County planning department resolves to overcome its ‘culture of no’

When a third-party consultant concluded in March that a “culture of no” pervades Santa Cruz County’s planning division, it confirmed the opinions of many who have navigated the county’s building permit process over the years. 

The report, by national government consulting firm Baker Tilly, hardly shocked county officials and lawmakers as well. 

“No, I wasn’t surprised,” Carlos Palacios, the county’s top executive, told Lookout earlier this week. Palacios said the tagline was a “simplistic way of looking at it,” but acknowledged the real problems within the county’s development pipeline. “The state of California is very regulated. The county is very regulated. And I think for years this organization has very much struggled with all those regulations and how you implement them.” 

Regardless of its simplicity, the “culture of no” moniker has lingered over the county’s Community Development and Infrastructure department — which houses the planning division — for the three months since. Now, the county’s planning heads say the department is doing something about it. 

On Tuesday, Assistant County Executive Officer Elissa Benson and CDI Director Matt Machado laid out “Streamline Santa Cruz County,” a three-year plan to root out rot and build what county executives are calling a “culture of yes.” 

“We’re moving toward action over analysis because we need to demonstrate that we can make change,” Benson told supervisors. 

The push comes as the county approaches the five-year anniversary in August of the CZU wildfire, which consumed 86,000 acres and nearly 1,000 structures in the county’s side of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Today, only 152 of those structures have been rebuilt, according to local data. The obstacles many victims have faced in rebuilding their homes only heightened criticisms of the county permitting process as slow, laborious and overly restrictive.

Earlier this week, that reputation was thrown into sharp relief when the Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury published its investigation into the county’s “permitting maze,” which it concluded was costly, slow and confusing.

County officials say their foot is now firm on the gas pedal. Since March, the planning division has tidied up some of its operation, establishing new walk-in hours for its permitting center, upping the frequency of same-day discretionary permits and seeking customer service surveys after appointments. It has also built, but is still tweaking, a public dashboard for permit data. 

However, the full rejuvenation sought by county leaders will require more substantial action, which the supervisors approved on Tuesday.

At the top of the list is a comprehensive code revision, a full excavation of the county’s planning, zoning and development rules to diagnose which areas create the most complexity and clog the pipes. The project is estimated to take three years, and will require consultants, broad community engagement, environmental analysis and likely multiple drafts of changes. Such a roots-up overhaul — a heavy lift in local government — could fundamentally reshape how development happens in Santa Cruz County. 

Machado’s department also sees technology as a critical piece to streamlining development. Over the next three years, the county wants to build a one-stop-shop online portal for all building and development permits. It would allow applicants to submit all necessary documents, accurately estimate fees and automatically identify possible problem areas in an application. The county sees it as the TurboTax-ification of permitting. 

The plan commits the county to, by the start of 2026, have mapped out the pain points in the permitting process, creating more opportunity for CZU victims to obtain rebuild permits and streamlining its inspection timelines.

County staff will return with a progress update in mid-October.

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