Quick Take
Streamlining the permitting process is among the goals for the City of Santa Cruz in 2024, as officials say they will keep working to create a permanent solution for outdoor dining areas on private property with temporary pandemic-era permits. Meanwhile, the city is already implementing its parklet program.
Before 2020, few restaurants in Santa Cruz had outdoor dining areas. But during the pandemic, restaurants were able to expand their dining rooms onto sidewalks, parking lots and patios, thanks to temporary permits offered by the city that waived many of the typical planning requirements. Now, eating outside has become a way of life that diners, business owners and the city would like to protect.
But converting these temporary dining areas into permanent fixtures has proved to be a complicated process. In September, some restaurant owners voiced concerns that the current plan proposed by the city’s economic development department could cost individual businesses as much as $50,000. Not only could the fee to become compliant force some restaurants to close their patios, the loss of the additional capacity could lower profits and necessitate layoffs due to decreased customer seating.
“We all agree outdoor dining is good for economic recovery and community well-being, and we want to keep these outdoor seating spaces open,” said Economic Development Director Bonnie Lipscomb wrote in an op-ed in Lookout’s Community Voices opinion section in October. City staff and an outdoor dining subcommittee are working with business owners to make the permitting process more streamlined and transparent, while ensuring that the outdoor dining spaces meet long-term safety and accessibility standards.
There are two outdoor dining programs in Santa Cruz: the parklet program for patios in public parking spaces along city streets, which are city property, and the outdoor dining program for dining areas on private property, like parking lots adjacent to a restaurant. The city has different approaches for each.
The city is already implementing its permanent parklet program for outdoor dining areas in public on-street parking spaces. Of the 19 applications received, 12 are in the process of moving forward and seven are in design review, said Economic Development Manager Rebecca Unitt. Bad Animal, a wine bar and bookstore on Cedar Street in downtown Santa Cruz, and Hula’s Island Grill on Cathcart Street received approval for their custom parklet designs and have started construction.
Six of the 12 businesses that have received approval are using the city’s pre-approved parklet design and will likely begin construction in late January to mid-February, pending the arrival of the steel fabricated components used to create the railings.
The city is also working to improve the permitting process for outdoor dining areas on private property, like the covered and heated eating area Tramonti set up at its Seabright restaurant. The major difficulty here is that each site is unique, and the circumstances have to be evaluated individually based on location, amount of seating, accessibility, proximity to other uses, and existing structures.
Based on feedback from the community, the city is working on streamlined options for businesses to receive permit approval for these spaces.
Unitt said city staff plan to share the revised permit process with restaurants in mid-January for feedback. The goal, she said, is to put the simplified process before the planning commission and city council for approval in early 2024 so businesses can begin the work of transitioning their temporary patios into permanent ones later next year.
In the meantime, the outdoor dining subcommittee plans to recommend that the city extend the temporary permits beyond the current March 31, deadline, so businesses won’t see their permits revoked before a new permitting process is in place.
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