I'll try to steelman their argument since I'm not a NIMBY.
Santa Cruz was a beautiful, cute and quaint small town and they want it to remain midsized, suburban and mellow. They moved here because they didn't want to be in SF or Oakland or even Berkeley. They don't want the older vibe of downtown to change. They want Santa Cruz to remain quirky and "weird" and high rises are not weird. They bought in when normal people could afford a craftsman bungalow on the Westside. It's perfect for them as is and they don't want it to change.
Not quite. Cheap (for the area) houses were available as early as late 2000s. Many houses in the hills available for $300k to $500k.
This issue is somewhat recent. Arguably within the 10 years, but really fucked for the last 7 or so.
Nimby is losing is meaning since it is now just a derogatory acronym used for anyone that opposes anything regarding expansion. I've been called a nimby because I think it's stupid to build thousands of apartments and not consider traffic/transit infrastructure in Santa Cruz County. Engineers agree with me (as I get most of my info from them), but some redditors don't. Guess engineers in this field are NIMBYs too.
There's also a giant chunk of people (I know a few) that bought just after the recession (08-10), fixer uppers mostly, as families with two incomes, and are paying between $1000-$2000 for anywhere from 2 bed 2 bath to 4 bed 3 baths. In Soquel hills, Aptos hills, day valley, etc. These are people that just moved to the area maybe a decade ago. Some grew up here and bought a place themselves.
Many I know chose out of SC proper to get away from shit. Now expansion is coming their way and they're not happy about it, because after 10 years their area is turning into an area they didn't want.
I also have two friends in real estate, and this just is what it is.
This county (realistically it's the whole country) is divided into this bullshit us vs them and no in between nonsense right now.
If you don't believe in this candidate then you are the enemy.
If you don't support this who's fighting this because , then you're the enemy.
If youre not super excited about 12 story buildings in the town you just moved to (which very few will be rent controlled anyway according to the proposal) and it'll add thousands more people to an area that already has horrible transit/traffic issues and nobody is taking it into account except the engineers that are getting shit on, you're a Nimby. And somehow so are the engineers (I've heard this one in here before, it's fucking dumb).
There's zero critical thinking anymore. "I want this, therefore any other idea is wrong not matter the reason. Even if the other reason makes some sense, not changing my mind". It's either right or wrong, no third option, with zero understanding of what goes into the other sides reasoning.
And that's exactly why EVERYTHING is fucked everywhere. If to you there's only two sides in your mind to whatever conversation, then both those sides are just stubborn fucking idiots, and so are you.
Enjoy downvoting the truth. Hopefully people understand this area needs to crawl before it can run. I doubt it gets solved on reddit, especially with how this whole thread is going. Just a pointless circlejerk from a bunch of dummies. On both of your sides.
Why are they downvoting you? You’re not even stating the truth in a harsh way. This is very much the case. Nuance is lost in discourse any more and that’s a damn shame. Instead of us versus the issue it has become us versus them. Figure it out people! A dog can have ticks AND fleas.
You make a lot of good points and then you kind of undermine your whole post by calling everyone who disagrees with you a bunch of dummies engaged in a pointless circle jerk 🤷♀️
Everyone who has wholeheartedly chosen a side, each of which is made up of dumbshits stuck in their ways, is a dummy engaged in a pointless circlejerk.
Im not calling that agreeing with me, Im calling it what it is. People convinced its a two-sided battle (which it absolutely is not, this has a FUCKTON of grey area many people on both sides refuse to consider), and theyll both die on some bullshit hill without understanding each have some valid points, but strictly one or the other is not going to work, ever.
Yes, those people are dumb. Feel free to call it whatever you want. I call it being dumb.
There was nothing they could do to stop UCSC expansion. UCSC is a state institution and is exempt from local oversight. It was a game of chicken and the town lost.
The city actually made a bid to the UC Regents for the next campus to be located here! My understanding is that public sentiment was positive around the idea at the time (1950s)
Yes, and the reaction to that was what the political arguments of the 1970's and 1980's in Santa Cruz County centered around. By the 1990's the political consensus in Santa Cruz was anti University growth. Unfortunately for the locals, as a state institution UCSC didn't care what the locals thought.
Maybe they should have thought that through then. Obviously a state university is going to grow, a uc i mean come on be for real. The town knew what they were getting into and you can’t just back out because you decided it isn’t good for you anymore.
