Quick Take
The City of Santa Cruz is proposing a change in zoning south of Laurel Street downtown to allow 12-story buildings and require 20% affordable units. A community group has qualified for ballot Measure M, which would require a vote of the people for height-increasing building changes to city zoning. It will also mandate 25% affordable units. Activist Rick Longinotti has questions about the zoning plan as it relates to climate change.
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Is it wise to build in an area that will become frequently inundated due to sea level rise within the lifetime of people alive today?
According to Gary Griggs and Brent Haddad, authors of the City of Santa Cruz’s climate change vulnerability study (2011), the downtown “is underlain by sand and gravel deposited by the river over the thousands of years. Water is easily transmitted through these permeable sands and gravels so that the water table or groundwater level beneath the city is essentially the same as the river level … The water table … at times may be within two feet of the surface.”
The city’s Climate Adaptation Plan assumes a sea level rise of 2.4 feet by 2060. According to this analysis, by 2060 there will be times when groundwater exceeds street level south of Laurel Street.
The sea will continue to rise for hundreds of years due to earth’s warming. In an email, Gary Griggs writes, “We have some time, but I don’t see any adaptation measure short of eventually relocating downtown.”
In this century, the city will be on the hook to invest in flood mitigation. Miami projects it will need to spend $4 billion on sea level rise protection and will still not be able to protect some areas.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to direct new development to areas above the river floodplain?
Also, if the city allows more intense development south of Laurel, property values will increase significantly. Will this increased wealth be shared with the community?
So far, the community benefits of the rezoning include a requirement that developers create a net 20% affordable units (current regulations require 20% affordable units, but density bonuses lower the net amount). In addition, there are plans for streetscape and open space areas with financing yet to be determined.
Do these community benefits outweigh the future costs to the city to attempt to protect the area from rising sea levels? There is no data to inform an answer to that question.
Is upzoning south of Laurel needed to meet state housing goals?
California is requiring the city to build 3,736 units of housing by 2031. Current zoning would accommodate 8,364 units at build-out.
Sibley Simon, local affordable housing developer, believes the city needs to zone for a lot more units in order to make development more likely. He writes, “Taller buildings in a place that actually is likely to be redeveloped also allow more housing to be built more quickly.”
However, current zoning with density bonuses allows eight-story buildings south of Laurel. Retired urban planner Len Beyea writes, “Density does not require tall buildings. The city of Barcelona has a population density about 11 times that of Santa Cruz. In its highest-density neighborhood, the height limit for new buildings is five stories.” Constructing buildings above six to eight stories increases the construction cost per unit, adversely affecting affordability.
Our community does not have sufficient capital to develop housing that is affordable for most of its residents, as in Vienna, where 60% of residents live in publicly owned or subsidized housing. Since we’re a long way from Vienna, we’re stuck with trying to get the profit motive of private housing developers to serve the public good.
Some of the city’s recent deals with developers don’t inspire confidence on this score. For example, the downtown plan originally required that new buildings on the river side of Front Street include 60% housing. In spite of that requirement, a developer purchased property and submitted plans for a hotel. The developer’s confidence was rewarded on Oct. 24, when the city council eliminated the housing requirement.
In the debate on Measure M, can we argue the merits instead of spreading misinformation?
I’m disappointed to read a city official write that support for Measure M would “announce that every neighborhood is now or will be open for massive developments in the future.” This is false. Measure M’s requirement of voter approval before changes in zoning will apply to all neighborhoods citywide.
Given the conflict over efforts to keep our community from becoming less and less affordable, maybe it’s time to discuss former Mayor Bruce Van Allen’s idea to empower neighborhoods to come up with their own plans for improving affordability. The basic idea is that if a neighborhood develops a plan to add its fair share of durably affordable housing (new or converted from existing), the plan will be adopted by the city to guide future development.
Rick Longinotti is chair of the Campaign for Sustainable Transportation, which seeks to reduce our community’s dependency on auto travel by making it safe and convenient to get around without a private automobile. Rick is a marriage and family therapist and former electrical contractor. He has lived in Santa Cruz for 33 years.