ARTICLE
In the Chamber’s annual survey of our members, housing and transportation continuously rank as the top two policy issues challenging our members. Many Chamber members state that the lack of housing at all income levels and particularly affordable housing leads to additional challenges for our employers to recruit and retain employees. The access to housing pushes employees further away from our employment centers and does little to address the economic or environmental benefits of more density in our downtown. At the Santa Cruz City Council meeting on Tuesday afternoon, we received a positive step forward. The city council voted to approve the Pacific Front Project. The Chamber reviewed the project through our advocacy process and supported the project. The Chamber has a long standing position to support increasing housing in our downtown that is compatible with the Downtown plan. That downtown plan was recently updated earlier this year which paved the way to provide more housing in our city. You can read the Santa Cruz Sentinel article here. As the first major mixed-use Transit Oriented Development (TOD) in Santa Cruz this project offers significant benefits to the community: 1) Adds to the housing inventory (205 units plus providing a key parcel for an adjacent affordable housing project (up to 100 units of subsidized housing) 2) The project location is described as the least impactful location for housing: It is in the downtown and next to public transit. These are key features that reduce car trips and greenhouse gas emissions. 3) The project is seen as revitalizing the lower portion of Pacific Avenue south of Cathcart Street and helps extend the quality street experience north of Cathcart south to Laurel Street. Of course, this is Santa Cruz County where every housing development project is subject to lengthy public discord. This project faced all of the objections imaginable — wrong location, too large, not enough ‘inclusionary’ units on site. Opposition comments exploded during the two hour discussion to a packed council chamber. Accusations of neighborhood “gentrification” and concerns about potentially high new unit rents, to the project being “rushed” and “wagging the tail of capitalism.” There was a last minute attempt to postpone the vote until the next council could consider this project, forgetting that the project had been in the works for several years before moving into the formal public hearing process. In January, the changing faces of the new city council will only increase the public vitriol on projects in the pipeline. We’ve seen this before during the 1980s and throughout the past thirty-five years. An argumentative comment by a sitting council member after the vote paints a distorted picture of what lays ahead for our community. (He said he was confident, however, that “others will address it” in the future”). This comment only fuels the division between those who want to create more housing in our community against those who see Santa Cruz as a city of the last century. I’ve seen this played out in other communities in California and across the western United States where the economy is pitted against limited growth and environmental concerns. What I have learned through these professional experiences — when the art of collaboration is the cornerstone of the discussion — is that the economy and the environment can work together to benefit the greater good of our community. Santa Cruz County deserves that balanced approach to create a sustainable future. Let’s just hope our elected officials understand the dynamics of this collaborative process.
In the Chamber’s annual survey of our members, housing and transportation continuously rank as the top two policy issues challenging our members. Many Chamber members state that the lack of housing at all income levels and particularly affordable housing leads to additional challenges for our employers to recruit and retain employees. The access to housing pushes employees further away from our employment centers and does little to address the economic or environmental benefits of more density in our downtown.
At the Santa Cruz City Council meeting on Tuesday afternoon, we received a positive step forward. The city council voted to approve the Pacific Front Project. The Chamber reviewed the project through our advocacy process and supported the project. The Chamber has a long standing position to support increasing housing in our downtown that is compatible with the Downtown plan. That downtown plan was recently updated earlier this year which paved the way to provide more housing in our city. You can read the Santa Cruz Sentinel article here.
As the first major mixed-use Transit Oriented Development (TOD) in Santa Cruz this project offers significant benefits to the community:
1) Adds to the housing inventory (205 units plus providing a key parcel for an adjacent affordable housing project (up to 100 units of subsidized housing)
2) The project location is described as the least impactful location for housing: It is in the downtown and next to public transit. These are key features that reduce car trips and greenhouse gas emissions.
3) The project is seen as revitalizing the lower portion of Pacific Avenue south of Cathcart Street and helps extend the quality street experience north of Cathcart south to Laurel Street.
Of course, this is Santa Cruz County where every housing development project is subject to lengthy public discord. This project faced all of the objections imaginable — wrong location, too large, not enough ‘inclusionary’ units on site. Opposition comments exploded during the two hour discussion to a packed council chamber. Accusations of neighborhood “gentrification” and concerns about potentially high new unit rents, to the project being “rushed” and “wagging the tail of capitalism.”
There was a last minute attempt to postpone the vote until the next council could consider this project, forgetting that the project had been in the works for several years before moving into the formal public hearing process.
In January, the changing faces of the new city council will only increase the public vitriol on projects in the pipeline. We’ve seen this before during the 1980s and throughout the past thirty-five years. An argumentative comment by a sitting council member after the vote paints a distorted picture of what lays ahead for our community. (He said he was confident, however, that “others will address it” in the future”). This comment only fuels the division between those who want to create more housing in our community against those who see Santa Cruz as a city of the last century.
I’ve seen this played out in other communities in California and across the western United States where the economy is pitted against limited growth and environmental concerns. What I have learned through these professional experiences — when the art of collaboration is the cornerstone of the discussion — is that the economy and the environment can work together to benefit the greater good of our community. Santa Cruz County deserves that balanced approach to create a sustainable future. Let’s just hope our elected officials understand the dynamics of this collaborative process.