Can Santa Cruz County control its housing destiny? Lookout panel searches for an answer

The question of whether a local jurisdiction could control its own fate for housing is one no one would have thought to ask just eight years ago. Today, however, it is one of increasing urgency among residents in Santa Cruz County, as it is for many people and their communities across California, as state lawmakers continue to pick away at a local government’s ability to say no to housing development. 

On Wednesday, Lookout will host a sold-out, two-part housing panel in hopes of getting closer to an answer. If you couldn’t get a ticket to the event at Hotel Paradox, you can join us on our Facebook Live stream from 6 to 8 p.m. 

But what do we even mean by “housing destiny”? It is a term of art; it carries multitudes. It could refer to the number and density of new housing units. For some, it’s about the height and feel of new construction. For many, however, a community’s housing destiny is defined by what kinds of people and incomes will be able to afford dignified housing in the future. 

Our destiny, by nature, is always ahead of us. Yet, we tend to forget that the reality of our present is the destiny of our past. Not too long ago, and for decades, cities and counties had control over aspects of housing such as the number of new units, density, height, parking and setbacks. Today, Santa Cruz County is the least affordable housing market in our country (in terms of local wages vs. housing costs), California the least affordable state. We’ve arrived at a destiny that works for fewer and fewer types of people. 

Over the past seven years, the state has stepped in to hand more and more power over to housing developers, stripping away the ability of local governments and the public to do what they’ve become so adept at doing: saying no. We’re only just beginning to see what that looks like locally. The state has multiplied the new housing mandated in cities and counties across California while sharpening the stick it uses to require it. Cities no longer have total discretion over building height, parking spots or density. 

The city of Santa Cruz, on the front lines of the affordability crisis and where studio apartments can eclipse $3,000 per month, has found itself on the vanguard of this new landscape. Over the past year, the city has received proposals that could reset its built environment. None has come with more fanfare than the 16-story Clocktower Center proposed at the north end of downtown.

The pendulum of influence has swung dramatically. The California of the past, shaped by growth-management politics and local power brokers, wound up with extreme unaffordability. The California of today now looks at a future that could be shaped largely by capital and market forces. What might that destiny look like? Is there a needle to thread in between? 

State Sen. Scott Wiener has agreed to sit on our first panel, along with District 1 County Supervisor Manu Koenig and Santa Cruz City Councilmember Sandy Brown, as we try to get closer to an answer to these questions. 

Since joining the California Senate representing San Francisco, Wiener has been a driving force in redirecting the legislature toward influential statewide housing policy. Through the senator’s policies, the state has grown new teeth in its ability to mandate housing construction in individual cities and counties. 

Among his supervisor colleagues, Koenig has been a leading voice on housing policy. Koenig represents the densest unincorporated areas of the county in Live Oak, Pleasure Point and Soquel. The same areas are designated to carry much of the more than 4,600 new housing units that the state is mandating for unincorporated Santa Cruz County over the next eight years. 

Elected to the city council in 2016, Brown, who will term out at the end of this year, has a unique perspective: She began her first term before the state’s efforts to wrestle housing control from cities and counties. She will end her final term as the city wrestles with how to handle an application for an 16-story building, proposed in the district she would have represented next year. 

The second panel of the evening will be a one-on-one conversation with Sibley Simon, a principal with local development and architecture firm Workbench, the outfit behind that 16-story proposal in downtown Santa Cruz. Workbench has proved itself as an ambitious firm with a strong handle on the changing landscape of state regulations. In many ways, the community has learned what state law now allows through Workbench’s proposals. 

Both conversations are timely and urgent, and if you don’t have a ticket, I hope that you will join us on Facebook Live.

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