Dear Santa Cruz County Resident,
I want to take a moment to talk about some of the housing projects being proposed for our area. There are two notable ones that have come forward in mid-county along Soquel Dr. The first is 181 units and up to five stories at the corner of Thurber & Soquel and the second is 289 units and six stories at 41st & Soquel. Both projects are designed to be 100% affordable, meaning that rents cannot be more than 30% of gross earnings for median income households and below.
Given that these projects are significantly larger than anything built in the unincorporated part of Santa Cruz County before, let's review how we got here and address some frequently asked questions.
If you are interested in learning more about this topic I will host a meeting next week:
Thurber Ln & Soquel Dr, Affordable Housing Community Meeting Thursday, October 10th 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM Santa Cruz Gardens Elementary, 8005 Winkle Ave, Santa Cruz, CA 95065
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Image: Street view from Soquel Dr of the proposed Anton Solana Development. The left hand side of the image would be at the intersection of Thurber Ln and Soquel Dr. |
Image: Aerial view of the proposed Thurber & Soquel project. The project would preserve the existing trees along the urban arroyo. The County is exploring options to build a walking trail through this area that would connect to Winkle Park.
Overview of Recent State Laws That Have Removed Local Control
Many of you who live near these proposed projects have asked how we can reduce the number of units or the size of the buildings. The County is extremely limited in its ability to halt or substantially alter these projects due to many recent changes in state law. Here's an overview of just a handful of the recent laws that have changed the housing landscape.
SB 7 - The Housing + Jobs Expansion and Extension Act (2021): This law significantly changed how local governments manage housing allocations under the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA). It eliminated local governments’ ability to appeal their RHNA allocations, meaning that cities and counties must accept the housing quotas assigned by the state without challenge.
AB 3194 - The Housing Accountability Act (2018): Under this law, if a proposed development is consistent with the zoning for a given parcel, local governments are legally obligated to approve it. Even if the project is controversial or raises concerns, the County cannot reject it based on community opposition alone.
SB 35 - Streamlined Affordable Housing Approval Process (2017): This law requires local governments to streamline the approval process for certain housing developments, particularly those that include affordable units. It mandates expedited, ministerial approval for projects in cities and counties that are not meeting their housing targets, reducing the power of local jurisdictions to delay housing developments through discretionary review processes.
AB 1763 - Affordable Housing Enhanced Density Bonus (2019): This bill expands the density bonus for 100% affordable housing developments, providing developers with greater incentives like increased height and density, especially near transit. This lessens the regulatory control of our county codes.
In other words, the State of California is serving as coach, referee and scorekeeper when it comes to housing in our community. They’re coaching us to include more housing in our zoning plan (SB 7); calling foul if we try to deny a project that was zoned for (AB 3194); and simply changing the score by forcing us to approve projects if we don’t comply (SB 35).
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Photo: Governor Newsom at a housing press conference on Sep. 19th, 2024 where he signed 26 new housing bills into law.
And the state laws keep coming. Just last month the Governor signed 26 new housing bills. These new laws impose monetary penalties on cities and counties that fail to adopt housing element revisions or approve housing developments. They also reduce reduce regulatory barriers, promoting housing near transit. See the Governor's press release here.
State Laws in Action
We need look no further than the City of Santa Cruz and the approval of the 831 Water Street development to see an example of these laws eliminating local control. Initially, the Santa Cruz City Council denied the project in October 2021, citing concerns about the clustering of affordable units, slope regulations, and incomplete environmental assessments. However, the developer resubmitted plans under SB 35, the state law that limits local governments’ ability to deny housing projects if they meet specific criteria, including affordability requirements. The project ultimately gained approval in December 2021 after revised plans addressed some of the council’s earlier concerns, including redistributing affordable units across two buildings. The threat of a lawsuit from YIMBY Law, which advocates for compliance with state housing laws, also influenced the council’s decision to move forward with the project.
The proposed projects for 41st & Soquel and Thurber & Soquel align with the plan that the state required us to adopt. In the case of Thurber Ln, the 6.26-acre parcel is zoned for high density residential and commercial projects with up to 281 units. The 181 units proposed are well within the allowable range. Our Housing Element process required us to plan for thousands of new units and we concentrated this growth along transit corridors, like the area where this development is planned. This allowed us to avoid placing dense developments right in the middle of single-family neighborhoods.
