ARTICLE
For nearly seven years, the Santa Cruz County Library System has been working to update or completely modernize the downtown Santa Cruz Library and the branch libraries throughout Santa Cruz County. A lot of progress has been made since the voters approved Measure S: Construction of the Felton Library, upgrading the La Selva Beach Library, the construction of the new Capitola Library, improvements to the Boulder Creek Library and the Scotts Valley Library, improvements for the Branciforte and Garfield Libraries, and demolishing the Aptos Library to prepare the site for a new state-of-the-art library building. Yet, the Downtown Library and Affordable Housing Project (the hub of the county library system), while in architecture design and moving through the planning process, is facing a ballot initiative challenge. We’ve written about this subject multiple times in the past couple of years expressing the Chamber’s unwavering support for this project. The Chamber Board recently voted to oppose the ballot measure that is planned to be on the November 2022 ballot. According to Santa Cruz City Attorney Tony Condotti, “The Our Downtown Our Future (ODOF) initiative would halt the new library, affordable housing project planned for Cedar Street between Cathcart and Lincoln streets.” The location of the project is Parking Lot 4 where the Downtown Santa Cruz Farmers Market convenes on a weekly basis. This project is critical to the future of downtown where the Chamber envisions a vibrant area that includes a centrally located architecturally delightful library building that will complement other downtown projects like the new Metro North and Metro South mixed-use projects, new health and dental clinic, a Santa Cruz Warriors facility, and a permanent farmers market designed with practical community needs in mind. In the span of the last four years, I have attended dozens of community meetings, city council meetings (in-person and via zoom) and other public hearings as the project moves through the laborious public vetting process. On Tuesday, I again listened in to the Santa Cruz City Council meeting as the council voted to direct staff to produce financial impact reports for two ballot initiatives planned for the November election. For this article we’ll focus on only one ballot measure: the Our Downtown Our Future, which will impact the Downtown Santa Cruz Library and Affordable Housing Project. The reports will detail how the measure might affect the city, including impacts on: > Land use, including housing availability. > Funding for transportation, schools, parks and other public infrastructure. > The community’s ability to attract and retain businesses. > Agricultural lands, open space and traffic congestion. The latest action step by the Santa Cruz City Council is to establish a financial analysis of what a potential ballot measure could do to the City’s long-term vision of our downtown. Ballot measures have a way of making promises to the community while delivering unintended consequences and resulting in short- and long-term negative impacts. The City Council requests the city staff come up with an analysis that tells the real story about this ballot measure (ODOF).
For nearly seven years, the Santa Cruz County Library System has been working to update or completely modernize the downtown Santa Cruz Library and the branch libraries throughout Santa Cruz County. A lot of progress has been made since the voters approved Measure S: Construction of the Felton Library, upgrading the La Selva Beach Library, the construction of the new Capitola Library, improvements to the Boulder Creek Library and the Scotts Valley Library, improvements for the Branciforte and Garfield Libraries, and demolishing the Aptos Library to prepare the site for a new state-of-the-art library building. Yet, the Downtown Library and Affordable Housing Project (the hub of the county library system), while in architecture design and moving through the planning process, is facing a ballot initiative challenge.
We’ve written about this subject multiple times in the past couple of years expressing the Chamber’s unwavering support for this project. The Chamber Board recently voted to oppose the ballot measure that is planned to be on the November 2022 ballot. According to Santa Cruz City Attorney Tony Condotti, “The Our Downtown Our Future (ODOF) initiative would halt the new library, affordable housing project planned for Cedar Street between Cathcart and Lincoln streets.”
The location of the project is Parking Lot 4 where the Downtown Santa Cruz Farmers Market convenes on a weekly basis. This project is critical to the future of downtown where the Chamber envisions a vibrant area that includes a centrally located architecturally delightful library building that will complement other downtown projects like the new Metro North and Metro South mixed-use projects, new health and dental clinic, a Santa Cruz Warriors facility, and a permanent farmers market designed with practical community needs in mind.
In the span of the last four years, I have attended dozens of community meetings, city council meetings (in-person and via zoom) and other public hearings as the project moves through the laborious public vetting process.
On Tuesday, I again listened in to the Santa Cruz City Council meeting as the council voted to direct staff to produce financial impact reports for two ballot initiatives planned for the November election. For this article we’ll focus on only one ballot measure: the Our Downtown Our Future, which will impact the Downtown Santa Cruz Library and Affordable Housing Project.
The reports will detail how the measure might affect the city, including impacts on:
The latest action step by the Santa Cruz City Council is to establish a financial analysis of what a potential ballot measure could do to the City’s long-term vision of our downtown. Ballot measures have a way of making promises to the community while delivering unintended consequences and resulting in short- and long-term negative impacts. The City Council requests the city staff come up with an analysis that tells the real story about this ballot measure (ODOF).