Residents living near a landslide in the Santa Cruz Mountains that occurred earlier this year will soon have a temporary road to rely on while they wait for the county to provide at least $3 million for permanent, long-term repairs.
The landslide began moving slowly on Mountain Charlie Road south of the Lexington Reservoir in unincorporated Santa Cruz County in February and has since blocked residents’ access to essential services, adding several hours to their commute to work and school in some cases.
Steve Wiesner, deputy director of the Santa Cruz County Public Works Department, said at a town hall meeting on Aug. 8 that the county allocated about $500,000 of Measure D funds to build the temporary road. Voters approved Measure D in 2016, a half-cent sales tax that funded various transportation projects in the county.
“I want to tell the community that this money has been used to date for our road construction program. That means that many of the projects we would normally do annually in the San Lorenzo Valley and greater Scotts Valley area will not be completed,” Wiesner said at the meeting. “So funding this temporary road is a big sacrifice for the rest of the community.”
Construction began on Monday, August 12, and will take approximately four to six weeks, officials said.
Although county authorities have said they have notified local fire departments of the special situation in the community, residents who have an address in Los Gatos are still concerned about whether they will be able to evacuate if their neighborhood is indeed hit by a major fire.
“That was one of my biggest fears,” said local resident Debbie Robinson.
Residents living south of the landslide until recently had to cross the broken road on foot to get to their cars parked on the other side of the landslide, so they didn’t have to drive the wrong way and take a detour to get to Los Gatos, where many of them work and go to school.
Due to construction, county officials have restricted pedestrian access to the slide from 8 a.m. to noon and 12:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. to allow construction crews to work on the project.
“Cooperation from the community would be incredibly welcome,” said Wiesner.
Santa Cruz County authorities also continue to work to raise outside funds for long-term repairs to the landslide.
Public Works Director Matt Machado said the landslide on Mountain Charlie Road is on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) damage inventory list, and he is working to arrange a site visit with FEMA to get funding for the project, but that process could take “a couple of years.”
“They will have to allocate funds to the project, which is a very slow process, and if the past is any indication of the future, we had about 200 project sites with damage in January 2023 and not one of them was committed,” he said.
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