A 546-home development on a former golf course in Palm Desert’s growing north end is moving forward, after the city council unanimously rejected an appeal from an environmental group during its meeting Thursday, Feb. 12.
The project, known as Catavina, is planned on 81 acres southwest of the intersection of Frank Sinatra Drive and Portola Avenue. The site, located just east of the Palm Desert Greens Country Club, used to be the Santa Rosa Country Club’s golf course, operating from 1978 until 2015, with the land sitting vacant since then.
The Palm Desert Planning Commission approved the housing plans from Blue Fern Development during a meeting in November, despite a few neighboring residents raising concerns about potential noise and traffic issues by adding so many new homes nearby. None of the neighbors who raised prior concerns spoke during the council’s hearing.
The planning commission’s decision was subsequently appealed by Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility, a Covina-based nonprofit that has filed lawsuits over other projects in Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs.
In its appeal, the group said Palm Desert did not adequately consider the project’s environmental impacts, asserting a broader environmental impact report is required under the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, rather than just the “mitigated negative declaration” adopted by the commission. Its concerns focused on the project’s potential impacts on air quality, greenhouse gas emissions and biological resources.
However, city officials found the project to be consistent with the Palm Desert’s 2016 general plan, which was evaluated with an environmental impact report, thus meaning a new project-specific report was not required under CEQA. City planners also found no significant or less than significant impacts related to the appellant’s specific claims.
After representatives from both the appellant and the developer made their cases, the council ultimately agreed with city staff’s recommendation to deny the appeal.
“As I have heard both sides speak, I think there’s a reason that we have a general plan, and that’s to site the kind of development we want, and then we go through an (environmental impact report) process to evaluate it, and then each specific project goes through additional (review),” Mayor Pro Tem Joe Pradetto said. “That’s what happened here.”
As planned, the 546-home project would feature a mix of single- and two-story houses, with lots ranging from 2,120 to 5,000 square feet in different areas. The single-story homes are planned to be closer to the neighborhood’s boundary with Palm Desert Greens, while any two-story homes will be built at least 100 feet away from the project’s perimeter.
It’s unclear when the entire development will be completed, but a project representative previously told the planning commission that homebuilding could begin in late 2026 and continue through the next year.
The project is also located just west of a triangular parcel of land where a developer gained council approval in 2023 to build 13 three-story apartment buildings, despite some opposition from neighboring residents concerned about the buildings’ height and density.
But plans for those planned apartments lapsed in early 2025, and Blue Fern is now developing that land for 156 single-family homes, a project that is slated for consideration by the planning commission at its Feb. 17 meeting.
Tom Coulter covers the mid-valley for The Desert Sun. Reach him at thomas.coulter@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Desert OKs controversial 546-home project on old golf course
Reporting by Tom Coulter, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
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