High density threatens Hidden Glen’s quality of life
Just wanted to quickly tell our story and voice our strong opposition to the proposed Haven Development, Santa Cruz County Application Number: 241369.
We moved to the Hidden Glen neighborhood five years ago, after looking for the perfect place for six years. My wife and I have had extremely demanding and stressful careers, and wanted a safe, peaceful, wilderness-adjacent place where we could raise our kids safely. Hidden Glen was absolutely a dream come true—right near Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, with a beautiful common area in the center, and plenty of room to run around.
I remember my wife’s excitement when we first toured the neighborhood: “This is magical!!” (I had not heard that statement in the prior six years of looking.) We have a neighbor nearby who similarly moved from Mountain View, and he said moving to Hidden Glen “lowered the collective family blood pressure.” We totally agree with that!
The proposed Haven development would ruin a lot of the things we love about our neighborhood: The peaceful “spur” (dead end of Spreading Oak) is a safe place where our kids have learned to ride bikes—this would transform into a high traffic area. Our neighborhood currently only has one spot of ingress and egress, which allows us to keep it safer—the new development would open this up and make it a lot less safe.
We already have occasional problems with non-neighborhood folks trying to use our beautiful community pool and common area—the chance of this going up dramatically is quite high if 157 units go in right next door to our 60 units. We specifically moved to this area for low density (calm, de-stressing, mature trees, low noise, safe area for our kids to run around)—putting in a high-density neighborhood, 2.5x our size, immediately next to us will lower property values and is the exact opposite of the reason we moved there!
I thought we would never leave Hidden Glen, but if this development goes in, we will have to leave, which obviously seems quite unfair, given how much we love our area. This development would dramatically lower our quality of life, lower our family’s safety, lower our hard-earned property values, and make us want to leave our dream home.
Kurt Schwarz
Scotts Valley
A tale of two worlds: The privileged few and the rest of us
Lately I’ve been thinking about it—the difference between the rich folks and the “average, or middle income” ones of us (never mind, the poor—OY!).
The rich (the millionaires and billionaires), especially if you’ve inherited wealth—you don’t have to be smart, or achieving or even successful, or kind or caring, or engaged in the community to live well and do whatever the hell you want in your life. You are the “max-privileged.”
Beyond ever understanding the day-to-day challenges or “norms” of life and living. AKA: You are totally ignorant and clueless about what an average person’s life/living is really about.
The rest of us out here in the “average human” world have to learn a lot, get educated, get training and/or degrees, be ambitious and wanting to do better at what we do and work hard to be successful, and prove ourselves as achievers in order to get good, if not better paying jobs to support ourselves and maybe, eventually our families and maybe even be able to buy a home; and be involved in our community for self-improvement and community engagement reasons because these relationships matter for our lives and sometimes our livelihoods.
Think about the differences here—the wealthy who never worry about anything and have to do pretty much nothing ever—and the rest of us who strive, work hard, are engaged in our community because every moment matters.
And then think: who are the people in your life and world who actually and most likely understand your life and needs. For me—duh, ain’t the wealthy. They’re majorly clueless!
My family and I worked hard and still do. It’s people like me and my family, who work hard, are very engaged and involved in our community that I believe in and trust.
Suzy Hunt
Scotts Valley
