Quick Take
Santa Cruz mayoral candidate Ryan Coonerty wasn’t shy with expressing his disapproval of a proposed housing development at the intersection of Seabright Avenue and Soquel Avenue. His mayoral opponent, Ami Chen Mills, said she also disapproves of this development despite wanting to continue to build affordable housing.
A newly proposed housing development at the intersection of Seabright Avenue and Soquel Avenue in Santa Cruz envisions six stories of housing and 5,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space — and neither remaining mayoral candidate is a fan.
The proposal would demolish the existing buildings on the site, which is home to Ace Hardware and the Bagelry, among other businesses. The Santa Cruz Roller Palladium would border the project to the south and Horsnyder Pharmacy to the east.
The project, headed by local development firm Workbench, includes two potential designs — a fully affordable housing development and a living facility for older adults — as it is still in the pre-application stage. The first, referred to as “Bright Plaza” in the current project plans, and includes 281 units of fully affordable housing and 5,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. The second is a 173-unit senior living facility that also includes 5,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.
However, to longtime local politico and Santa Cruz mayoral candidate Ryan Coonerty, it doesn’t matter which version moves forward. In a Facebook post, Coonerty did not mince words when expressing his dislike of the design.
“To be clear, I hate it. If elected mayor, I will fight it with every means at my disposal,” he wrote. He added that he believes the project is too tall, and does not provide enough parking. He also said that there’s no setback from the sidewalk.
“But this project also means the end of vibrant neighborhood businesses and Santa Cruz gems, like The Bagelry, Akira, Ace and more,” he wrote. “It is exactly what we don’t need or want in Santa Cruz.”
Ami Chen Mills, Coonerty’s opponent in the November mayoral election, told Lookout that she thinks Coonerty’s post felt “a little bit like a political stunt.” Still, she said that although she supports affordable housing and thinks the city needs more, she also opposes the project, largely because of the uncertain future of popular or useful businesses on the parcel. She said, however, that some new buildings, trees, and pedestrian infrastructure could be a good idea on the Soquel corridor. She would like to see the affected businesses preserved or even included in the development, should there be one.
“In this case, I have several people on my team who live in the Seabright area and who frequent all those businesses,” she said. “We are reaching out to residents in the Seabright area to start having meetings to talk about how they can have input right away.”
Both candidates have shared mixed feelings on development throughout the city. Coonerty previously said there are some projects he likes more than others, particularly those that aim to activate neglected areas, such as the RiverRow apartments on Front Street. He also believes that the city should preserve cultural and historical places, such as The Catalyst, itself the site of a potential development.
Chen Mills previously said she wants to see more nuance in the housing conversations, adding that YIMBY (yes in my backyard) is too single-issue-oriented, while NIMBY (not in my backyard) perspectives can come off as unkind when opposing developments. She also said she would favor affordable units over market-rate units.
Coonerty told Lookout that he believes “the community needs more input, not less,” and does not support a ministerial overlay district that would remove public hearings in front of elected officials, which the city is exploring.
“Neighbors know best what the pain points are in a particular place, and to the extent that you have really predatory development, it’s important that we push back using any means at our disposal,” he said. “Legal, regulatory and otherwise.”
Chen Mills said Santa Cruz is likely experiencing development fatigue given the pressure from the state to build, and particularly the major jump from the previous Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) cycle. In that 2015-2023 cycle, the city was on the hook for just 747 new units. Now, it needs to plan for more than 3,700.
“I think that the council is responding to some of this pushback and they’re reaching out to the community,” she said. She encouraged people to fill out the city’s design guidelines survey, and get organized sooner rather than later. “People need to get involved. Rather than just getting upset, people need to get engaged.”
Chen Mills added that she wants to find and build on parcels in the city that will have less impact on nearby houses, and to steer as clear from displacement and gentrification as possible. She also supports a cap on building heights at six to eight stories.
Coonerty told Lookout that although it’s true that the state has taken away a lot of local control over its building, he believes that there are still tools the city can use to assert the control it does have. Generally, Coonerty supports three-story development with adequate parking and setbacks from neighborhoods.
“We need to leverage all those things for developments that don’t meet the basic criteria for design, scale and setback in our community,” he said. “I think we need to be much more aggressive in looking at all of our leverage points.”
Coonerty said he’s frustrated that housing built on UC Santa Cruz’s campus doesn’t count toward the RHNA total, and that there is little room for flexibility despite local strides to build housing.
“If you’re a good character, if you’re a good actor, we should have more control over the size, quality and design of the housing that’s being built,” he said. “I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
While she doesn’t see lawsuits against the state as being successful, and would rather not take that route, Chen Mills said she wants to leverage state relationships to find a balance.
“As mayor, I would be organizing our constituents to be speaking to [state Sen.] John [Laird] and [Assemblymember] Gail [Pellerin] and to the state,” she said. “But what I hear about Sacramento is that [having local control] is a dead issue. So that means we need to be lobbying from the city level for that local control to come back.”
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