, Grossman catches the damaged homeowner and buys them off so the bad news never gets out.


1

Sounds like a Kelly Gearhart home.


29

Actually, Kelly built a good product using local subcontractors he knew. Gary Grossman knowingly builds s**t.


20

This story really has two aspects:


First Gary Grossman sells shoddily built homes for millions.


Second, we have too few good people going into the building trades, so as a result incompetent and lazy people have less competition in bidding jobs.


44

And third, the city of SLO didn’t inspect the homes properly and pencil-whipped the final sign-off for move in


24

“Second, we have too few good people going into the building trades…”

I think you’ve hit on something with that statement that ties into much of the recent public debates over immigration and the usefulness of college education vs.a trades education. I started in the landscape trade whilst living on the East Coast in the 1980s, and when I hired on there were only Americans on the crews, black and white. I came back out here and worked landscape again and all the framing, roofing, concrete crews on construction projects in the 80s and 90s were American. Now they are largely immigrant crews, and while I admire their willingness to get out and work hard, they’re largely untrained and quite a few of them are unskilled. I now interact with the trades from a different perspective, and I see a lot of shoddy work. It’s usually an American who’s running crews of guys who I personally think are mostly illegals. The framing crews come over from the Valley, knock stuff together lickety-split, and are off to the next one. There isn’t any craftsmanship or pride of workmanship in most cases. Some of these guys are quite good, but most of them don’t really know what they’re doing and don’t actually care. They come from places where knocked together, substandard housing is the norm, so they’ve never had any formal training to learn to value quality. It’s “good enough”. Time to bring back trade schools and apprenticeship programs and get Americans back into the trades, and time to penalize employers who utilize illegal labor. The demography of the trades didn’t shift in response to consumer input, it was presented to consumers as a fait accompli, just as was the outsourcing of industry overseas. The world is not flat, and we need to bring back our own workers and industries.


5

When you understand that these homes are built for the most possible profit to the developer, you will understand why these homes are built to the lowest standards. Good ain’t cheap, and cheap ain’t good.


56

Well, that housing is certainly no longer affordable…


38
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