Quick Take
The project proposed at 900 High St., behind Peace United Church of Christ, has cleared the City of Santa Cruz's zoning administrator and the planning commission. Yet neighbors continue to oppose it.
For the 40-unit residential project proposed adjacent to the UC Santa Cruz campus, there are layers that make it one of the more unique of the recent housing proposals. However, “Peace Village,” as the development is called, has not yet brought total peace to its village, and neighbors are once again attempting to block it.
The project’s uniqueness begins with its six floors. Its design, from Santa Cruz architectural firm Workbench, builds the project into the property’s down-sloping, coast-facing limestone hill, so that the structure, to the eye, never rises above four floors. Peace United Church of Christ owns the 5.9-acre lot hosting the project, but will subdivide the property so that the church remains along High Street and the development will be contained within a vacant, 2.2-acre section of open land behind the church parking lot.
And, perhaps, most intriguing of all in Santa Cruz: Of the project’s 40 residential units, ranging from studios to five-bedrooms, seven will make up for 29 total beds as part of a co-living vision developer Sibley Simon of New Way Homes has proposed. The 29 beds will be split between two co-living spaces, each with their own shared kitchen, living room, dining area and bathrooms. The two co-living spaces also do not count toward the project’s required affordable units, of which it has nine, or 22.5% of the total.
Although many residents have expressed admiration for the development, it has attracted the ire of others, leading to two appeals aimed at altering the project. The first appeal was filed on behalf of the Westlake Neighborhood Association by president Deborah Elston, who also leads the neighborhood-focused nonprofit, Santa Cruz Neighbors. The 24-point objection, which included concerns over traffic and storm water flow, was unanimously rejected by the city’s planning commission in November.
On Tuesday, the Santa Cruz City Council will hear another neighborhood appeal, this time of the planning commission’s November decision to let the project move forward. City planner Brittany Whitehill said the issues raised this time deal with the project’s density, its proximity to an abandoned quarry and the damage to heritage trees.
However, Whitehill said since Peace Village has met all of the zoning requirements and fits within the city’s general plan, the only way the city council could reject the project under state law is if it found specific adverse impacts to the public’s health and safety. She said this is “a high threshold.”
California’s new housing reality is one in which the state has taken away much discretionary power from local governments in rejected new housing developments, especially those that include certain levels of affordability. Elston told Lookout she recognizes this, and the appeals are not meant to stop the project, but to voice neighbor concerns and hopefully help alter the development through adding conditions onto the permit approval process.
“We’ve already made a difference in clarifying the concerns of the neighborhood,” Elston said. “We are influencing and shaping our concerns into conditions of approval for the betterment of the project.”
Simon, president of New Way Homes, said if the city council rejects the appeal and grants the design permits, Peace Village could break ground within the next two years.
Aside from the six four-bedroom units and the one five-bedroom unit that will make up the co-living space, the project will offer the more conventional configurations: 11 studios, three one-bedrooms, 15 two-bedrooms and four three-bedroom units.
“I lived in a house version of this sort of thing in Washington, D.C.,” Simon told Lookout. “People were doing this sort of thing across the U.S. and Europe for a long time. It’s only become rare in the last few decades.”
The project, if approved, will be the latest example of local churches stepping in to help lighten the burden of the housing crisis. St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church on Soquel Avenue provided the land for a 40-unit affordable senior housing development in 2017; the 100% affordable, 65-unit Cedar Street Family Apartments project in downtown Santa Cruz was made possible through collaboration with Calvary Episcopal Church.
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FOR THE RECORD: A previous version of this story incorrectly described Santa Cruz Neighbors as “politically influential.” Santa Cruz Neighbors, as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, does not endorse or support political candidates.
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