Demolition has begun along Front Street in downtown Santa Cruz for the new complex to be known as the Riverfront Apartments. The Riverfront project represents a big leap forward in the city’s efforts to develop along the San Lorenzo River levee. It is the first of three projects planned for the Front Street corridor along the river between Soquel Avenue and Laurel Street.
Housing
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
Santa Cruz to wait ‘several months’ to enforce oversized vehicle ban after Coastal Commission approval
Christopher Neely examines the next steps for the City of Santa Cruz’s oversized vehicle ordinance after the California Coastal Commission approved a one-year pilot last week.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley will leave it to residents to figure out 2024 affordable housing bond
Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley says he plans to let community members lead on organizing the housing bond he has touted since he was on the campaign trail.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Don’t trust the city: Oversized vehicle ordinance poses an existential threat to the unhoused
Reggie Meisler, an advocate for the unhoused, has a simple message for the California Coastal Commission members set to vote Thursday on the validity of Santa Cruz’s contentious oversized vehicle ordinance: Be wary. The city, he writes, has “had numerous opportunities to practice restraint” in ticketing and towing vulnerable people and has repeatedly proved itself untrustworthy. He says the ordinance is “discriminatory” and makes the lives of needy people worse.
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 inK-12 Education
Pajaro Valley Unified School District in talks for property purchase for workforce housing
As workforce housing rises to the fore in the area’s affordability crisis, the Pajaro Valley Unified School District board considered the purchase of housing in a closed session Wednesday. It could join the Santa Cruz City Schools district, which is moving to build such housing, and the Live Oak School District, which is in the early stages of planning.
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.