Lookout Santa Cruz: Here’s what they don’t tell you about the Housing for People ballot initiative
By Diana Alfaro, Don Lane and Elizabeth Madrigal
Over the past few months, volunteers blanketed the city of Santa Cruz inviting voters to sign a petition for an initiative they call Housing for People. To those of us who have worked seriously on affordable housing for people in the Santa Cruz community for years, this almost seemed like a joke – except that it is definitely not funny. Far from it.
Beyond the group’s name, the signature-gathering team told thousands of people their initiative would be a tool in the battle against taller buildings downtown. There was truth in this claim, but they neglected (consciously or out of ignorance) to mention the much wider (and foolish) impacts of their ballot measure.
Let’s start with the most foolish aspect of their proposal. It would set up a system where citywide votes would be required in a ridiculous number of situations, large and small. Because their measure is written to apply to all “development projects,” it would apply to the following situations, many of which might affect you:
If you wanted to build a 7-foot-tall fence at your house because there was a particularly noisy and bothersome business or neighbor next door, you would be required to have a vote of the entire city before you could get a permit to build the fence. Why? Because the height limit for solid side-yard fences is currently 6 feet, and any development project (yes, a fence is a development project under city law) in need of additional height would require a citywide vote to change the rules.
Even if the next-door neighbor didn’t object to the extra foot? Yes, even then.
You have an unusually tall, single-story garage in your backyard. You want to build an accessory dwelling unit (ADU or “granny flat”) above the garage. But, to make it feasible to add the second story, it will need to exceed the current height limit by 18 inches. In order for you to get the permit, you’d need a vote of the entire city of Santa Cruz to change the height rules.
The city owns the property next door to the homelessness facilities near Costco. The city, the county and Housing Matters (which operates the existing facilities) have sketched out plans for a new facility that would likely include supportive housing for people who are exiting homelessness. It could easily be five stories tall. The current zoning would not allow for a five-story building. For this kind of well-located and much-needed project, a vote of the entire city would be required to modify the height allowed on that site. Organizing and taking this vote would further delay desperately needed action to address homelessness in our community.
If you think the above scenarios are ridiculously cumbersome and unreasonable, it’s worse than that. Each election would cost at least $170,000.
Imagine that: a $170,000 citywide election just so a person can get a fence permit with added height.
Aside from that absurdity, there’s another huge problem.
Housing for People’s proposal to require a higher percentage of affordable housing in each market-rate housing development sounds like such a lovely idea. But here’s the problem: If we make the required percentage too high, it isn’t financially feasible to build housing projects.
It’s important to remember that requiring affordable units in a market-rate housing project costs the home builder a lot of money. History has shown that when this rate (known as the “inclusionary” rate) is too high, housing doesn’t get built. In case you think we’re just saying this without evidence, consider the City of San Francisco, which just this year lowered its inclusionary rate because it found the higher rate had caused housing development to slow down right when the city needed it to increase.
Not a single leading affordable housing group in our area has indicated support for this initiative. To put it bluntly, the Housing for People name is just a political deception – especially egregious at a time when we need genuine affordable housing efforts.
- Diana Alfaro, Don Lane and Elizabeth Madrigal
This last point is why so many builders, including nonprofit affordable housing developers, think a 25% inclusionary rate is too high and will reduce production of much-needed apartments for the essential workers and young families we have in our community. This is exactly the opposite result of what Housing for People claims is their aim.
We’ve been working in the field of affordable housing for decades and we have not seen any of the visible leaders of the so-called Housing for People organization do any significant work building or advocating for affordable housing.
Not a single leading affordable housing group in our area has indicated support for this initiative. To put it bluntly, the Housing for People name is just a political deception – especially egregious at a time when we need genuine affordable housing efforts.
Perhaps the ultimate folly in this misguided effort is the veneer of environmental sustainability the promoters of this measure offer. They seem to think that taller buildings, which cast shadows on downtown streets and offend some small-town sensibilities, are somehow an environmental problem. However, the real environmental problems in community development occur when we don’t go up. When we don’t go up, we spread our housing out – putting development pressure on places that are genuinely more in need of protection. If we don’t go up, we have less housing near jobs — and more people driving longer distances to get to work.
There are people who need real housing in Santa Cruz. Our kids. Our parents. Your health care workers. The teacher of your grandchildren. Locating taller buildings in our downtown core is a big part of their solution — their pathway to a viable place to live.
Let’s stop creating more obstacles to creating a balanced, equitable community and get back to work on meeting people’s real needs. Let’s stop inventing convoluted, misguided and deeply flawed ballot measures.
How about real housing for real people instead of an empty promise?
Diana Alfaro is a veteran affordable housing professional and longtime affordable housing advocate. She’s a renter in downtown Santa Cruz.
Elizabeth Madrigal is a Seabright resident and nonprofit affordable housing developer. She is also a lead with Santa Cruz YIMBY.
Don Lane is a former mayor of Santa Cruz. He serves on the governing boards of Housing Santa Cruz County and Housing Matters and has been a homeowner for 40 years.