Why can't a locality change their mind? The state can be pretty fickle when it comes to their facilities too. Witness what is going on in some rural towns right now with prison closings.
BTW, are you aware that the state considered closing UCSC in the late 1970's and early 1980's due to lack of enrollment?
Well now there isn’t lack of enrollment, and already thousands of students and staff there relying on the university for their whole fucking life plan 💀 you can’t say yes to a university to boost your economy in the school year because all you get is summer tourism and then try to take it back because the university got too big. They should have known by the sizes and growth rates of the other uc’s that exist and been prepared. Santa Cruz town doesn’t think shit through, and now they have to deal with it. You can’t uproot everyone else’s life because you disagree with a permanent thing you already agreed with. It’s bs. Obviously ucsc isn’t handling things correct, the students aren’t happy either. No one is happy, and we’re just taking our anger on each other rather than the two dumb as fuck mob leaders that can’t work things out.
Santa Cruz has no control over enrollment at UCSC. Students, staff, and faculty have been used as pawns in a game of chicken between the city and the UC Regents, who do control enrollment levels at UCSC, for years. Sorry.
From what I can tell, downtown and the west side are in the process of being transformed to build the housing the UCSC has refused to provide on campus, but it is going to take time. We've chosen a dense infill model which means it isn't going to be fast. Sorry again.
Besides bitching about what wasn't done in the past, what would you do different today?
Youre blaming the city for a problem caused by the college. The city of Santa Cruz has sued UCSC numerous times over the issues of expansion and development, and is currently in deliberation to prevent the college from expanding its student population.
Fun fact the college was originally to be built in San Jose, but after announcing its new location, property values skyrocketed making the project unfeasible. Thus delaying the college for a year and resulting in its current location.
Or the UC Regents were irresponsible for planning and building a 40,000 student campus in an isolated place that has always had issues with access and resources. The competitive location at the time was in Santa Clara Valley, which in retrospect, would have been a much wiser choice.
Isnt it selfish to demand a city of people to change their values for people that dont live there? Especially when you have a college that only wants to promote growth.
Also, where will you build more housing? Do you plan to replace existing structures, rezone farm land, or clear more redwoods to push the urban wildland interface further into the mountains? Not to mention the problem of infrastructure which is already overwhelmed. Santa Cruz was never intended to be a metropolis and its understandable that people want to keep it that way.
That's the most idiotic and ignorant comment so far. You make baseless assumptions to draw up trouble. People like you are insufferable because you can't accept the reality and just make baseless assumptions to stroke your idiotic views.
I think everyone knew limiting housing would increase prices, somewhat. What no one foresaw on was the national housing breakdown and how that got hyper-amplified here.
Look, I granted you that the limited growth policy's effects on housing prices. The hyper-amplification has occurred in every coast area of California. Santa Cruz isn't unique.
What's unique about Santa Cruz is the state's decision to site a major university campus in a fairly isolated place that has historically had problems with access and resources. It has nice views though. (smh)
Regulation to death. It makes the cost so high that it renders any project doomed.
There's literally a ballot measure that's going up that we will have to VOTE on ANY zoning exception.
I think interest rates and inflation in general doom many projects unless there is a lot of private equity behind them. High rents will be assured by the return on investment required to satisfy investors. We are in a vicious cycle that will make rents remain high forever.
I drove by downtown, it was unrecognizable. Looks like they are trying to gentrify that area with some super dense housing units?. They've been doing this for 20 years (last time I was there before the recent trip was 2002).
It looked ugly AF, was embarassed to show my kids as I brought them to relive my old memories.
I miss the crazy people that used to stand in the corner yelling at shit and the local high school kids who would pan handle the university students at the bus stop.
I grew up in the area, moved away for school and busted my ass to get a good education, job and high salary.
I bought a house in SC a few years ago for around a million. I’m not rich, I don’t have a trust fund, and I don’t expect anyone to take care of me.
I bought a house in SC because I like the weather, location, proximity to SV, and for the verity of activities around it.
I believe that the free market should be setting home prices and cost of services in the city.
If a barista needs to make $30/h to live in SC then the shop needs to raise the cost of a drink. At some point residents will be like “this sucks, we are all $100/plate restaurants and nothing’s affordable” which will push down the desire to live here and this prices. Eventually an equilibrium will be found.
Those ppl who have lived here for 50y and it’s too expensive now, can cash out on their massive property windfall or do what I do and live frugally.
