Are cars really necessary in downtowns?
The necessity of cars is as much a staple of California urban design debates as gun control is on the national presidential debate stage, and the sides are just as ideologically entrenched.
The typical question is whether Californians can live car-free, and instead depend primarily on public transit and other modes of transportation for daily life. However, a growing movement is proposing a different premise: Can downtowns, or at least certain streets within a city, exist car-free?
Over the past 11 months, Santa Cruz resident Kevin Norton has been probing this question with a group of locals who want to improve downtown Santa Cruz. They call themselves Pacific for People, a name that encapsulates their vision that Pacific Avenue is best suited for people, not cars. The group has met weekly to strategize — in the back room of Lupulo Craft Beer House — for nearly a year, and has surveyed downtown business owners and patrons, as well as lobbied political leaders.
Now, as I report in a story out Monday, one of the group’s proposals could make its way onto a Santa Cruz City Council agenda next week: shut down Cooper Street — which runs along Abbott Square and connects Pacific Avenue and Front Street — to cars on summer weekends.
Norton and Pacific for People’s proposal comes at an inflection point for downtown Santa Cruz. The city has decided to focus housing development in the neighborhood. Yet, as more cranes and construction equipment move in, more businesses have been moving out.
By Lookout’s own survey of ground-floor storefronts along Pacific Avenue, Cedar Street and all the streets in between, downtown Santa Cruz had more than 45 commercial vacancies in February. Cities across the U.S. are facing similar questions about their own downtowns, as e-commerce corporations have cut into small businesses, and a lingering post-pandemic work-from-home culture has diminished midday lunch crowds.
“The conditions are changing for brick-and-mortar stores, and more of our dollars are being siphoned by the likes of Amazon and DoorDash,” Norton said. Because of this, people no longer need to physically travel to a downtown or central business district. The group believes a key to vibrancy, then, is creating a place where people want to gather.
Santa Cruz could join a growing list of California cities that are rethinking downtown and transitioning some streets into pedestrian-only stretches. However, not everyone is on board with the idea.
OF NOTE
831 Almar megadevelopment withdrawn: Less than a week after the Santa Cruz Planning Commission said the owner of the 2-acre site at 831 Almar Ave., off of Mission Street, could pursue a rare, planned unit development for the old industrial lot, the owner withdrew her application, senior city planner Tim Maier told Lookout.
Maier said he was shocked when his office received a March 29 email from property owner Louise Veninga signaling her desire to ditch the project, with little context as to why. Maier said he was especially surprised given that the property owner has already paid the city $26,000 in application processing fees. Santa Cruz Local first reported the withdrawal on Friday.
Facebook blow-up: An April Fool’s Day name-change prank by Santa Cruz’s most popular Facebook group quickly went awry as the social media platform allows only a single name change per group per month. Now, the community is stuck with “Jan 6 Pardonees Lawn Bowling Club” until May 1. The group has lost more than 1,000 members since the name change, which fueled long-simmering tensions that the page had grown too political since the 2024 election.
Panic sets in after a DHS vehicle was spotted in Santa Cruz and mistakenly believed to be an ICE truck: As my colleague Tania Ortiz reports, the false alarm reflects a heightened state of vigilance that has persisted in the county since the Trump administration announced aggressive immigration enforcement policies, making even routine sightings of federal vehicles a source of community anxiety.
POINTS FOR PARTICIPATION
County leaders to nominate Justin Cummings for Coastal Commission post: In March, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas alerted local governments in Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties that he would be accepting nominations for the Central Coast representative on the influential California Coastal Commission, a seat currently occupied by District 3 Santa Cruz County Supervisor Justin Cummings, who also chairs the commission. On Wednesday, the county’s City Selection Committee — a body made up of the county’s four mayors and supervisor chair — will vote to nominate Cummings to continue in the post. That meeting begins at 10 a.m.
An important Coastal Rail Trail vote in Capitola City Council: On Thursday, the Capitola City Council will have two options: agree to relocate plans for nearly a mile of the trail part of the Coastal Rail Trail farther inland along Park Avenue, or maintain the existing configuration that keeps the trail and rail together and along the coast. The former is more cost-effective, preferred by the Regional Transportation Commission, and could eliminate some challenges of encroaching property lines. Opponents argue the plans may violate Measure L, a ballot measure the city’s voters passed in 2018 to ensure the trail conforms to the rail corridor and is not rerouted onto city streets. However, the decision will be up to the city council when it meets at 5:15 p.m. on Thursday.
Santa Cruz’s downtown expansion hits the planning commission: On Thursday, the city’s planning commission will receive a hearing on the city’s long-sought downtown plan expansion, a series of zoning and land-use changes that would allow 1,600 new housing units and 12-story residential structures in the area south of Laurel Street. If the commission votes to recommend the project, the land-use changes would go to the city council for final approval later this year.
ONE GREAT READ
The Santa Cruz Warriors players helping Steph Curry in a big-league playoff push, by Max Chun for Lookout Santa Cruz
When our beloved Sea Dubs lost to the Valley Suns earlier this month, their hopes for a G League championship ended. However, several players from the minor-league team have found spots on the NBA squad and, alongside future Hall of Famer Steph Curry, have helped the Golden State Warriors make a push into the NBA playoffs.
It’s a dream come true for the players who, more than simply getting called up, have contributed to the team’s recent NBA success, but it comes with a lot of work, and even greater pressure. In many ways, these guys are playing with the opportunity to make, or possibly break, their careers.
My colleague Max Chun, our office’s foremost authority on all things NBA, has been following some of the players as they moved between locker rooms in Santa Cruz and San Francisco, and the story he published Monday is a great up-close-and-personal perspective on a handful of men at the edge of glory.