ARTICLE
Watching Santa Cruz Grow Up At Tuesday’s Santa Cruz City Council meeting, the council approved a development project on Front and Soquel noted as the 530 Front Street project. The Swenson Builders’ project has been in the city development pipeline for several years. Nearly a century ago, city leaders joined together to promote our San Lorenzo riverfront. In 1926, George P. Becknell was the President of the Chamber whose ideas to grow Santa Cruz tourism prompted lively conversation throughout the town. In January 1926, two hundred people attended a forum to heartily endorse extending the Boardwalk from the West side of the San Lorenzo River from Kay to Water Streets. Becknell told the crowd, “The San Lorenzo River as it courses through the City could and should be made the most beautiful attraction in the city. Building a River Boardwalk will do more towards making the City a year-round resort than any other improvement…” Here we are 98 years later finally moving projects forward that make the vision of our former city leaders a reality. The Chamber appreciates the hard work of the city staff, the planning commission, and the city council to get to this point. This is a critical time for the city as we face many challenges to address our housing shortage. This is a project that will provide much-needed housing while also revitalizing Front Street and the Riverfront. There is added pressure coming from Sacramento as our Governor and the state legislature have established a firm policy that each community must do more to meet our housing needs at all income levels, but especially at the very low and low-income units. At the beginning of the council meeting, there was a proclamation calling out May as the Affordable Housing Month with numerous community opportunities to explore and view what our region is doing to stay ahead of the state housing requirements. Part of that announcement was news that the City of Santa Cruz has or will meet our Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) for the 5th cycle (2015-2023). Santa Cruz is one of 6% of the communities throughout California that have met the state standard. Now, the city is moving forward in updating the City’s Housing Element to align with the 2024-2032 6th RHNA cycle. The challenge is in the large increase to produce nearly six times more housing than in the previous RHNA cycle. According to the city staff report, “the total number of units the City needs to plan for is 3,736. To put this number in perspective, the total RHNA units for Santa Cruz in the current 5th Cycle is 747. By the end of this 5th Cycle reporting period, Santa Cruz will have produced about double the total number of units in the City’s 5th Cycle RHNA targets and will exceed the required number of units in each income category. Only about 6% of all jurisdictions in the State have met RHNA targets in all income categories. Despite this remarkable housing accomplishment, the City will need to make even greater strides to reach the significantly increased 6th Cycle RHNA targets. While there are no direct penalties for not meeting RHNA targets (yet), one consequence of not meeting RHNA targets is that, per State law, it triggers the increase in availability for a project to use SB35 legislation to bypass some local control in housing development review.” You can read more about the Council's action here: https://lookout.co/santacruz/civic-life/development/story/2023-04-26/santa-cruz-city-council-advances-plan-for-more-than-3-700-housing-units-a-fourfold-increase-by-2031. Of course, when any proposed housing project or city housing element is submitted through the very public and political planning process, some people oppose it based on their individual and principled reasons — it’s too big, it is the wrong location, it damages the image of a beach community, it is not in sync for our neighborhood, it is an ugly design —the list of reasons can grow or change as the housing plan. The real consequences of denying, delaying, or filing legal challenges for housing have been a standing community opinion in Santa Cruz for decades. That is about to change since retaining the status quo on housing and downtown expansion plans that are in the planning and community engagement process. Wallace Blaine from Lookout Santa Cruz has covered the future plan for downtown in this article: https://lookout.co/santacruz/civic-life/development/story/2023-04-25/downtown-santa-cruz-for-2024-changes-will-be-nothing-less-than-transformational. Blaine captures the storyline in his closing comment, “Change is coming to Santa Cruz. It may seem slow now, but one day, in hindsight, it’s going to seem like it sure came quickly.” We will see a transformational shift in how Santa Cruz will look in the next few years. We can either embrace change and work within the public vetting process to ensure it reflects the short and long-term vision for our region, or we can bury our heads in the sand and act boorish against the progress. The choice is up to you.”
