State Farm has reached a settlement over emergency insurance rate hikes after last year’s Los Angeles County fires.
Housing & Development
Posted inHousing & Development
California has 40,000 affordable housing units ready to break ground. One bottleneck is holding them up
Tens of thousands of affordable units across California are stuck in financial purgatory, according to a new report. Will more money get them moving?
Posted inHousing & Development
Santa Cruz City Schools to break ground on county’s first educator workforce housing March 18
Santa Cruz City Schools is set to break ground on an $80 million housing project – the county’s first educator housing complex. The project on the Westside will have studios, one-bedroom apartments, two-bedroom apartments and three-bedroom apartments for 100 staff.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Dominican Oaks: When fear of lawsuits trumps public and senior safety, Santa Cruz County loses
A massive builder’s remedy project proposed at 3500 Paul Sweet Rd. in Live Oak would rise 82 feet beside Dominican Oaks retirement community, putting hundreds of elderly residents at risk, writes Virginia Lieb, who lives in the complex. State law allows counties like Santa Cruz County to deny such projects when they pose unmitigable threats to health and safety – and this one, she believes, does. She fears the recent approval of a project at 841 Capitola Rd. suggests local officials are backing down under the threat of lawsuits from developers like Workbench. Approving unsafe housing isn’t housing justice — it’s a failure of leadership that puts vulnerable residents in harm’s way, she writes.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Expiring housing vouchers and new citizenship requirements: Housing Authority braces for policy changes that could cost people their homes
The Housing Authority of Santa Cruz County is facing a number of serious concerns this year, including the expiration of pandemic-era emergency housing vouchers and proposed changes to federal policy that could mean more households are ineligible for assistance. However, the organization’s executive director is “cautiously optimistic” that it will be able to provide an alternative.
Posted inHousing & Development
Capitola City Council pushes mall zoning code vote to March
The Capitola City Council delayed a vote on zoning code updates for the Capitola Mall site to March in order to wade through last-minute information and new requests from the mall’s owner. The vote is currently scheduled for March 16.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I hope my UCSC class will help our community conversation on addressing homelessness
Housing advocate Don Lane has invited journalist and author Brian Barth to talk to the community – and to his class of 25 UC Santa Cruz students studying homelessness – to discuss why encampments exist and what we should do about them. He hopes the Feb. 27 event at the downtown library will help deepen our understanding of the issue and involve the next generation in finding solutions.
Posted inHousing & Development
Factory-built housing hasn’t taken off in California yet, but this year might be different
Building homes inside a factory has long been seen as a way to revolutionize the American housing industry, ushering in a new era of higher-quality homes at lower prices. That dream has never quite panned out. Can California finally make it happen?
Posted inHousing & Development
Road closures, loss of parking during downtown Santa Cruz library construction taking toll on surrounding businesses
Multiple downtown Santa Cruz businesses say foot traffic is down since the city broke ground on the new public library and affordable housing project last August, eliminating a parking lot for customers and visitors.
Posted inHousing & Development
Home sales dip, but new listings rise in January county housing market
Listings of homes for sale in Santa Cruz County more than doubled compared to December as real estate agents prepare for the market’s usual spring heat-up, with Silicon Valley trends pointing to a potentially busy spring.