Measure M will bolster democracy by requiring a majority vote before the city’s general plan or zoning ordinance can be amended to allow buildings above existing height limits – limits that are already quite high, at five to eight stories in most of downtown and south of Laurel Street.
Frank Barron
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Measure M: We need to trust voters to decide about building heights
Retired urban planner Frank Barron makes the case for Santa Cruz’s ballot Measure M. “The voters should be allowed to have a say when developers want to build high-rises taller than the already generous height limits under current zoning,” he writes. He refutes arguments against M by progressive economist Richard McGahey, who studies cities and equality and is a senior fellow at the New School’s Schwartz Center.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Don’t fall for propaganda: Measure M gives the public a direct voice in the future form of Santa Cruz
Frank Barron, a retired urban planner and a critical voice in the Measure M ballot initiative, again refutes attacks. Specifically, he pushes back against former Santa Cruz mayor Don Lane’s recent Lookout opinion piece outlining why Measure M is a bad idea. Barron insists that Lane has the facts wrong. Already, this is heating up to be a big election topic.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Let’s not fall for falsehoods: This is what the Housing for People initiative does and doesn’t do
The Housing for People initiative on downtown building will appear on the March ballot in the city of Santa Cruz. Between now and then, voters will need to decide where they stand. Here, retired city planner and Housing for People member Frank Barron pushes back on a Nov. 30 Lookout opinion piece critical of the initiative. The criticism, Barron says, is “full of inaccuracies.”