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Image: a rendering of 831 Water St project at the N. Branciforte Ave intersection. Although the Santa Cruz City Council initially rejected this project, they were ultimately forced to approve it under threat of a lawsuit and due to a state streamlining bill.
Why Here?
It’s been asked, why here in Live Oak and Soquel? Why not put these projects somewhere else like Downtown Santa Cruz or Watsonville?” The State’s answer is - all of the above. Thurber Ln is located in the unincorporated part of the County. The unincorporated county received a state Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) number of 4,634 new units. The four incorporated cities also received allocations of thousands of units as follows: - City of Santa Cruz: 3,736 units
- City of Watsonville: 2,053 units
- City of Capitola: 1,336 units
- City of Scotts Valley: 1,220 units
- Unincorporated Santa Cruz County (including Live Oak, Soquel and Aptos): 4,634 units
- County Total: 12,979 units
When looking at the unincorporated area, we can’t place thousands of units in Lompico or Corralitos because they don’t have sufficient water and sewer infrastructure or easy access to jobs. We have to concentrate growth within the Urban Services Line where utilities are available, and fire risk is lower. This is a pretty small area (see map below). The unincorporated county that is also within the Urban Services Line only includes Live Oak, Soquel, and Aptos. Therefore, any large parcel like this that is adjacent to a major roadway is likely to see a significant housing project.
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Image: a map of Santa Cruz County showing the urban services line in dark blue (where water and sewer service is available). Within the urban services, only the colored area is unincorporated county (Live Oak, Soquel and Aptos), where the state required 4,634 units of new housing could be placed.
What About the Water and the Traffic?
Many of you have questioned whether sufficient resources are available for these projects. It’s true that lacking access to utilities or high fire risk can slow things down, but a lot of the time they won’t stop a project entirely. Furthermore, as mentioned above, these sites are actually much better resourced than other parts of the County. Here’s a deeper exploration of these issues.
Water: If a project's water needs exceed the local supply, the project may be paused until adequate infrastructure is built. In the case of Thurber & Soquel, the City of Santa Cruz Water Department is likely to find that sufficient supply exists. The Water Department and Soquel Creek Water District and have been collaborating for more than a decade to invest in drought resilient infrastructure. Projects include the Pure Water Soquel recycled water facility that is opening this month and Aquifer Storage and Recovery, which stores excess winter flows from the San Lorenzo River and north coast streams into our mid-county aquifer for extraction and use in dry months. Furthermore, multi-family housing units typically use about half the water of single-family homes due to reduced landscape needs and smaller household size.
Sewer: The Sanitation District confirmed on April 11th, 2024, that: "Sewer service is available in Soquel Drive for the subject (Thurber & Soquel) development. No downstream capacity problem or other issue is known at this time."
Work is also currently underway on multiple sewer replacement infrastructure projects, including the nearby Arana Trunk Line as well as the Upper and Lower Rodeo Trunk Line projects. The Sanitation District is close to completing a survey of sewer capacity countywide in preparation for future needed improvement projects. These projects aren’t only necessary for future potential development, they are also critical for those of us who are already relying on the system. This link to the Sanitation District’s projects: Construction Projects - SANTA CRUZ COUNTY SANITATION DISTRICT (wpcomstaging.com) includes more information on the above-mentioned projects.
Fire: If fire services are inadequate, particularly in areas prone to wildfires, a development can face restrictions. California’s State Responsibility Area (SRA) and Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones (VHFHSZ) impose stricter building standards. These regulations often require access to adequate fire protection, such as proximity to fire stations. Furthermore, a project might be delayed or modified if the local fire marshal determines that emergency response times or firefighting resources are insufficient. Both the Thurber & Soquel project and 41st & Soquel happen to be well within the urban area and the fire station is just down the street so there aren’t likely to be any fire-related issues that would stop these projects.
Traffic Impacts: Large developments that are projected to cause severe traffic congestion must undergo traffic impact studies as part of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) process. These projects are no exception. In general, if a project is found to significantly worsen traffic, it may be delayed until appropriate mitigation measures, like traffic lights, road widening, or public transportation improvements, are agreed upon.
