Quick Take
A statewide prohibition on parking minimums has placed cities like Santa Cruz in a tough spot as it prepares to permit thousands of new housing units over the next five years. This means more cars but not necessarily more places to fit them. Local lawmakers are now pushing for a way to mitigate what they worry will be a parking squeeze.
With hundreds of units under development in the city’s urban core, and thousands more required throughout Santa Cruz, local lawmakers say the city is unprepared for what they see as a looming parking squeeze.
On Tuesday, the Santa Cruz City Council was unanimous in directing city staff to reexamine its policies governing development’s impact on transportation, specifically parking. The resolution, authored by Vice Mayor Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, specifically seeks ways to mitigate what is expected to be a tough period as cities adjust to a state law that prohibits local governments from requiring parking on new housing developments.
Signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022, Assembly Bill 2097 prohibits local governments throughout California from requiring developers of multifamily housing to include on-site parking if the project is within one half-mile of a major transit stop. The definition of “major transit stop” was expanded in 2024 to include transit stops with service frequency of 20 minutes or less. The bill attempts to both ease the cost of housing development — parking can cost up to $100,000 per parking stall in a multilevel garage — and push toward the environmental goal of reduced car dependency.
In Santa Cruz, this state law has materialized into more and more developments offering relatively little parking. Workbench’s Clocktower Center plans for 178 apartments — with the potential for more — but only 100 on-site parking spaces. A project proposed for 901 Pacific Ave. includes only 52 spaces for 91 apartments. Workbench is also involved with two projects on Mission Street that take advantage of state law: The Food Bin project (which is still moving through court appeals) proposes 59 units with 12 parking spaces; another 68-unit project on the 1800 block includes only 14 spots for cars.
In May, the city also rezoned the area south of Laurel Street to expand its downtown footprint and encourage dense multifamily development and up to 1,600 new homes with no ability to require on-site parking.
Over the next six months, city staff will look to come up with local policy ideas aimed at managing what lawmakers worry could be an influx of cars with nowhere to put them.
Part of that will be adjusting the city’s objective development design standards, which could mandate developers to help the city improve its civil infrastructure for cyclists, pedestrians and people otherwise traveling outside of cars. This could look like widening sidewalks or updating bike paths around a project site, or paying into a fund. Developers could also be required to study and mitigate the impact their development has on nearby neighborhood parking.
The city will also look to streamline its program that allows neighborhoods to adopt parking permit requirements to help preserve local street parking for existing residents.
Kalantari-Johnson, who represents Santa Cruz’s Westside, called the effort “a first step of probably many” as the city prepares to meet its state-mandated housing goals of permitting more than 3,700 new housing units by 2031.
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