Residents of Seaside, Calif., subdivision begin to establish a neighborhood.

By Larry Parsons, The Monterey County Herald, Calif. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Nov. 29--For two years, Seaside Highlands was a symbol -- a ready catch phrase -- in the perennial debate over Monterey County's stratospheric housing costs.

But now the upscale Seaside subdivision on a hillside over Highway 1 and Monterey Bay is nearly finished, and Seaside Highlands has come to ground as a new home for hundreds of families.

"We always wanted to buy a new home but never could afford it," R.G. Nutt, a retired Naval Postgraduate School fire chief, said in the dining room of the Beachwood Court home he and his wife, Ruth, moved into last January.

"It's real quiet," Nutt said. "Sometimes at night when the waves are big, you can hear the ocean."

Like many Seaside Highlands home buyers, the couple sold their house in Monterey, rejected the prospect of spending $700,000 to $800,000 for another older home in Monterey or Pacific Grove and made the move to Seaside.

They were among the first 100 home buyers chosen in a 2003 lottery. They paid about $630,000 for their home.

"We've been happy so far," Nutt said.

A joint project of KB Home, the nation's…