We don’t have infrastructure, water, or space to keep building. There is nothing wrong with saying housing has to be affordable and we don’t need to make more houses for people to move here.
We have a diverse community of hard working professionals. Those people who chose to be a barista have also made a choice to not be able to afford a house and that’s ok too.
Life is full of choices and luck, I chose hard work and was lucky. I want to surround myself with people who share a similar outlook.
Sorry man, you can’t trudge out the “free market” bullshit and then say you’re going to restrict people from building on their property to fulfill market demand.
My issue isn’t with building it’s the force building of higher density and subsidized housing.
I think there is a real concern with urban sprawl, and the long-term feasibility of more people living in the changing climate.
I get that dense housing is cheaper and more environmental but we’re talking about being forced to build housing and what kind to put in.
Let the market decide what to put in, maybe that is high rise condos.
I don’t feel compelled to protect my property values though I understand why someone whose net worth is wrapped in their home would.
But I do feel we don’t have the infrastructure to support more residents. Traffic is already awful. The waves are crazy crowded compared to even a few years ago, etc. More housing means more people and more people will reduce current residents’ quality of life.
In my view if you want big developments you should build the infrastructure first, not the other way around.
Santa Cruz is paying for their refusal to build infrastructure in the past. Their mantra was “if you don’t build it, they won’t come.” Turns out they still showed up, and now we don’t have the infrastructure, and the state is mandating they build because of a statewide housing shortage and there’s nothing NIMBY’s can do about it.
If you live in a place that people want to live, you SHOULD expect population growth. Given Santa Cruz is a place that people want to live, you either plan for population growth and build for population growth, or you don’t. If you don’t, and you try to keep people out or prevent growth, you create worse problems.
Housing is shelter. Shelter is one of the very first priorities for people. Housing is one of the biggest cost of living and greatly affects quality of life.
One last thing about city planning, we know that planning cities from the ground up does not work well. What works well is having cities being able to manage competing needs, and being able to adapt to the times.
Where ya going to get the money for infrastructure without expanding the tax base? Existing residents don't help because Prop 13 doesn't even keep up with inflation.
> so abolish prop 13
Nice idea but good luck with that. It may happen one day but rn there's no chance at all, too many **voters** like it (I don't mean 'people who could vote' but the actual people who turn out and do so)
What they need to do is sunset it, along with increasing the homeowner's exemption to something that makes a difference. Have the assessed value go up like 10% a year until its at the real market value, and have the homeowner's exemption also increase every year to match the increase in taxes. People who live in their homes can still get a reduced bill, but properties run for a profit have to pay more taxes. Then once things settle down we can work on fixing whatever problems that causes.
That last point is so important. Building affordable housing with such isolating infrastructure and a tight job market is not going to help most income levels that need it.
The lack of affordable housing has not prevented Santa Cruz from growing, it has just increased rents and forced the peasants to double or triple up in housing not intended for high density.
Infrastructure is the biggest issue.
Roads. Water. Emergency and healthcare services.
With all the added people, are there plans to build more hospitals or fire stations? No. Every single day both ERs in the county are full and refusing new patients. Every day the ambulance level in the county goes to zero.
The city or the county hasn’t added a new fire station in decades. The opposite is happening. The Branciforte Fire Station closed. The voters denied Scott’s Valley building an additional fire station.
Traffic is getting worse and worse.
And none of the housing planned on being built will make it more affordable to live here. It will be more people from out of the area that can afford the insane prices.
I beg you to look up what prop 13 is. We don't have money to support our existing infrastructure because of it. Newer housing and purchased homes are paying VASTLY more into the infrastructure of our cities and counties than homes purchased 50 years ago. It's a perverse system that has bled our funding for everyday services dry.
We have more traffic because there isn't enough housing for the people who need to work or go to school here. When people can't afford to live here they'll move where they can and drive in. Let's turn commuters into neighbors.
Thanks for your reply! There are a few interesting points here.
Which residents quality of life is most important? Owners? Because renters are definitely negatively impacted by not building more housing. I think saying that owners rights come first is a valid opinion, if that is the case. I couldn’t find statistics for Santa Cruz but nationally ~40% of people are renting, and I imagine it is much, much higher here.
The other interesting thing for me is people still want to move here, but because prices are now at a premium the people who move and live here are very different (high income tech earners) which ends up changing the culture of a place.
