Despite Santa Cruz County’s reputation as one of the least affordable places to live in the state, if not the country, real alarm has been expressed at recent Scotts Valley City Council meetings about the housing boom the city is facing in the not too distant future. Public comment at city council meetings has included emotional criticism and strong recommendations of caution- that the small town character of Scotts Valley is directly threatened by actual and proposed housing developments.
According to data from the City of Scotts Valley, there are 85 housing units currently under construction and an additional 96 units approved for construction. But particularly worrisome to many residents are the large housing projects in the conceptual stage- including the Town Center Project, the Avisa Tech site and possible redevelopment of the Valley Gardens Golf Course.
These three projects, none of which are even close to submitting development applications that will likely be many years in the making, represent an estimated 575 units of new housing- roughly 12 percent of the current housing stock of Scotts Valley.
“My first priority is to make sure we preserve everything that is great about our community,” said Jim Reed, mayor and member of the Scotts Valley City Council. “And that inherently means a conservative approach from a macro level- making sure our growth doesn’t outpace the capacity of our schools, our water district and our roads.”
“What people need to understand is that, first- these big projects are very much in the conceptual stage, and second- each project has to get through the city council with plenty of community and environmental review,” Reed said.
But Reed doesn’t deny the pressure for housing will only increase, driven by job growth in San Jose. Between the “literally tens of millions” of square feet that Google, Apple and Adobe are currently in the process of developing around downtown San Jose, Reed estimates that, “We can expect 20,000 or more great, high-paying jobs are going to be created within a 45-minute commute of Scotts Valley, and we need to be ready for it.”
The City of Scotts Valley’s inclusionary housing ordinance requires 15 percent of new housing to be price restricted for affordability to low and moderate income households, but, it applies only to projects of six or more units, and only those projects within former Redevelopment Project Area. There have been discussions at the council level to possibly extend that affordable requirement city-wide.
According to Michelle Edwards, senior planner with the City of Scotts Valley, of the 85 units under construction, the city required three low-income units and four moderate income units to be included in the projects. Of the three approved projects with more than six units, for a combined total of 84 units, six condominiums and one townhome will be price restricted for low-income ownership and four for moderate income ownership. The income caps to qualify for the purchase of a price-restricted, low-income unit is $80,650 for a four person household and $104,400 for a moderate income unit for a household of four.
“I think the moderate income price restriction is not a very deep affordability requirement, and works out to be fairly close to the market price for smaller units like condominiums,” said city council member Stephanie Aguilar.
Aguilar serves on an Affordable Housing sub-committee with Jim Reed, and emphasized that it has be a collaborative approach between the city and housing developers, “to help us on the council assist the community with their needs,” Aguilar said. Aguilar said she may be in favor, depending on the project, of waiving city impact fees for affordable housing, or giving other incentives within the city’s purview to developers to deepen and exceed the existing 15 percent affordable housing requirement.
“The inclusionary housing requirement is an important tool, but is not the end all-be all for affordable housing,” said Reed. Other mechanisms include “affordable by design” with the approval of smaller, more dense units close to transit, streamlining the permit process for “granny units” in back yards, and looking for “best practices” to reduce the impact and cost of city services that housing has, Reed said.
Fred Keeley and Don Lane, representing a new advocacy group called Affordable Housing Santa Cruz County, are currently engaged in a public outreach campaign to promote a bond measure of up to $250 million to be put on the November ballot aimed at providing funding to address the housing affordability crisis.
After losing several years in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, the home building industry has finally recovered in Santa Cruz County and around the Bay Area generally, showing a 10 per cent increase in housing starts in 2017 over 2016. But a good deal of “catch-up” is necessary to meet demand, and housing starts continue to lag far behind job creation in Silicon Valley, putting the housing affordability crises at the center of discussions about economic growth, quality of life and public policy throughout Santa Cruz county.
