The Airfield Is More Than Open Space: It Is Emergency Infrastructure.

Photo credit: Jeff Ohlson, Carmel Valley Historical Society

One of the most overlooked aspects of the proposed 90-unit development on the historic Carmel Valley Village Airfield is the role this property plays during major emergencies and wildfires.

For decades, the airfield has served as the only large open spaces in the Village capable of supporting emergency operations. During the 2016 Soberanes Fire, helicopters used the site as a staging ground for firefighting activity. Residents reported seeing an average of 12 helicopters per day using the site, with as many as 19 at the height of the fire. (Monterey County Now)

Unlike suburban communities with multiple evacuation routes, Carmel Valley Village effectively relies on a single corridor: Carmel Valley Road. When traffic backs up during a wildfire, emergency vehicles heading in must somehow navigate around residents trying to flee out.

This is not theoretical. California communities from Paradise to Coffey Park have already shown the disastrous results when evacuation systems fail under extreme fire conditions.

This is a matter of life or death.

And yet California still has no clear statewide standard defining when a one-road-in, one-road-out community becomes too dangerous for dense development. While recent laws now require local governments to study evacuation constraints, there is still no hard threshold for evacuation capacity, road redundancy, or maximum density in wildfire-prone rural communities.

In practice, communities like Carmel Valley are often left relying on common sense, public pressure, and environmental review to force serious conversations about evacuation safety before projects are approved.

The proposed development would remove the only major open operational space in the Village while simultaneously adding substantial residential density into an already evacuation-constrained area.

Some of the proposed fire “solutions” discussed publicly by the developer should concern residents even more.

The developer has proposed a 500,000-gallon water tank as part of the project’s wildfire strategy. While that may sound substantial, recent California fires have shown how quickly water reserves can be overwhelmed during major emergencies. During the 2025 Palisades Fire, three separate 1-million-gallon tanks were depleted during extreme firefighting demand. Officials said water demand reached 4x normal levels for 15 consecutive hours. (The Guardian)

The goal of responsible planning is not to gamble on whether homes might withstand a fire. The goal is to reduce the chance that residents are trapped in one to begin with.

Would we really want to place the safety of Carmel Valley in the hands of a developer using a legal loophole to force through a project that primarily benefits him financially, a project he himself has described as his “legacy”?

The Village Airfield is not just vacant land. It is part of Carmel Valley’s emergency resilience infrastructure. And once it is gone, it is gone forever.