Lookout Santa Cruz: Propaganda or propaganda? Yet another response to Santa Cruz’s dangerous and senseless ballot Measure M
By Don Lane
Rule No. 1 in a clever campaign argument: call your adversary’s statements “propaganda” while pretending that you don’t use propaganda on your side. This is how Frank Barron plays it in his most recent commentary — apparently exasperated that someone dares to challenge his “facts.”
I’m the guy who has dared to challenge him.
Before I go further, a little warning. I need to go into the weeds here. I’m trying to be precise on this, even if others are less concerned with precision. It seems to me, when writing a new city law like Santa Cruz’s Measure M, precision is important.
Here’s what I wrote last time that got Barron so worked up: “Under city law, fences needing a permit or second-story backyard granny units needing a permit are ‘development projects.’ Thus, changing the zoning ordinance to allow for extra height on these will require a citywide vote.”
To attempt a refutation of this correct statement, he went to a city planning commission meeting and tried to get a city staff member to correct my statement. Unfortunately, he asked the wrong question. He got staff to acknowledge that there is a process for legitimate exceptions to zoning rules that don’t require a zoning ordinance change.
However, he was unable to get staff to refute the larger point: Changing the zoning ordinance to allow for extra height on any development project would require a vote — if Measure M is approved.
Measure M does not differentiate between zoning rules on fence heights and zoning rules on apartment building heights.
Another thing that must be frustrating for Barron is my refusal to concede to his wishful thinking on building affordable apartments. He continues to repeat the percentages of affordable units his Measure M will produce. Unfortunately, he also continues to fail to address his fundamental math error.
He seems to forget that 25% of zero is zero.
If you require too high a percentage of affordable units, the people who build homes simply don’t build and we get fewer of the affordable homes we need. How do we know? Simply look at the history of affordable housing in our area.
We have not come close to meeting the need because our “inclusionary” affordability requirement has been high and makes projects too expensive to build. No matter how many times Barron repeats the percentages, he cannot overcome economic realities and results.
Measure M will lead to less affordable housing.
Next, I want to concede an error I made earlier. I correctly stated that each time the city council adds an item to the county election ballot, it typically costs the city (us!) $170,000. My error was in attributing all that cost to the county elections department. Most of that cost is due to the county’s charges, but a chunk is extra costs for our city clerk’s office. The $170,000 number is a correct approximation … my explanation was not.
Still, no matter how you slice it, these elections aren’t free.
And, because many zoning ordinance changes will be needed for the whole community, it’s not correct to assume that a builder will be paying for every election. In these situations, the community will pay.
Speaking of errors, Barron misunderstood which homelessness housing proposal I was writing about in my most recent commentary. He erroneously assumed I was talking about a project that has already been approved. Thus, his refutation is irrelevant to this debate. Perhaps he is not aware that the city is looking at a different project on an adjacent site that it recently purchased — and this is a proposal that could fall victim to Measure M’s overreach.
Here’s something else I said that irked Barron: “They scared a lot of folks by suggesting 22-story buildings could be going up in Santa Cruz. In fact, there is not a single proposal for a 22-story building in Santa Cruz, or even ones for 17 or 13 stories.”
In trying to prove me wrong about scare tactics, he properly recounts the history of various downtown planning discussions where different building height rules were floated. He concludes his correct recounting by noting that the end of that discussion led to the city council using 12 stories as the maximum.
So, by the time the Measure M campaign started collecting signatures, there was nothing on the horizon (please excuse the bad pun) at the heights they kept shouting about.
If you run around crying “fire” through the neighborhood after the fire department has already put out the fire, you are probably unnecessarily scaring people. One might even call that a “scare tactic.”
Finally (although this debate does seem endless), let’s look at this statement from Barron: “Lane also said that Measure M would force developers to build multistory projects in or near outlying residential neighborhoods. In fact, Measure M will protect such neighborhoods from any upzonings that would increase heights above the currently allowed two or three stories, by subjecting them to a vote of the people.”
A lot to straighten out in this one.
I said that Measure M will “put pressure on” – not force – us to have more height and density in areas other than downtown. He can only refute my statement by rewriting my words. But my original statement is correct. Less density downtown means more pressure to put it in other locations.
Next, note his use of the phrase “currently allowed two or three stories.” Misleading would be a gentle way of describing that one. Current rules, in conjunction with state law, allow more than two or three stories in many areas outside of downtown. So Measure M simply does not do what Barron is claiming on this.
Both sides in a political campaign produce biased arguments to make their case. This could be called propaganda. Some propaganda is based in fact. Some is not.
I’m glad to be on the factual side as I strenuously argue against Measure M and its mistaken policy.