The Santa Cruz Housing Element: False Promises?

Advanced Bulletin ^ | Mar 03, 2004 - 03:58 PM | Susanna Lynton Jennings

[hedgetrimmer]

Folks who live in Santa Cruz are in for worse trouble than ever. The housing element will force all new construction, and most remodels to be medium to high density within certain boundaries. There is also a list of parcels included in the housing element that are targetted to be converted from single family homes to dense "affordable" housing projects.

Your parcel may be on the list, there are hundreds, if not a thousand listed.

If this housing element passes, you may no longer be able to hold on to your single family home.

[martin_fierro]

Tie-Dye-Land Ping.

[martin_fierro]

OK, 'fess up.

This is YOUR house, innit? <|:)~

[hedgetrimmer]

Property rights vs central planning PING

[farmfriend]

What a great picture! Needed a laugh.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[Carry_Okie]

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.

[Carry_Okie]

This is my back yard:

This is my front yard:

[Jeff Gordon]

Santa Cruz - Where the freeway meets the sea. The first no nucs community in the nation. One of just two US towns to elect a socialist mayor. The place that has more organic farms and wellness workshops than you can shake an Odwalla juice at.

What do you expect from a city government dominated by the ultra liberal, Santa Cruz Action Network (SCAN)?

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[The Other Harry]

The author neglected to mention traffic.

On of the other things Santa Cruz did in order to "restrict development and preserve the quality of life" in Santa Cruz was to refuse to either widen any existing roads or to build any new roads. Not a one in the past thirty years. The effect of this has been to make the experience of simply driving across town excruciatingly miserable. Instead of taking ten minutes, it now takes 30 minutes or more.

They built an excellent bus system insead -- which no one, including any of the members of the Board of Supervisors ever rides.

I lived there most of my adult life. If you want a case study in how to destroy a nice town, Santa Cruz would be it. It's now a great place for drug addicts, whores, and the homeless.

[The Other Harry]

What do you expect from a city government dominated by the ultra liberal, Santa Cruz Action Network (SCAN)?

The liberals have had a death lock on Santa Cruz for years. Now it's all theirs. They can live (so to speak) with the results of their various experiments.

[hedgetrimmer]

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.

[The Other Harry]

The only problem with that friggin' trolley is that no one is going to use it. I know who is going to pay for it though -- and it won't be me.

[The Other Harry]

Never mind the messed up italics.

[daviddennis]

This whole thing seems so out of touch with what people actually desire in housing that I wonder why it's tolerated in so many places. This plan sounds like it was copied from what Oregon's Planners wanted.

Why does the political process tolerate such bad planning when nobody but planners and light rail builders are happy with the result?

D

[cake_crumb]

"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."

Indeed. We can only hope and continue educating and encouraging people.

[cake_crumb]

"But, by giving the County apparently unlimited control over the free market and building permits, they have created the opposite situation"

It's truely frightening that so many people would so blindly trust in the government to take care of their best interests. That is how dictators come into power.

[cake_crumb]

Scary isn't it? That people would voluntarily give up their freedom like that? I know that wasn't their intent, but this is further proof that good intentions are not enough. Especially when the trap of complacancy is always set. I wish them luck.

[Carry_Okie]

Actually, the County of Santa Cruz was one of the first in the nation to adopt zoning ordinances of this type. The UN Agenda21 was written in this area as well. There was a reason they put the University here.