Making the transition from downtown to the beach seamless has been a goal of city leaders for years, and now Santa Cruz is poised to convert the area south of Laurel Street into a busy, pedestrian-friendly part of town, similar to a few blocks north. A new housing complex on Center Street is to be called Calypso, a six-story building with more than 200 units of market-rate and affordable housing.
Development
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Of course new buildings will change the Santa Cruz vibe
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: My opinion of all the new buildings being built is: overkill. Of course it’s gonna change the Santa Cruz vibe. Things already have been changing drastically with all of the homelessness. It’s a shame that’s […]
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: As Santa Cruz builds, multistory downtown housing does not have to be ugly
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. To the editor: I was born and raised in Santa Cruz, and haven’t lived here full-time for more than 60 years. But I have had a second home in Santa Cruz since the 1980s, and I visit it […]
Posted inHousing & Development
Nightmare or riverfront nirvana — or somewhere in between? What’s the next Santa Cruz going to feel like?
Quick, describe the vibe that characterizes what the one-of-a-kind place that is Santa Cruz is known to be. Now, as the housing construction boom begins to change the landscape of downtown, angst is growing about the displacement of the old and the coming of the new. Will downtown’s dramatic facelift obliterate that special Santa Cruz something? Or will the Santa Cruz spirit — however you might define it — in time inhabit the new city now emerging?
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Toward a March 2024 housing bond measure in Santa Cruz
James Weller, a local housing advocate, thinks he has an answer to our community’s most vexing issue, the fact that most of us cannot afford to pay the exorbitant cost of housing. The state has mandated Santa Cruz County build more, Weller writes, but developers won’t build unless they can make a profit by charging high rents. “But what if we had a public subsidization fund so we could pay developers some fraction of their marginal cost per unit” so that more units could be low-rent dwellings, he asks.”Maybe we could pay them enough to make a profit on the deal.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
New housing is coming to our communities — be part of the process
The next six months will be transformative for Santa Cruz County. In that time, each city council and the county board of supervisors (for the unincorporated areas) will be adopting “housing elements” that will serve as a blueprint of how each community meets its state-mandated housing needs. The process is complex, write housing advocates Don Lane and Elizabeth Madrigal. But the decisions will affect everyone. It’s in everyone’s interest, they say, to get involved now.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
In the Public Interest: Is Santa Cruz’s housing plan too dependent on UCSC’s new development?
In this week’s edition of In the Public Interest, Christopher Neely examines how projects at UC Santa Cruz fit into the equation of the number of housing units the City of Santa Cruz is mandated to permit by 2031.
Posted inUncategorized
Santa Cruz City Council advances plan for more than 3,700 housing units — a fourfold increase — by 2031
It’s full speed ahead for the accelerated building of housing for the city of Santa Cruz over the next eight years. Plans long in the works call for development of more than 2,000 housing units along the city’s main corridors of Mission, River, Ocean and Water streets and Soquel Avenue. On Tuesday, the council unanimously approved the plan that now advances to state review.
Posted inUncategorized
A field guide to downtown Santa Cruz’s many in-progress housing developments
Downtown Santa Cruz is humming with construction, and there’s plenty more coming. Here’s Lookout’s update on where things stand as of late April 2023.
Posted inUncategorized
For 2024, downtown Santa Cruz’s changes will be nothing less than transformational
New residents will start moving into at least three new downtown Santa Cruz apartment buildings in 2024, and the crack of demolition of what’s next will be in the air. First, there’s the new Anton Pacific, Pacific Station South, Pacific Station North, the Cedar/Center project — and then there’s the Riverfront, Five 30 Front, the Cruz Hotel and a riverwalk all in the planning. Here’s a view of what’s going way up.