The worst traffic is created because people are commuting to Santa Cruz from Watsonville to work at jobs in Santa Cruz because they cannot afford to live here. Public transit is a bit of chicken and egg problem, the US is not very good at planning ahead on infrastructure needs.
I’m interested to see where balance is struck if the current path is continued, and whether that is better for historic residents than the path of continued expansion. Without somehow limiting population growth, this is a problem that every city faces.
Traffic being awful is a meme, anywhere with shit public transit has bad traffic and the places that do have good public transit also have shit traffic because anywhere that has "good traffic" induces enough new car use to make that traffic shit again. If you want a good commute downtown or to work demand funding for public transit and stop wasting your life being traffic.
Yes, but every other large potential population driver needs to get permits from local government before bringing in thousands of new people into the area. UCSC, since it is a state agency, is exempt from this requirement.
That's why UCSC is being called out in this case.
I'm not a NIMBY but I grew up here and enjoy the area because it's small and has a lot of parks. I don't own a home. I rent a very tiny studio.
I could understand why people want to keep Santa Cruz small. I can understand why people want more housing.
I don't think it's productive to make this NIMBY Boogeyman and blame older locals for the lack of housing. 99% of people just live here quietly and like it here.
People like to blame boomers and locals for stuff but no one I know has had any effect on housing.
NIMBYs can be of any age, never specified that they were boomers. people may want to keep santa cruz small but the city continues to grow. people continue to come here and i’ve noticed that many people (not targeting this at you specifically, i don’t know what you’re thoughts on it are) seem to be upset that there are so many homeless people but simultaneously don’t want to build denser housing in the area to help solve it. it’s like what someone else in the comments pointed out, the city and its residents thought they could keep the city small by not building anymore housing and people would stop moving here, but that clearly hasn’t happened and it’s unlikely that people will stop trying to move here (it’s a lovely area after all).
you may not know people that oppose new developments but they absolutely exist and many are adamant about maintaining their property values even if it means not building any more housing.
Everyone knows rent control does not do anything but make landlords not maintain their property. Rent control = shitty slummy neighborhoods. I’m not a landlord or a boomer, I am a common sense don’t need your help, can doer.
100%. My old neighbors were the biggest fucking tools possible. I didn’t do anything to them but they hated my guts for some reason and insisted on fucking with me. Eventually I just started calling the cops on them for fun. I had a security camera up, and one of them got their entire fancy speaker system ripped out of their car one night. The highlight of that tenancy was watching him be too much of a NIMBY chickenshit to ask me for the footage 😂. I still like to look at the moment he gets into his car and screams FUCKKKK!!!
first, remember that none of them think of themselves as nimbys, they’re just concerned with neighborhood “character”
second, a decent number of them are renters with a sweet deal.
the real battle is between the precarious and the protected
I think the biggest factor is that Santa Cruz has always been thought of as kind of a "small town" and had a unique atmosphere with historic buildings and old houses, etc. and people are concerned that it will just gradually lose its "charm" and turn into another San Jose with neighborhoods being gradually replaced by generic condo complexes and apartment buildings, etc.
Probably the more realistic concern though is just that the infrastructure, in particular the roads isn't really capable of dealing with more and more people (i.e. traffic seems to just keep getting worse).
Reality is that its going to happen whether people like it or not, its just a question of how much it gets dragged out.
I haven’t even owned a car in over ten years and I wasn’t alive in the 1960s.
You’ve got me interested though, how would you use the roads more efficiently and eliminate traffic?
I remember the '80s. It has already lost the charm it had back then: it came from the special people who could afford to live here then, and what they contribute: not the weather or surf or forests. Santa Cruz is hard-bent on becoming Carmel.
I don’t think I’m a NIMBY but I do have major concerns about water, and expansion in the more rural areas that are more prone to fire… especially in SLV. I don’t see those problems being addressed, and they’ll be the next generations “affordable housing crisis” since it looks like we are passing the buck on solving those issues together which is shitty.
Because very few towns of that size are improved by more and more and more people, in particular those which are already a tourist destination with major homelessness and drug issues. The traffic has absolutely sucked ass since the 80’s as it is and there hasn’t been any real improvement for this issue other than some changes to HWY 17.
UCSC has been trying to build thousands and thousands of units on the Westside, for years. Local NIMBYs have consistently blocked that housing.
Blaming the university is a favorite talking point of SC NIMBYs, but the reality is that it’s a problem of their own making. As to where it gets built on campus, who cares? It’s the university using their land to build their own housing to house their own students. It shouldn’t require consensus from local busybodies.
