Quick Take
The Santa Cruz City Council rejected an appeal of a six-story, 67-unit housing development planned for Mission Street on Tuesday. Neighbors originally appealed the student-focused project due to road safety concerns and inadequate loading areas along busy streets.
The Santa Cruz City Council rejected an appeal of a mixed-use student housing development on Mission Street on Tuesday, despite widespread opposition from neighbors and what some councilmembers said was the city’s limited ability to address residents’ concerns.
The project is a six-story, 67-unit development planned for 1811 Mission St., between Dufour and Palm streets, that is tailored to UC Santa Cruz students. It will be built on a site that currently holds three one-story houses slated for demolition. Andy Goldberg of Getgo Properties is the owner and developer through a company named Stanford@Water Development LLC, and local architecture and development firm Workbench is the architect. It is a California Senate Bill 330 project, which limits local regulations on new developments in a bid to speed up the approval process for housing in the state.
The city’s planning commission approved the project in July. However, in meetings with the developer last fall, neighbors raised concerns about the development having only 14 parking spaces for 67 units, privacy issues from higher-story units whose windows will overlook their yards and a general dislike of the building’s design, with some calling it “soulless” at Tuesday’s meeting.
The developer made some changes to address the concerns, including a redesign of the architectural style, changing full balconies on back end units to juliet balconies to provide privacy for nearby properties, and adjusting the setback for the second story and higher.
The builder also offered to install frosted glass on east-facing windows to prevent residents of the project from being able to see directly into neighboring yards, provide a landscaping allowance to neighbors to plant trees and shrubs to shield views, pay for a two-year neighborhood parking permit if neighbors request one and provide free bus passes to tenants who request them.
However, the appeal centered on residents’ safety concerns over loading zones along Mission Street. Bruce Thomas, who filed the appeal on behalf of Dufour Street neighbors, told the council Tuesday that large delivery trucks often block a lane of traffic at Dufour Street and Mission Street, a problem that he says has been going on for years and causes unsafe street conditions.
He added that it’s due to the Starbucks location across the street from the development site. Customers often park in the loading zone illegally in order to run in and grab their order, he said. Thomas said he believes the problem will only get worse with increased traffic from the housing project as tenants begin to move in.
At a July meeting approving the project, the planning commission asked the city staff to meet with the community this fall about potential improvements to the loading zone on Dufour Street, and again six months after the project is approved for occupancy to ensure that parking and loading zones are enforced and operating correctly. Thomas’ appeal also called for the city and the developer to find ways to limit double parking on Dufour Street due to the loading-zone issue and establish an oversight mechanism to ensure the problem is being addressed.
Councilmembers didn’t offer a reason for rejecting Thomas’s appeal. However, in voting it down, the council also approved a plan by Councilmember Susie O’Hara to explore ways the city can collaborate with developers to have more say over the design of new developments, particularly in their early stages when design changes are more common. Councilmember Gabriela Trigueiro was the lone opposition vote.
Public comment drew unanimous disapproval from neighbors, including some who complained that the city is greenlighting too many projects, and that city officials should push back more frequently.
Mayor Fred Keeley said the city has far less land-use authority than it used to thanks to changes in state laws: “If we had 100% land-use authority 10 years ago, we have less than 15% of the authority we used to have.”
Keeley added that O’Hara’s proposal is unlikely to change how successful future developments are at gaining approval, but said that the city would do its best to use its remaining power to make good choices for future projects.
“If you think what that’s going to do is materially change what you see going on, I think we’ve misled you,” he said.
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.