The Santa Cruz Housing Element: False Promises?

In the 1970's Santa Cruz was a sleepy seaside town, mostly retirees, but there were plenty of young people as well. The University was starting to grow. Students and residents alike appreciated the open space and uncrowded beaches. They surfed, swam, hiked, biked and enjoyed the natural beauty and mild climate of the area. The Victorian-style buildings in the downtowns were reminiscent of any small town in America. In the city of Santa Cruz, a variety of shops catered to the students and the county -- on a trip downtown you could drop into a hardware store and pick up some paint, you could visit Ford's department store and find a variety of items from clothing to house wares. For the students, some new shops opened, there was a clothing store for women, the Cooperhouse had several trendy retailers and where shoppers could take a break in a popular restaurant and listen to live jazz in the afternoons. Parking wasn't a problem, and it was a pleasant pastime to spend the afternoon browsing the shops and dining, or staying late to catch live music at one of the nightspots in town.

Those days were very good indeed, so some people in the county decided that life that way should be preserved.

That attempt at preservation ended up on the ballot as Measure J in 1978. The people at the time were convinced by the county government that putting a cap on the number of new homes that could be built would help keep the small town atmosphere and rural look of the county that they loved so much. A seemingly benevolent clause was also added to this proposition, which would make a percentage of the new home projects within the cap "affordable", reducing the number of homes built on the open market to an even smaller number.

By passing Measure J, the people of Santa Cruz County gave the county government exactly what it needed to begin to regulate all aspects of growth and construction here. Through Measure J, the county moved from a free housing market to a market controlled by a government bureaucracy and not the people. Measure J established a planning commission in order to make sure that every project was reviewed and that no more than the prescribed number of building permits was issued.

The ability to own a home within the county remained a possibility for most people for the first few years. Then the University started another growth spurt, and soon pressure mounted on a housing market already being artificially manipulated by the county government. At the time, families who could afford to build homes could not get permits to do so because of the cap on building and the high costs of the permits. Students who could take roommates to help lower their individual housing costs put pressure on the rental market and drove prices higher, squeezing families from the market.

The number of people moving into the county really didn't slow down, so Measure J did not really limit growth as the people had been told it would. What Measure J did was throttle the free market principles of supply and demand. By restricting the supply of housing county bureaucrats boosted demand to a point where Santa Cruz County has become one of the most unaffordable places to live within the state of California.

As for the sleepy small town atmosphere where young families could buy a home with a yard and raise their children in quiet neighborhoods, they are no longer guaranteed preservation. By controlling the housing market, the county controls the type of housing that may be built in the county, and in the latest revision of the county's General Plan, the Planning Department is dramatically changing the type of housing they will permit to be built in this county.

The Planning Department has put together a book-length draft of the "Housing Element", which will be included in an upcoming revision of the County Plan, and it is, in essence, a long and complicated discussion of the goals of certain pressure groups in the county. The ideal housing for the county at this time, claims the Planning Department, is high density and mixed use. Permits to be issued in the future will be heavy on high-density units and extraordinarily stingy on the single-family homes that helped Santa Cruz and the county keep its small town appeal.

If this housing element is approved, residents will begin to see the "densification" of Santa Cruz County in earnest, which means that more people must live in a much smaller area, and housing must be 2, 3, or 4-story apartments. Because most of the permits that will be issued under this new Housing Element will be part of the densification plan, single-family homes simply will not be built, which deeply affects the ability of people in the county to own property. After all, how many young families starting out can afford to buy their own apartment building?

By restricting permits to mixed-use developments, families will no longer have access to quiet neighborhoods away from the noise and crime that comes with commercial development mixed in with housing. By restricting permits to mixed-use "affordable" developments the county is taking property ownership for most new development out of the hands of private developers, and into the hands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which receive grants and tax incentives in order to make their investment in these developments profitable.

Finally, the Housing Element rewards developers of these mixed-use units for eliminating parking spaces for the tenants. In other words, the County will pay developers to build insufficient parking spaces to meet the needs of the development. This will force parking out into the other neighborhoods and streets and cause problems for shop owners who rely on street parking for their customers to get access to their stores.

