4 ms·

As a Santa Cruz homeowner, I wholly support building more and making Santa Cruz more affordable. It's incredible how expensive it is to live here - renting or b

As a Santa Cruz homeowner, I wholly support building more and making Santa Cruz more affordable. It's incredible how expensive it is to live here - renting or buying. I'd love to see more young people and young families be able to enjoy this wonderful area - its truly lovely here and I don't see any reason that the great culture of Santa Cruz and responsible, tasteful and affordable housing can't co-exist.

epistasis 3y ago
As a fellow Santa Cruz resident, thank you! There's been a massive change in opinion over the past few years, and we need to speak up to make that clear to the town. The typical NIMBYs that have a ballot proposition coming up were only able to turn out a sad four people at the Christmas parade this year. We need to defeat that.
mwattsun 3y ago
But where? Therein lies the rub. Would you go up the North Coast? There's plenty of farmland there. Would you go into the forest, requiring felling a lot of trees? Please don't say you want to build out Lighthouse Field.
- epistasis 3y ago
  Everywhere there's currently a building, that's where more housing should go. The only problem is that it's currently illegal to do that. Building a massive mansion is by-right, building apartments triggers a discretionary process that can be derailed by only a few motivated people.
pokstad 3y ago
From what I’ve seen happen in Long Beach, these high density housing developments are rarely affordable. Most new developments cater to the higher end of the market. Long Beach became much more unaffordable after the density increased.
- epistasis 3y ago
  What used to be "affordable" in Santa Cruz now exclusively caters to the wealthy. Saying we shouldn't build more because of that is simply nonsensical, because it makes this previously affordable housing even more unaffordable. Additionally, in Santa Cruz, there are requirements on construction of large multi unit residential buildings that put deed restrictions on rent or purchase price of at least 20% of the units (unless they upped it since I last checked.) These restrictions fall into a standard system of income bands that are based off of the median income of the area. This new construction is the only source of affordable housing. Yet we have plenty of people opposing it because "it won't be affordable"

epistasis 3y ago

As a fellow Santa Cruz resident, thank you! There's been a massive change in opinion over the past few years, and we need to speak up to make that clear to the town. The typical NIMBYs that have a ballot proposition coming up were only able to turn out a sad four people at the Christmas parade this year. We need to defeat that.

mwattsun 3y ago

But where? Therein lies the rub. Would you go up the North Coast? There's plenty of farmland there. Would you go into the forest, requiring felling a lot of trees? Please don't say you want to build out Lighthouse Field.

epistasis 3y ago
Everywhere there's currently a building, that's where more housing should go. The only problem is that it's currently illegal to do that. Building a massive mansion is by-right, building apartments triggers a discretionary process that can be derailed by only a few motivated people.

pokstad 3y ago

From what I’ve seen happen in Long Beach, these high density housing developments are rarely affordable. Most new developments cater to the higher end of the market. Long Beach became much more unaffordable after the density increased.

epistasis 3y ago
What used to be "affordable" in Santa Cruz now exclusively caters to the wealthy. Saying we shouldn't build more because of that is simply nonsensical, because it makes this previously affordable housing even more unaffordable. Additionally, in Santa Cruz, there are requirements on construction of large multi unit residential buildings that put deed restrictions on rent or purchase price of at least 20% of the units (unless they upped it since I last checked.) These restrictions fall into a standard system of income bands that are based off of the median income of the area. This new construction is the only source of affordable housing. Yet we have plenty of people opposing it because "it won't be affordable"