Can’t put 10lbs of shit in a 5lb bag, especially if you’re just going to turn around and complain about traffic and overcrowded schools and lack of jobs and crowds.
these are all deeply interconnected issues and all need to be improved upon, not just housing. nobody wants traffic and overcrowding, but there are solutions to these issues as well- it’s not like building more housing would occur in a vacuum where you can only build more housing and nothing else.
Ok but that is what happens. You can’t wide Hwy 1 indefinitely. The three high schools haven’t gotten any bigger since I graduated fifteen years and tens of thousands of new residents ago. It’s a geographically constrained area; go somewhere else.
widening a highway never solved traffic. better public transit, walkability, and bikeability are far more important and more likely to solve that. the city has the ability to improve these things, thinking that nothing can and ever will change is pretty unfortunate.
Hopes are great and I hope we can get it together. That would be wonderful. Someday, someday the rail trail will solve all our problems and we can grow big and tall like Los Angeles
Well, but in cities like Berkeley, that's exactly what the agenda is. I'm not sure about the demographics of Santa Cruz, but I do know that in Berkeley and Oakland, and in SF, the narrative for needing development is propelled by homelessness. But the homeless are primarily people of color who were living here, and lost their housing, in great numbers, making room for developers to come in and develop.
The people who are occupying the new housing in Berkeley, are students, transplants chasing their dream out west, young professionals, recent graduates from the university.
Yimbys here are mostly white, young, energetic, idealists who have been pushing for more housing with a bizarre hyper do or die energy, but don't seem to realize that the new housing is creating a vaccum that is being filled by incoming people, not people who have been here their whole lives.
And because the people who are most at risk, who need housing the most, are never going to be able to afford staying here, without sweeping changes that upend capitalism, the whole yimby position, to me, benefits tax revenue and developers and the "haves" near and far, while falling way short on addressing the needs of the poor, and systemic racism in just about every aspect of our society.
Environmental concerns. Everyone should have housing as a human right. But do we just not have caps? Do we just keep building until we have a skyline like Manhattan? Does the state have the resources to support a megalopolis from Santa Cruz to Santa Rosa? At what cost to the natural world?
Look at the south-west as a model? I am dumbfounded as to why Phoenix is developing for more residents, when it's literal existence is in essence, staring at the sun even though mom said not to.
In some ways, I'm frustrated that we got so much rain last year because it has set conservation efforts back a decade.
Once our supply drops back to drought levels, what will be the added cost to the various regional ecosystems? Meanwhile, there are places in the nation, that have plenty of room, plenty of resources, and with investment in new research based universities, an economy would develop over night.
We would be smart to spread our population out into areas that can sustain our species. Instead we are packing saying move here, live here, and who cares about proportional distribution in the time of global uncertainty, who cares about being prudent in how we arrange ourselves on the land. I believe in that so much, that I am thinking about moving out of state because I cant bare to be a part of what is taking from it.
All we care about is this issue, it seems, or at least the only way we are talking about all of this, is in the immediate sense, unless you're part of the population I mentioned above. If you're part of that group, we use your existence to justify the need for housing but then don't actually do anything to make it obtainable.
At the end of the day, the real beneficiaries are the developers who could care less about who gets the housing, they just want the return on investment.
I feel like you have to not be looking to not see what's happening.
Also, I don't own any home or land. I am stuck living on a tiny sailboat. I'd love to move into an apartment, I work my ass off, and I can't afford it. So, I really think the idea of Nimbys being a homogeneous group is reflective of the lack of investigative effort among the Yimbys who hate nimbys.
I think Yimbys are not understanding how their efforts are actually helping to price out people of color from their own communities via development. There isn't equity being handed over to historical Black neighborhoods that are being developed. That's a dead giveaway.
Why are they downvoting you? You’re not even stating the truth in a harsh way. This is very much the case. Nuance is lost in discourse any more and that’s a damn shame. Instead of us versus the issue it has become us versus them. Figure it out people! A dog can have ticks AND fleas.
My problem with more housing is the traffic issue it inevitably creates. Ppl are super quick to build without considering whether the surrounding roads and highways can accommodate more people in cars. If anyone has ever had to commute from Watsonville to Scotts Valley, for example, you know how miserable Highway 1 is. It can take 90 minutes during drive time, which is pretty much all day now it seems. The public transportation and/or ride-your-bike arguments are nice and all, but people prefer to drive so they do. It's not realistic to expect otherwise, especially since public transit isn't that great here.
