Quick Take
Joel Domhoff is frustrated over the Food Bin development on Laurel and Mission streets in Santa Cruz. He thinks the city’s process is not fair to residents and makes it too difficult to know what programs have been approved.
I believe the proposed development for five stories of housing above a new Food Bin on Mission Street in Santa Cruz should not be approved. I see the whole project as a slap in the face to the neighborhood. I am not a NIMBY. I think there is a better way to produce more housing.
I also want to make a larger point about the way our city approves projects, and the flaws in the process that have gotten us to this point.
On Jan. 18, the city’s planning commission met about the proposal. At the meeting, the property owners spoke, as did the developers and over 40 members of the public, including me. Once public comment ended, developers answered questions raised by planning commission members. Also present were City of Santa Cruz planners Ryan Bane and Samantha Haschert.
And this is where it got ugly – and confusing.
During the final 20 minutes, more than one commission member reassured the public that the city council would ultimately decide on the project. Commissioner Sean Maxwell said if we had concerns we wanted them to hear, we would have the chance, “probably in February.” Commissioner Cyndi Dawson concurred. As Pete Kennedy, the commission chair, discussed what he’d like to add to the agreement, Haschert interrupted him, saying, “Actually, this is the night it will be decided, it doesn’t have to go to council for approval.”
Wait, what?
This came as a surprise to me and other members of the public.
At 3:07:40, Maxwell said it will go to council. No one corrected him for 32 minutes.
How many more people would have been there to speak about it had they known the issue might have been decided that night? Yes, the commissioners had to vote, but again, the process wasn’t made clear, and different people in charge had different statements on how that process would play out. This is not fair to citizens.
The entire event was a microcosm for why people get fed up with the system, because some of the people in that system don’t seem to understand that the confusing double-talk makes people upset. While technically nothing that was done was wrong, how it was done most certainly was.
The process is flawed.
A pox on all of their houses, including the commissioners, who really need to make the procedures clear to the public.
Even more maddening, the meeting agenda never made it clear that a final decision was going to be rendered – another flaw in the process.
Kennedy ended with rambling, dismissive comments, made a few lame jokes, and called for a vote. It passed 5-1, with Maxwell the lone dissenter. Neighbors have filed more than one appeal, so this is not over. It will go before the city council. But I don’t know when.
I can’t find anything on the city website that shows when it’s going to the council. They don’t post the council agenda until a day or two before the meeting, and I can’t find a place on the site to see where appeals have been filed. Again, this is part of the problem.
How we got to this point is most concerning.
As for the project itself, first and foremost, my heart goes out to the neighbors directly next to the lot, who recently put up solar panels on their modest one-story roof, which will now be blocked virtually the entire day. I wonder if the city or the developers are planning to reimburse them for their loss of natural power and the costs associated with it? Pay my PG&E bill for life, for the panels and installation, and for the mental anguish of having neighbors stories above me looking directly down at my house. That holds true for the rest of the nearby neighbors, who will lose their privacy.
Second, why does this have to be five stories? If you answer that the city has a mandate from the state, stop. The city has a mandate, not this one lot.
If the city wants to build in this area, then here’s my solution: Have each business along the Mission Street corridor add one story to their lots, so it’s spread out and doesn’t stick out like this one will.
This project will put 59 units on five stories. That’s 10 to 12 units per story, depending on the size. I could name at least 10 properties along the corridor you could put one story on, and now you have more than doubled your housing to appease the state.
I used to live on the famed Mulberry Street in New York City, and my apartment was directly above an Italian restaurant. I had the time of my life there as a college student. We can’t put 10 to 12 units above the likes of Burger, Mission St. BBQ, all the way down, including the old O’Mei lot? You could even do two stories above spots adjacent to businesses in the back, essentially most everything from Safeway to Swift Street.
Now, we are spreading the development out so it doesn’t affect one specific area, and creating more opportunities for local jobs for local people. A win-win.
Yet all we hear from city planners, developers and the commission is, it doesn’t pencil out unless it reaches a certain number of units, which basically means the developers can’t make enough money so they won’t do it. Then find some developers who will!
Habitat for Humanity still exists. It’s currently working on a 36-unit development in Long Beach, so this isn’t some crazy idea. We can’t partner with them to do something similar?
Also discussed were legitimate concerns about the numbers they are using, the effects on the ecosystem of the adjacent Laurel Creek, a conflict of interest, parking, traffic and safety. Again the city and the developers contradicted themselves, claiming that truck deliveries currently weren’t an issue on the Food Bin property and then putting in their presentation a slide stating one reason it needed to be developed was that truck deliveries were an issue.
My head hurt from all the spinning.
In summary, this is a clear money grab by the developers and an insult to the neighborhood.
One story of housing, cool, but five? And the confusing behavior of Haschert and Kennedy, in addition to the faulty process this project has exemplified, should be met with condemnation.
We should expect better from our leaders.
Joel Domhoff is a born-and-raised Westsider who attended Bay View Elementary School, Mission Hill Middle and Santa Cruz High. He has taught at various high schools throughout the county as well as Gavilan College and UC Santa Cruz. He received his master’s degree in journalism from New York University and won three Emmy Awards for his work at NBC for its coverage of the Olympic Games.