The people of Santa Cruz County truly believed in 1978 that by allowing the government to limit growth in the County, they would be able to preserve the small town character of the county that they loved. But, by giving the County apparently unlimited control over the free market and building permits, they have created the opposite situation. When people are lured into dependency in a controlled dense environment, individuality is stifled and ?compliance? becomes the norm. In the next 10 years, families will flee the county because single-family homes, the ideal place to promote property ownership and to raise children, will become as costly and rare as a purple diamond.

I have documented that the County Planning Department has acted as a wholly owned subsidiary of a closed group of developers for over thirty years. The gambit being described in this article are what I call "the squeeze." It works as follows:

On the demand side, needlessly draconian environmental regulations are being enforced on low-to-middle income communities in the County hinter-land, forcing those residents back into the city. The Agenda 21 system thus Balkanizes the County into zones of rural rich and poor.
The method can make new rural-suburban lots available for redevelopment using environmental laws in much the same manner as applied to owners of target tracts of acreage properties. As you recall, Measure J had other effects besides chewing up the forest in big chunks. Prior to the election, the people who held small suburban lots in small rural towns owned something that could support a residential structure, worth about the same as any other small urban lot. After the passage of Measure J, a once buildable 3/4-acre lot in town worth $50,000 (in current dollars), a fell to about one-fifth its prior value. Their land was "worth-less."
We'll call this one, "The Squeeze":
1. Rezone suburban lots with urban potential to a larger minimum size.
2. The owners of "worth-less" lots get to hold the bag and pay the taxes.
3. The County recognizes the "urban sprawl" and circumscribes the area by zoning "greenbelts."
4. Prices of residential housing rise due to a lack of available acreage.
5. The big landowners wait for the market to develop and buy the "worth-less" lots for the less that they are "worth."
6. The County recognizes the "housing shortage" and rezones the minimums for "in-fill."
7. The property, now worth a lot, gets developed, and the County rakes in additional taxes.
Now that those "worth-less" lots are worth lots, why didn't the bag-holders keep them?
8. To produce new lots, use environmental and zoning laws to require modifications to building codes that the current class of owners cannot afford. To take the dirt, condemn the property. Sell it to whom?
One has to wonder if there were politicians out there, clever enough to realize that they could serve the developers, the anti-development activists, and the environmentalists, all in one policy swoop. It all seemed so plausible, repetitive, and ubiquitous.
Okay, so "in-fill." Those plots that were "too small" under Measure J, well, the Department of Environmental Health has miraculously thought of a way to make them work so that the Planning Department can help stop suburban sprawl. Of course, it won't hurt the people who just bought those 16 "worth-less" lots for a song from the people who had been holding the bag for 20 years. Those who didn't sell to the right people at the right price, well, the San Lorenzo Valley is now a Significant Natural Area, subject to California Department of Fish and Game jurisdiction and a significant review with a significant price will have to be conducted...
The urban demand side of the picture is a matter of getting people out of the rural houses they currently occupy. These are usually converted vacation cabins, now used on a year-round basis. Some have been remodeled, while others are falling apart. The key to flushing out the owners has been laws governing septic systems. These issues will be discussed in Parts IV and V.
The tradition spans decades and has gone on unabated. Two of our famous Supervisor's compatriots became State Assemblymen and the owner of the local newspaper wants to be lieutenant governor. A predecessor devised a bond measure that was particularly effective to finance the conversion of agricultural land to residential housing. His successor has done more to depress the price of timberland than has any other Assemblyman. In more recent years, the Supervisor who has done the most to push the new zoning law governing timber practice (and is the most "responsive" to the Sierra Club), originally had a practice as ... a real estate attorney. He is "next in line" for the move up.
Are politicians and planning bureaucrats really smart enough to set up a system like this, or was this just a misattribution of random events and human nature suffering from the creative scrutiny of some paranoid author? Every lawyer and planner interviewed during the research for this book who was asked that question, stated flatly that the politicians aren't that smart and are ideologically opposed to such things. The subject of one interview however, was (unknown to me at the time) one of the very people who had made oodles of money in the land conversion business. His comment was that there are people who are that smart, and that certain authors should be "careful."
The purpose of this book is not to bust people but to point out the systemic flaws that develop when government does not respect private property rights as unalienable. That flaw is the lack of civic discipline that "limited government" under the Constitution was intended to provide; i.e., the power to feed one's urges with other people's money. It is the power to take control of property without compensation. It is the essence of democratic government.
Politicians like tax doling out tax money. Large real estate agents, land speculators, and banks like redevelopment. So do construction contractors, unions, raw material suppliers, home furnishings retailers, and public employees. Activists like controlling individual behavior to serve the ends they think important. Every one of these people did what they did because it was profitable to them under the unconstitutionally distorted system under which we now operate.
The temptation for civic corruption is but one reason why rules have nearly always failed. Economic laws, on the other hand, are immutable. Perhaps they can be used to positive effect by incorporating the totality of interests in the consideration of individual transactions.
It's possible.

