Santa Cruz City Council shrinks Food Bin redevelopment before unanimous approval

With its hands seemingly tied behind its back and the state looking over its shoulder, the Santa Cruz City Council found a way to shrink the vision for the proposed Food Bin redevelopment before unanimously approving the project, capping off a tense and monthslong fight between neighbors and the developer over a new kind of build on the Westside. 

At its Tuesday night hearing in which nearly every seat inside city hall was filled, the city council said local developer Workbench could build its five-story mixed-use apartment project where The Food Bin and Herb Room currently sit, at 1130 Mission St. On paper, Workbench received almost everything it applied for with unanimous support — the height, (most of) the units, limited parking. However, finer details tell a different story. 

In a move led by District 4 City Councilmember Scott Newsome, the council slashed 11 storage rooms off the project. Since the discussions began around the project, Workbench has advertised the development as five stories with 59 units. However, the actual application showed only 48 studio units, with 11 storage rooms it counted as amenities but intended to convert into one-bedroom accessory dwelling units (ADUs). 

The move is allowed under 2019’s Assembly Bill 68, which says a developer can convert non-habitable space of an existing building to increase the total unit count by up to 25%. The law even allows that conversion to happen without city council approval; only the city’s planning staff has to greenlight it. However, city councilmembers said they were confused over that strategy and criticized Workbench for attempting it. 

“I feel like the processes have been disappointing, the approach is disappointing, and the storage approach felt obviously disingenuous to me,” Councilmember Martine Watkins said. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” 

Workbench’s co-founders, Jamileh Cannon and Tim Gordin, told Lookout last week that state law did not require them to say anything of their plans to convert the 11 storage spaces; however, they wanted to be up front with the community about their plans. 

“The shady thing to do would say, ‘OK, we’re doing 48 units and not tell anyone about the ADUs and then add them after,'” Gordin told Lookout. “We’re doing the opposite, which is to say, ‘Hey, this is a legal path we’re walking down, there is nothing shady about it at all. This is what the code says we can do, and we’re being up front about it.'”

The Food Bin redevelopment, incomparable among existing buildings along the low-rising and commercial-focused Mission Street corridor, raised tensions in the neighborhood and questions around what latitude the city council had to reject, or at least shrink, the project. The project earned unanimous approval from the city’s planning commission and an endorsement from its planning department as meeting all legal requirements. 

Under this current chapter for California’s housing development, projects that offer affordable housing and align with the city’s general plan are almost impossible to overhaul at the city council dais. Any changes must be modest and not affect the economic feasibility of the project. Denials can come only on the back of concrete evidence that the project would negatively impact health and safety.

Last week, Mayor Fred Keeley estimated that if the city council once had 100% of the power in determining a project’s fate, it now held maybe 20% of that influence, saying “the developer is going to largely get what they want.”

However, Newsome and the city council saw an opportunity to leverage that 20% through the storage spaces. Workbench’s application technically proposed 48 units, and the ADUs could come to fruition only after the project was complete. Thus, slashing the storage units couldn’t tank the development, but it did shrink Workbench’s envisioned density. 

Councilmember Sandy Brown said it was the city council’s responsibility to exercise whatever discretionary power it had to support the residents of Santa Cruz. 

“I believe it’s our responsibility to use that discretion to ensure that we are protecting neighbors to the extent we can,” Brown said. “There are neighbors all over this community who are going to be facing similar development projects. It is in the public interest that we do so.”

Cannon told Lookout the project was still possible without the storage space. 

“It will just look a little different than it does now,” Cannon said. “We’re going to regroup tomorrow and figure out what the next steps are. We’re definitely moving forward, I just don’t know exactly what that means yet.”  

After the nearly four-hour hearing, tensions continued to rise in the courtyard outside city hall. Neighbors aggressively confronted members of Workbench’s team; one of the neighbors who opposed the project walked away sobbing after an argument with a supporter, as people wearing “I Support Herb’n Infill Development” T-shirts fanned out onto Center Street. 

Rachel Moriconi, a neighbor who opposed the project, said she was grateful to the city council for showing up for residents. However, she remains skeptical of the city’s planning department and the developer. 

“I still don’t trust the planning department or Workbench, I just think they are going to find other workarounds and they’re going to be in cahoots,” Moriconi said outside city hall. “Hopefully they heard the message that if they want to do business in Santa Cruz County, they need to play nice and be respectful with neighbors.”

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