5 ms·

There’s a ton of land that can be developed around Santa Cruz, it just can’t be developed due to public policy and local opposition. Huge empty tracts all over

There’s a ton of land that can be developed around Santa Cruz, it just can’t be developed due to public policy and local opposition. Huge empty tracts all over and especially around Ben Lomond etc. The flip side of all this is that a lot of long term residents love that their 100-200k houses are now worth a million+ with their property taxes capped at essentially nothing. They don’t want to give that up to allow their nieces and nephews to afford to grow their families in Santa Cruz.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> There’s a ton of land that can be developed around Santa Cruz, it just can’t be developed due to public policy and local opposition This is how we get urban sprawl and habitat destruction.
- bcrosby95 3y ago
  Yes, up is better than out. I'm happy the Santa Cruz planning commission has sanely decided to start by building downtown up.
mwattsun 3y ago
You forgot to mention that UCSC sits on a huge tract of land that they refuse to build student housing on for reasons I can't fathom.
- dekhn 3y ago
  The original plan was to build out UCSC a lot more. I think the regents lost their motivation after building colleges 9 and 10 and also I think if they built more student housing, they'd have to build more parking lots (so many students have cars) and the traffic in the city would increase tremendously.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > if they built more student housing, they'd have to build more parking lots There is another solution to this!
    - dekhn 3y ago
      If you think you can solve CA's addiction to cars, I'm all ears.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > think you can solve CA's addiction to cars No need. We're solving a narrow problem: students' need to park on campus. Out-of-town commuter and part-time students will need a car. But everyone else is solvable.
        fragmede 3y ago
        Specifically, Merrill and Oakes college have that parking lot, and there's a parking structure by the Earth/sciences building, and another one up above college 11, and several more. Once you get on campus though, there's a reasonably good shuttle to take you around campus, so you just need to park somewhere on campus and then give yourself enough time to take the shuttle to your destination. If you're living on campus, you only need to get off campus to go to the local downtown bar scene, or for other extracurriculars, but there's a bus that takes you downtown so as a student you can get away with not having a car.
        dekhn 3y ago
        that's not how car problems are solved in California.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > not how car problems are solved in California Stop trying to solve the problem for California. Focus on the narrow problem. Universities everywhere operate as a parallel population.
- epistasis 3y ago
  NIMBYs in the city sue the university to stop all housing, infrastructure, or other things that may allow for more students or reduce their problems. Fortunately there have been modifications to CEQA last year to prevent these abuses of the law that result in worse environmental outcomes (students driving long distances rather than living on campus)
epistasis 3y ago
There's tons of land inside of Santa Cruz that should be developed first. Keep the green belt and let people experience nature. Let all the people living in the hills and causing lots of environmental destruction through roads and other impacts stop making those impacts by giving them the equivalent rent inside the city. In short, lots of houses would be great. (I'm a Santa Cruz resident, for the record)

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> There’s a ton of land that can be developed around Santa Cruz, it just can’t be developed due to public policy and local opposition This is how we get urban sprawl and habitat destruction.

bcrosby95 3y ago
Yes, up is better than out. I'm happy the Santa Cruz planning commission has sanely decided to start by building downtown up.

mwattsun 3y ago

You forgot to mention that UCSC sits on a huge tract of land that they refuse to build student housing on for reasons I can't fathom.

dekhn 3y ago
The original plan was to build out UCSC a lot more. I think the regents lost their motivation after building colleges 9 and 10 and also I think if they built more student housing, they'd have to build more parking lots (so many students have cars) and the traffic in the city would increase tremendously.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > if they built more student housing, they'd have to build more parking lots There is another solution to this!
  - dekhn 3y ago
    If you think you can solve CA's addiction to cars, I'm all ears.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > think you can solve CA's addiction to cars No need. We're solving a narrow problem: students' need to park on campus. Out-of-town commuter and part-time students will need a car. But everyone else is solvable.
      - fragmede 3y ago
        Specifically, Merrill and Oakes college have that parking lot, and there's a parking structure by the Earth/sciences building, and another one up above college 11, and several more. Once you get on campus though, there's a reasonably good shuttle to take you around campus, so you just need to park somewhere on campus and then give yourself enough time to take the shuttle to your destination. If you're living on campus, you only need to get off campus to go to the local downtown bar scene, or for other extracurriculars, but there's a bus that takes you downtown so as a student you can get away with not having a car.
      - dekhn 3y ago
        that's not how car problems are solved in California.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > not how car problems are solved in California Stop trying to solve the problem for California. Focus on the narrow problem. Universities everywhere operate as a parallel population.
epistasis 3y ago
NIMBYs in the city sue the university to stop all housing, infrastructure, or other things that may allow for more students or reduce their problems. Fortunately there have been modifications to CEQA last year to prevent these abuses of the law that result in worse environmental outcomes (students driving long distances rather than living on campus)

epistasis 3y ago

There's tons of land inside of Santa Cruz that should be developed first. Keep the green belt and let people experience nature. Let all the people living in the hills and causing lots of environmental destruction through roads and other impacts stop making those impacts by giving them the equivalent rent inside the city. In short, lots of houses would be great. (I'm a Santa Cruz resident, for the record)