Here's an article a trolley thats supposed to reduce traffic from the same website:

Aptos, Calif - Santa Cruz County residents are beginning to see the development of a large-scale Smart Growth project as the county's Regional Transportation Commission moves forward with a railroad project proclaimed to be a tourist attraction.[1]

The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (SCCRTC) held a public meeting recently to review the Initial Study for their proposed "Recreational Rail" system and the public response wasn't pretty.[2] There was a great deal of concern over the consequences of the plan. Further study makes it clear, though: there's more to this trolley than meets the eye.

Many of the residents that attended the SCCRTC meeting to give comments on the Recreational Rail plan voiced concerns about the noise, pollution and other problems caused by trains passing near their homes several times every day. However, these same residents are probably unaware that there are even more drastic plans in place that will have lasting effects on their lives.

Right now, the plan on the table is a trolley system that will usher groups of tourists up and down the Santa Cruz coastline between Capitola and Seascape a few times daily. But documents from the transportation commission show that the trolley plan is merely a front. They've said there is no certainty it will survive financially[3], and are mostly concerned with securing up to $11 million in state funds to buy the right-of-way for the rail between Davenport and Watsonville.[4]

Right-of-way in hand, the commission can push forward with several different transit options. But these programs don't come out of thin air, they're not free, and they don't come alone.

Not only will county residents have to fork over some dough (Commissioner Jan Beautz was forced to admit that funds from the state must be matched with local funds), but along with any number of mass transit options, there will be major changes to private property. Throughout the county's General Plan and various transportation policy documents[5], transit options are always tied to land use changes - "residential intensification", they call it.[6]

When planners change zoning regulations to form densely-populated clusters (called "employment villages")[7], where people will live, work and shop in the confines of a small geographical area, then access to other parts of the county will be through the accessory mass transit system, by bicycle or by foot. Not by cars, though. Cars are bad.[8]

Residents that commute to other regions, such as Monterey or the Silicon Valley will be out of luck, since the transportation commission has said that widening Highway 1 (or any other provision for automobile traffic) is its absolute lowest investment priority.[9] "Get a local job and get out of your car," is the smug answer to their pleas.[10][11]

Shifts in zoning will pack people into tight living arrangements and parking will be unavailable because of a concerted effort to "get people out of their cars" by charging fees (a "disincentive")[12], so high-occupancy transit, once a pipe dream, becomes a "viable" option.

But since such changes in zoning and the following development of these villages may take years to sprout up, putting an interim mass transit system in (such as Bus Rapid Transit) will get people used to the whole idea - which makes future expansion of the system much easier. A transit system in place will make the residential clusters more attractive for potential buyers, and zones of concentrated housing will make ideal station stops for mass transit.[13]

Some people may wonder what's wrong with such a community. After all, it's the "ideal society", with everybody smiling to his neighbor as he walks two blocks to work and the kids go to daycare[14] in the next "village" on the futuristic light rail system. But in order to accomplish this dream, planners will employ unjust techniques to take property from private citizens.[15] Inhabitants of the clustered villages will find themselves subject to intense regulation on their day-to-day activities.[16] And freedom of mobility will be severely restricted, since regulations will make transit options other than publicly-provided mass transit unaffordable and unthinkable.[17]

Santa Cruz County is experiencing a manufactured crisis. Planners are content to watch congestion build up on the highways until residents are screaming for a solution. All the while, the planning department is changing zoning regulations, working with private developers to build what could be called concentration camps, and the stage is set.

Residents who have wondered about the true goals of county officials are seeing their suspicions confirmed, but it's not too late. By attending transportation meetings, documenting the actions of local officials, examining policy documents and informing others, accountability can be restored to local government and freedom of mobility can be secured.

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