OPINION: Santa Cruz’s beauty and desirability drive up housing costs — and the market alone won’t build homes for teachers, bus drivers or grocery clerks, writes UCSC professor emeritus Christopher Connery. Measure C, he says, offers a fair, modest step toward fixing that; he urges a yes vote.
Christopher Connery
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
UCSC’s East Meadow: Green for the last time?
UC Santa Cruz’s sloping East Meadow — the pristine, grass-covered gateway to campus — is a local treasure and should not be developed, when there are many better alternatives for sorely needed housing, argues Christopher Connery, a longtime community activist and a professor in both the literature and history of consciousness departments. Regents of the University of California are set to meet starting Wednesday to discuss UCSC’s long-stalled plan to build family housing and a child care center on the East Meadow. Connery believes this is a short-sighted “folly beyond comprehension” that risks destroying the campus’ beauty and the integrity of the founders’ vision.