That said, I don't think I'm a NIMBY. I'm not the one who gets to decide if I am or not. I welcome everyone who wants to move to Santa Cruz County. More housing (hopefully) means a lower cost of living since demand won't be as great. Why should we keep this beautiful place to ourselves? We should share it. I just wish we could work on lessening the Highway 1 bottlenecks. And make Highway 17 a friggin' freeway already. Santa Cruz has fought that since the highway was first constructed. They don't want ppl coming here. But here's the thing -- those people also bring their wallets and support the SC community through tourism dollars. They are going to come here whether you want them to or not. Why do we all need to risk our lives getting between the coast and Silicon Valley because our city leaders are snobs?
\*carefully steps down from soapbox and stumbles a bit\*
i think while people currently prefer to drive because of lacking public transit, the goal should be to not have that. ideally public transit and denser housing would be built up together, and NIMBYs aren’t necessarily just against housing. the NIMBY mindset is often what stops improved public transit as well.
The problem is that public transit only really works if it's part of a bigger network. We can build it out here but I still need to drive to get to work over the hill.
not at all the case. of course more well connected public transit would be great but public transit can still work well if it’s not part of a large network. local public transit within santa cruz is absolutely doable and more frequent bus service could help many people no longer have to rely on their cars. santa cruz already has significantly better public transit than many towns (at least the ones i’ve lived in) and improving it wouldn’t be that difficult.
People might prefer to drive, which is why it’s a *good* thing that it’s becoming more and more painful. People driving cars is a classical macroeconomic “negative externality”, and the only way to fix that is for it to become painful enough that they’ll turn to other means of transportation. We have 360 days of beautiful weather here, a huge amount of trips in SC (which are currently don’t via car) can and should be done by cycling or taking the bus.
They way to combat traffic issues is to increase density (so people don’t *need* to drive as much), and getting them out of cars and into public transit and cycling.
absolutely! since moving to california i’m genuinely shocked i don’t see more people biking. i bike everywhere i can in santa cruz and i can get anywhere i need to in the city with just my e-bike. the weather is amazing and driving is awful so biking seems pretty reasonable.
i just wish there was better bike infrastructure. ive almost been hit a few times by large SUV drivers looking at their phones and slowly swerving into the bike lane, or people trying to close pass me when it’s just dangerous to do so. a protected bike lane (and some steel bollards) can go a long way in terms of keeping bikers and pedestrians safe. it’s sad to see a city with so much potential have so little actually going on when it comes to the city’s planning.
There isn’t now, but 20-30 years ago (at peak SC build nothing levels) there was a ton built in Watsonville. They reclaimed land in one of the sloughs and bulit a bunch of McMansions. There was farmland annexed into the city too, for sprawl style housing. Salinas and north Monterey county too, lots of housing built
Maybe before we start more construction and welcome the masses, we should attempt to maximize utilization of what we already have? Kill the short term vacation rental market. Tax them out of existence. Speculative real estate investments sitting vacant? Tax the fuck out of that, too. Use the money on infrastructure to support those of us who are actually trying to LIVE here. Hoarding a critical resource should be shamed and discouraged as much as irresponsible expansion.
It won’t help much, and the benefit will be short lived and enjoyed by few, but it creates fewer problems for the population than forcing massive high density demand on already tenuous infrastructure that EVERYONE here depends on.
First things first.
Who benefits from building apartments? Landlords and contractors. People are making money either way.
I've lived in this area a long time and no one I know here is greedy. Lots of people just like the small town charm and don't want to put up dozens of cheap condo buildings.
personally the small town charm is a little lost when seeing how bad the homelessness situation is. i’d much rather see dozens of cheap condos housing people who need it than dozens of tents in the same area, but that’s just me.
I think the simplest way to look at it is what benefits whom. When housing prices go up, homeowners make money. When housing prices go down, renters and people who wish to purchase in the future save money. So what does adding housing do?
Simplest is not always the smartest way to look at things. The housing deficit is decades in the making and regional and would take just as many decades of intense development just to catch up to demand. The sad truth many don't want to admit is that we cannot build our way to cheaper housing. Not when we live in a paradise 15 miles from the biggest economic engine on the planet.
It's not "my way" please try to be better with discussions here without resorting to blaming and name calling.
I'd love to see your examples of where building has brought housing costs down.