Watching Santa Cruz Grow Up
At Tuesday’s Santa Cruz City Council meeting, the council approved a development project on Front and Soquel noted as the 530 Front Street project. The Swenson Builders’ project has been in the city development pipeline for several years.
Nearly a century ago, city leaders joined together to promote our San Lorenzo riverfront. In 1926, George P. Becknell was the President of the Chamber whose ideas to grow Santa Cruz tourism prompted lively conversation throughout the town. In January 1926, two hundred people attended a forum to heartily endorse extending the Boardwalk from the West side of the San Lorenzo River from Kay to Water Streets. Becknell told the crowd, “The San Lorenzo River as it courses through the City could and should be made the most beautiful attraction in the city. Building a River Boardwalk will do more towards making the City a year-round resort than any other improvement…”
Here we are 98 years later finally moving projects forward that make the vision of our former city leaders a reality. The Chamber appreciates the hard work of the city staff, the planning commission, and the city council to get to this point.
This is a critical time for the city as we face many challenges to address our housing shortage. This is a project that will provide much-needed housing while also revitalizing Front Street and the Riverfront. There is added pressure coming from Sacramento as our Governor and the state legislature have established a firm policy that each community must do more to meet our housing needs at all income levels, but especially at the very low and low-income units. At the beginning of the council meeting, there was a proclamation calling out May as the Affordable Housing Month with numerous community opportunities to explore and view what our region is doing to stay ahead of the state housing requirements. Part of that announcement was news that the City of Santa Cruz has or will meet our Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) for the 5th cycle (2015-2023). Santa Cruz is one of 6% of the communities throughout California that have met the state standard.
Now, the city is moving forward in updating the City’s Housing Element to align with the 2024-2032 6th RHNA cycle. The challenge is in the large increase to produce nearly six times more housing than in the previous RHNA cycle.
According to the city staff report, “the total number of units the City needs to plan for is 3,736. To put this number in perspective, the total RHNA units for Santa Cruz in the current 5th Cycle is 747. By the end of this 5th Cycle reporting period, Santa Cruz will have produced about double the total number of units in the City’s 5th Cycle RHNA targets and will exceed the required number of units in each income category. Only about 6% of all jurisdictions in the State have met RHNA targets in all income categories. Despite this remarkable housing accomplishment, the City will need to make even greater strides to reach the significantly increased 6th Cycle RHNA targets. While there are no direct penalties for not meeting RHNA targets (yet), one consequence of not meeting RHNA targets is that, per State law, it triggers the increase in availability for a project to use SB35 legislation to bypass some local control in housing development review.”
You can read more about the Council's action here: https://lookout.co/santacruz/civic-life/development/story/2023-04-26/santa-cruz-city-council-advances-plan-for-more-than-3-700-housing-units-a-fourfold-increase-by-2031.
Of course, when any proposed housing project or city housing element is submitted through the very public and political planning process, some people oppose it based on their individual and principled reasons — it’s too big, it is the wrong location, it damages the image of a beach community, it is not in sync for our neighborhood, it is an ugly design —the list of reasons can grow or change as the housing plan.
The real consequences of denying, delaying, or filing legal challenges for housing have been a standing community opinion in Santa Cruz for decades. That is about to change since retaining the status quo on housing and downtown expansion plans that are in the planning and community engagement process. Wallace Blaine from Lookout Santa Cruz has covered the future plan for downtown in this article: https://lookout.co/santacruz/civic-life/development/story/2023-04-25/downtown-santa-cruz-for-2024-changes-will-be-nothing-less-than-transformational.
Blaine captures the storyline in his closing comment, “Change is coming to Santa Cruz. It may seem slow now, but one day, in hindsight, it’s going to seem like it sure came quickly.” We will see a transformational shift in how Santa Cruz will look in the next few years. We can either embrace change and work within the public vetting process to ensure it reflects the short and long-term vision for our region, or we can bury our heads in the sand and act boorish against the progress. The choice is up to you.”