Quick Take
Pete Kennedy, chair of the volunteer City of Santa Cruz Planning Commission, says Measure M would be detrimental to the city’s recent excellent record on housing. He also bats away arguments that the March 5 ballot initiative is about democracy: “Our commission conducted 18 public meetings just last year,” he writes, “and that’s not even touching all the stakeholder groups, project presentations, calls to staff, emails and other work that goes into planning.” He says he “won’t stand” for arguments that claim the process isn’t democratic.
I happened to read Frank Barron’s latest piece supporting Measure M right before heading to my most recent meeting as chair of the City of Santa Cruz Planning Commission. We had a good year at the commission, and I was looking back over our accomplishments. By contrast to the good work we’ve done, Measure M is a big mistake.
First off, we are building plenty of affordable housing. It is a testament to the human power to ignore facts that people still think this is an issue.
For example, in the past year, our commission approved 759 units of housing. Of these, 218 of these were deed-restricted affordable and 541 were market rate, for a total of 29% affordable.
See my previous opinion piece for more on the results of our most recent state housing cycle, where we ended up as one of the 6% of California jurisdictions to achieve its housing goals and be designated a pro-housing jurisdiction.
This is phenomenal success for our little town by the sea, and has me scratching my head when I ponder why, every election cycle, we see a tricky measure on the ballot trying to stop this progress.
Being on the losing end of a democratic majority, over and over again, is a lot different than the system not working.
In fact, the voters invalidating deceitful initiatives like Measure M repeatedly, while exhausting, tells me our system is working just fine. Applying Occam’s razor, I wonder if the voters are just correctly identifying how bad these initiatives are?
By contrast to the initiative process, where measures are penned in secret, behind closed doors, and most times by “the usual suspects,” our public process is open, democratic and welcomes all voices and stakeholders. Our commissioners are qualified experts, appointed by the city council, who are in turn directly elected by the people.
As our city finishes transitioning to district elections, our councilmembers will be even more aligned with their neighborhoods’ needs. Our commission conducted 18 public meetings just last year, and that’s not even touching all the stakeholder groups, project presentations, outreach meetings, calls to staff, emails and other work that goes into planning.
Ethics, skilled professionals and public input guide our volunteer work on the commission. I am proud of what we do and how we do it, and won’t stand for Mr. Barron’s implication that this process isn’t democratic enough.
I should also note that the planning commission Mr. Barron refers to in his piece was a brief detour in the past 20 years of housing progress in this city. The councilmembers who appointed those commissioners were recalled by the voters.
Now that’s what I call democracy in action.
Santa Cruz is moving forward, growing and getting better. Building all types of housing within the city limits is key to this, and allows us to preserve our greenbelt and natural areas.
Building housing slowly chips away at the systemic racism and inequality built into our zoning, and provides opportunity for all people. This is why I volunteer to participate in our rich democracy – so that my kids can live in a better Santa Cruz than where I grew up.
Voting against Measure M can help us continue our success.
Pete Kennedy is senior project manager at Bright Green Strategies, a LEED-accredited professional and a Santa Cruz planning commissioner.