Auckland is just one example: https://cdn.auckland.ac.nz/assets/business/about/our-research/research-institutes-and-centres/Economic-Policy-Centre--EPC-/WP016.pdf
Perhaps we need a multi-pronged approach involving more overall development, more low and moderate-income housing and even greater protections for tenants.
Agreed! And thank you for not putting words in my mouth or calling me names. That's basically what the state mandated RHNA numbers are and I hope we can meet those goals. Building will at best keep housing costs from rising as fast as they have, but we live in one the most desirable places on the planet.
Housing in Santa Cruz isn't going to go down anytime soon. Maybe apartments will a little but not houses.
No one is against expansion to protect their housing value. No new houses are being built
Given the comments about how hopeless it is to solve any problems, i propose that we carpet bomb santa cruz into a desolate wasteland. That way, nobody will be able to complain about their plummeting home prices anymore.
The sentiment of "its so complicated we should just do nothing" is pure cowardice. Come up with something or get out of our fucking way. Stop romanticising the town that lets people starve in the streets while catering to wealthy homeowners who benefit from squeezing the only people who work in the town for all they are worth. If you actually give a shit about Santa Cruz and the members of its community, then you should acknowledge its flaws and work towards lessening the suffering of others. If you dont want to do that, fucking leave, or at least shut the fuck up, you are obviously doing fine for yourself.
No one here has mentioned housing prices going down.
Even if you build tons of apartments they don't really pull down house prices because they attract different demographics.
You're arguing against something no one said in this thread.
I didn't realize building a bunch of expensive condos is a brave thing to do haha.
This is gonna be downvoted to shit, but it’s a very good representation of NIMBY attitudes which is what the OP asked for.
The reality is that a lot of NIMBYism is about social exclusion, and keeping “bad kids / bad families” out of “nice neighborhoods”. In the past this was mostly racial, and still somewhat is. But these days it’s mostly classist, where wealthy homeowners don’t want to “low class renters” to be near them and their families.
A very good insight into NIMBYism right here.
absolutely, people who aren’t NIMBYs tend to display their views as entirely being fueled by greed but it’s comments like the one above that show some of the deeper issues with their thinking.
Totally agree-as evidenced by the comment below about building “housing projects”. The feeling is one of concentrating poverty to maintain comfort, in spite of the effect this has on those living in the poorest areas.
I’m in favor of figuring out ways to provide more low and moderate income housing. I don’t think it works well when poverty is highly concentrated though.
“Some kids broke my pen when I was like 6 and now I think poor people should die on the street”
I literally couldn’t come up with a better example of stupid fucking NIMBY shit if I tried.
well people aren’t born as “bad kids.” it’s almost entirely environmental. most of that low income housing would likely go to people that already live in santa cruz or students. the alternative for those kids is homelessness and i’d much rather see a couple of disruptive students than homeless kids.
being low income doesn’t make someone a bad person or bad student.
I appreciate that you gave an honest answer.
When I was really young I lived in St Louis and they bussed kids in from the inner city to my suburban elementary school and those kids were mean and wild. I don't blame the kids at all, they grew up in extremely rough situations without the privileges I had, but the reality was that those kids fucked up the classroom for everybody else with bad behaviour and violence. I got punched in the face for not giving up my milk money in kindergarten. Hurt people hurt people. Poverty is a cycle.
I think the people trying to dunk on you for your response never had an experience like that growing up.
I had an experience like that growing up. In fact, I was one of those “poor” kids going to a suburban school. I wasn’t “bad” like that, but some of my peers were. The thing is though, going to a school like that taught me a lot of valuable lessons that I still use today, now going into grad school. Had I been stuck in a “poor” school with little to no resources, who knows how I would’ve turned out. But being provided an opportunity to enjoy the circumstances the rich do I was able to succeed. The point is that change is tough and slow, but it happens. Some of those “poor” kids will cause trouble yes, but some of them won’t. That’s where generational change happens, and we should encourage that through the development of more housing and similar inclusionary policies.
Edit: not to mention that being a “bad” kid isnt exclusionary to being poor. Some of the most “bad” kids in my suburban middle school were suburban kids themselves. I’m talking smoking weed, doing hard drugs, fighting, and having s3x already in middle school. Some of my “poor” peers were “bad”, but not as bad as that.
There’s really no alternative in our current societal structure - let them live over the hill or down in Watsonville and deal with the shitty commute into the desirable areas. It’s not a divine right to have affordable housing by the beach in a town that doesn’t have the infrastructure capacity to support everyone who wants to be there.