In the case of these projects, $107 million of state funding is currently being spent upgrading Soquel Dr with smart lights, installing protected bike lanes, upgrading transit infrastructure and widening Highway 1 in the immediate vicinity. Even if these changes don’t substantially improve traffic flow, new state laws like SB 743 shift the focus away from "level of service" to vehicle miles traveled (VMT), encouraging infill development like this and further limiting the County’s ability to block projects solely based on traffic concerns.
In short, it is unlikely that a resource or impact finding will stop these projects. There are few other places in the unincorporated County that are better resourced than these sites.
The Need for Housing
After all this discussion it would be unfair not to reflect on why state laws are requiring us to build housing. For decades all of the approaches mentioned above have been successful at stopping housing construction. Now, Santa Cruz County is the most expensive rental market in the country. As of June 2023, the fair market rent for a two-bedroom rental in Santa Cruz County was $4,054. A 2021 UCSC study found that 70% of renters they interviewed spend more than 30% of their gross income on rent. That means more than half of their take home pay is going to rent.
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Image: A family moves into Habitat for Humanity's Rodeo Creek Court project in 2022. I personally helped to welcome many of the families as they moved in and it was a reminder that while we talk about "units" of housing, these are really homes. It's the people not the boxes that matter. Photo credit: Santa Cruz County Sentinel.
Meanwhile the average home price in the 95065-zip code was $1.325 million according to Zillow. At today’s 6.95% APR, a standard twenty percent down payment would be $265,000 and the monthly payment with taxes and insurance would be approximately $9,662. Conventional loans require that your housing payment be no more than 28% of your gross income. That means a family would have to earn $414,085 per year to buy an average priced home in mid-county.
The real cost of these astronomical housing prices is a dwindling workforce. Even doctors can’t afford to live here. You may have experienced firsthand that the wait times for appointments are getting longer. Moreover, hiring is now local governments' biggest challenge. It’s near impossible to recruit people into our county to take roles in planning, law enforcement, and behavioral health because the cost of living is so high. Your children probably can’t afford to live here either, unless they’re still living at home. The lack of young families shows up in statistics that show Santa Cruz is the fastest aging county in the State of California. If we don’t add housing now, within ten years we won’t have a local workforce to keep the lights on.
What's Next?
The Thurber & Soquel project will have a public hearing in front of the Santa Cruz County Planning Commission between January and March 2025. It will only be heard by the Board of Supervisors if it is appealed. My office will announce when the hearing is scheduled. As I’ve explained in detail, any decision-making body will be operating under the constraints of many state laws. If the project is rejected, it will most likely be resubmitted under the streamlining provisions in SB 35, the same way that the 831 Water St project was in the City of Santa Cruz. Under those provisions we won’t be able to reject the project.
Although I can’t substantially alter the size of the project, I am working to improve the design wherever possible. The developer’s recent plan update incorporated feedback that I provided to reduce the height of buildings where adjacent to the neighborhood and to cluster more of the density on the interior of the lot. It also included a commercial space at the Thurber and Soquel corner in order to provide a business that helps to integrate the project into the neighborhood. Finally, I’m working with the developer and the Parks Department to incorporate a public walking trail along the wooded stream on the property and access to Winkle Park.
The 41st & Soquel project is not as far along. However, it is applying for building permits under state law AB 2011's ministerial process. That means that it won't require a public hearing or approval from either the Planning Commission or the Board of Supervisors. Nevertheless, I'm working with the developer to host a public meeting in the near future to get input on how to make the project the best that it can be.
Once again, your next opportunity to learn more about this topic, and particularly the Thurber & Soquel project, will be an in-person meeting next week:
Thurber Ln & Soquel Dr, Affordable Housing Community Meeting Thursday, October 10th 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM Santa Cruz Gardens Elementary, 8005 Winkle Ave, Santa Cruz, CA 95065
You can also reach out to me and my office by email or phone anytime with questions or suggestions:
first.district@santacruzcountyca.gov (831) 454-2200
Please know that I will continue to advocate for responsible development and work to address your concerns. This includes working to reduce barriers at the planning department for home owners to incrementally add on to their houses or add accessory dwelling units to promote gentle density. I will also work with our state legislators and city partners to make sure the state acknowledges and rewards regions that are meeting their housing goals.
Thank you for your community engagement.
Sincerely, |
Manu Koenig First District Supervisor, Santa Cruz County |
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