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.
Housing
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.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Setting the record straight: It’s time to debunk false affordable housing narratives in Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz city planning commissioners Pete Kennedy and Michael Polhamus respond to their colleagues Cyndi Dawson and Sean Maxwell’s contention that the city is not producing enough affordable housing. Kennedy and Polhamus believe demanding unrealistic affordable housing percentages and conditions of approval makes projects infeasible to build. This does not help alleviate the housing affordability crisis, they argue — and it is also against state law. Providing housing for all through the city’s inclusionary zoning and building 100% affordable projects yields the highest proportions of affordable housing possible and helps alleviate pressures in the market, they say.
Posted inHousing & Development
As state-mandated housing plan heads to city council, ‘small town’ Santa Cruz faces its future
The city of Santa Cruz needs to build more than three times as many housing units in the next eight years as it did in the past eight. And the plan coming before the city council Tuesday shows a projected 4,457 units that can be permitted during that time. Most of them would be in along the city’s corridors — Mission, Ocean, Water and River streets and Soquel Avenue.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
In the Public Interest: As Santa Cruz County faces a mandate of fourfold increase in new housing, all stick, no carrot from state
In this edition of In the Public Interest, Christopher Neely delves into regional housing allocation numbers, how many new units Santa Cruz County and its cities are expected to build by 2031 and the state of California’s approach to making sure those goals are met.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Ambitious project pairs artists with unhoused, attempting to answer ‘What’s Home?’
In a series of films and live performances coming to The 418 Project and the Radius Gallery at the Tannery Arts Center, Andrew Purchin tracks the interaction between those with secure housing and those without and the expressions of art that emerged.
Posted inLatest News
The hidden flaw in California homes that can cause earthquake destruction
The defect that can cause single-family houses to collapse has received little attention until now. Some California homeowners will soon be able to apply for grant to help pay for the retrofit.
Posted inK-12 Education
‘This will be a game-changer’: Live Oak School District in very early planning stages for workforce housing
A 2-acre site at 1777 Capitola Road could be turned into 60 to 70 units to house Live Oak School District workers. Officials are mulling a 2024 bond measure, and a district committee also aims to explore ways to include two community organizations now headquartered at the site in the development.
Posted inLatest News
Santa Cruz officials lay out vision for Coral Street homeless services hub
Community centers, open gardens, pallet homes and possible parking options are all being explored as part of the City of Santa Cruz’s current draft of a report on its long-term vision to transform the Coral Street neighborhood into a center for housing and support services for the unhoused. Several business owners and representatives from the Coral Street area raised concerns about the vision during a planning commission meeting Thursday night.
