Voters in the San Francisco Bay Area, California’s most unaffordable region, are set to vote on a record-breaking affordable housing bond. Will state Democrats add a pro-union requirement to win over a powerful labor coalition?
Housing & Development
Posted inHousing & Development
California is giving schools more homework: Build housing for teachers
Some California agencies are offering incentives and hosting workshops for school districts that want to build affordable housing for teachers.
Posted inHousing & Development
Californians: Your rent might go up because of rising insurance rates
California’s landlords see rising insurance costs, so they say they’re going to have to raise rents. But they complain about laws that limit how much they can do so.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
‘We gotta be somewhere’: Homeless Californians react to Newsom’s crackdown
Homeless Californians and activists say authorities are cracking down harder on encampments, after getting the green light from the Supreme Court and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Posted inHousing & Development
At hearing for 100% affordable project on Santa Cruz’s Westside, neighbors are reminded they have little say
Santa Cruz’s zoning administrator approved a new three-story, 38-unit, 100% affordable housing development at 850 Almar Ave. on the city’s Westside following a public hearing Wednesday in which neighbors expressed frustration over state laws that limit the city’s ability to block or modify the project.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Will Santa Cruz be ‘San Jose-by-the-Sea,’ as gridlocked as Saint-Tropez, or something better?
Housing activist and emeritus UC Santa Cruz sociologist John Hall sees Santa Cruz’s choices about growth – particularly the placement of a new Warriors arena – as pivotal to the future. “Is our city to become a ‘San Jose-by-the-Sea’ with high-rise skyscrapers looming over Monterey Bay?” he asks, or a “gridlocked Saint-Tropez?” He thinks there is another way and looks to Santa Barbara as a model for building heights and human-scale architecture.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
In the Public Interest: The Everest-esque task of paying for affordable housing and other takeaways from Lookout’s housing panel
Inside Santa Cruz County politics and policy with Lookout correspondent Christopher Neely.
Posted inHousing & Development
Free land problems, local control, and the Clocktower’s fate: Five takeaways from Lookout’s housing forum
Lookout’s July 31 housing forum featured a pair of panels with leaders weighing in from the political and development perspectives. The conversation brought to light challenges in financing a proposed tower in Santa Cruz, as well as the hurdles before the county in standing up affordable housing projects.
Posted inHousing & Development
The grandparent trap: How do families stick together in Santa Cruz’s maddening housing market?
Santa Cruz County’s frustrating and expensive housing market also affects those who have stable housing in their efforts to live closer to their extended families. How do Santa Cruz homeowners figure out how to live closer to their adult children and grandchildren? Some leave their lives to move closer to their families. Others find innovative ways to bring their families closer. Still others learn to adapt to being long-distance grandparents.
Posted inHousing & Development
Financing will likely constrain Santa Cruz’s Clocktower Center to 8 stories instead of 16
After plans for a 16-story high-rise in downtown Santa Cruz sparked an uproar over new state laws that supersede local control to encourage more affordable housing, financing challenges will ultimately shape the proposal, according to one of its developers. Sibley Simon, a partner at Workbench, told Lookout on Thursday that the Clocktower Center project will likely be seven or eight stories instead.