The drop in home sales and new listings in Santa Cruz County can partly be attributed to the “mortgage lock-in effect,” or the reluctance for a homeowner to sell their home when they have a low interest rate locked in. Buyers took advantage of low rates during the pandemic, and are now choosing to stay put as a result. And the building of single-family homes hasn’t kept pace with demand.
Housing & Development
Posted inHousing & Development
‘Factually accurate, and untrue’: Was Santa Cruz really the second-fastest-growing city in the U.S. last year?
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the city of Santa Cruz grew by nearly 7,000 in a single year, or a growth rate of 12.5% between July 2021 and July 2022. But one researcher says all of the growth very likely came from a rebound in Santa Cruz’s student population when college and university campuses reopened after pandemic closures.
Posted inHousing & Development
‘Mentally, physically, financially exhausting’: Santa Cruz County now the most expensive rental market in the U.S.
Santa Cruz County tops the list of most expensive rental markets in the country, according to the nonprofit National Low Income Housing Coalition. According to the report, the fair market rent for a two-bedroom rental in the county is $3,293; renters would have to earn an average “housing wage” of $63.33 an hour to be able to afford that rent.
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Civil grand jury dings Scotts Valley, Capitola over affordable housing — and exponential increases are still ahead
By 2031, under state mandates, Capitola will need to boost its affordable housing permitting by roughly 9,000% over what it permitted between 2015 and 2022; Scotts Valley will need to permit 803 new income-restricted units, a more than 4,000% increase. That comes after both jurisdictions struggled to meet state goals from 2015 through 2022, and both come in for criticism in a recent report by Santa Cruz County’s civil grand jury.
Posted inHousing & Development
Which way to the beach? After decades of talking about it, Santa Cruz is finally poised to connect downtown to the beach
Making the transition from downtown to the beach seamless has been a goal of city leaders for years, and now Santa Cruz is poised to convert the area south of Laurel Street into a busy, pedestrian-friendly part of town, similar to a few blocks north. A new housing complex on Center Street is to be called Calypso, a six-story building with more than 200 units of market-rate and affordable housing.
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Pogonip encampment resident Santos Martinez shares his story as cleanup continues Monday, June 5.
A Pogonip encampment resident shares his story as cleanup continues
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Nightmare or riverfront nirvana — or somewhere in between? What’s the next Santa Cruz going to feel like?
Quick, describe the vibe that characterizes what the one-of-a-kind place that is Santa Cruz is known to be. Now, as the housing construction boom begins to change the landscape of downtown, angst is growing about the displacement of the old and the coming of the new. Will downtown’s dramatic facelift obliterate that special Santa Cruz something? Or will the Santa Cruz spirit — however you might define it — in time inhabit the new city now emerging?
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First meeting on potential 2024 Santa Cruz housing bond debates affordable housing, downtown growth
Santa Cruz Mayor Fed Keeley hosted the first of three public meetings on a potential March 2024 housing bond ballot measure, along with City Councilmembers Scott Newsome and Sandy Brown, Director of Economic Development Bonnie Lipscomb and city attorney Tony Condotti.
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Riverfront, first of three big housing developments along San Lorenzo River, is underway
Demolition has begun along Front Street in downtown Santa Cruz for the new complex to be known as the Riverfront Apartments. The Riverfront project represents a big leap forward in the city’s efforts to develop along the San Lorenzo River levee. It is the first of three projects planned for the Front Street corridor along the river between Soquel Avenue and Laurel Street.
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As state-mandated housing plan heads to city council, ‘small town’ Santa Cruz faces its future
The city of Santa Cruz needs to build more than three times as many housing units in the next eight years as it did in the past eight. And the plan coming before the city council Tuesday shows a projected 4,457 units that can be permitted during that time. Most of them would be in along the city’s corridors — Mission, Ocean, Water and River streets and Soquel Avenue.