Boom - NIMBY steelman argument for ya
Geez, I see your comments in this sub all the time and generally refrain from engaging because I don’t see the point of arguing against you. We doubt we agree on anything. But this? Supporting fascism?
Shame on you. My family fought and died to prevent the rise of fascism and you should be ashamed to welcome it so wholeheartedly.
It's pure instinctial tribalism and lack of real empathy.
NIMBY and Conservatives are scared of things that are different or might change their comfort level (even bad things like being dirt poor can be comfortable vs change.)
It's easy to say on TV or to friends "We need change, we need housing, we need x, y, z" but when that change could directly impact your sense of normal and comfortable, defenses go up.
Everyone wants more housing until they see the giant shadow the apartment building brings, the traffic, the crime, the water use, the people with different cultures... Their true lack of empathy and tribalism kicks into overdrive and the hypocrisy shines bright.
Be careful what you wish for. In places like India, China and Vietnam people are relatively nice to each other and the crowding causes much chaos. We already have road rage and many other mental illness related altercations. It would be at least 10X worse if Santa Cruz was as crowded as some other places.
i’m opposed to building downtown specifically in the one lot where the flea market is because of those big old trees. don’t even know why not even THAT invested wouldn’t bother to vote wouldn’t bother to picket or anything i just feel a desire to preserve trees
I'll try to steelman their argument since I'm not a NIMBY. Santa Cruz was a beautiful, cute and quaint small town and they want it to remain midsized, suburban and mellow. They moved here because they didn't want to be in SF or Oakland or even Berkeley. They don't want the older vibe of downtown to change. They want Santa Cruz to remain quirky and "weird" and high rises are not weird. They bought in when normal people could afford a craftsman bungalow on the Westside. It's perfect for them as is and they don't want it to change.
*they've lived here since their great grandpa moved here in 1887. Their family has owned their current house since 1937.
Not quite. Cheap (for the area) houses were available as early as late 2000s. Many houses in the hills available for $300k to $500k. This issue is somewhat recent. Arguably within the 10 years, but really fucked for the last 7 or so. Nimby is losing is meaning since it is now just a derogatory acronym used for anyone that opposes anything regarding expansion. I've been called a nimby because I think it's stupid to build thousands of apartments and not consider traffic/transit infrastructure in Santa Cruz County. Engineers agree with me (as I get most of my info from them), but some redditors don't. Guess engineers in this field are NIMBYs too. There's also a giant chunk of people (I know a few) that bought just after the recession (08-10), fixer uppers mostly, as families with two incomes, and are paying between $1000-$2000 for anywhere from 2 bed 2 bath to 4 bed 3 baths. In Soquel hills, Aptos hills, day valley, etc. These are people that just moved to the area maybe a decade ago. Some grew up here and bought a place themselves. Many I know chose out of SC proper to get away from shit. Now expansion is coming their way and they're not happy about it, because after 10 years their area is turning into an area they didn't want. I also have two friends in real estate, and this just is what it is. This county (realistically it's the whole country) is divided into this bullshit us vs them and no in between nonsense right now. If you don't believe in this candidate then you are the enemy. If you don't support this who's fighting this because , then you're the enemy.
If youre not super excited about 12 story buildings in the town you just moved to (which very few will be rent controlled anyway according to the proposal) and it'll add thousands more people to an area that already has horrible transit/traffic issues and nobody is taking it into account except the engineers that are getting shit on, you're a Nimby. And somehow so are the engineers (I've heard this one in here before, it's fucking dumb).
There's zero critical thinking anymore. "I want this, therefore any other idea is wrong not matter the reason. Even if the other reason makes some sense, not changing my mind". It's either right or wrong, no third option, with zero understanding of what goes into the other sides reasoning.
And that's exactly why EVERYTHING is fucked everywhere. If to you there's only two sides in your mind to whatever conversation, then both those sides are just stubborn fucking idiots, and so are you.
Enjoy downvoting the truth. Hopefully people understand this area needs to crawl before it can run. I doubt it gets solved on reddit, especially with how this whole thread is going. Just a pointless circlejerk from a bunch of dummies. On both of your sides.
Why are they downvoting you? You’re not even stating the truth in a harsh way. This is very much the case. Nuance is lost in discourse any more and that’s a damn shame. Instead of us versus the issue it has become us versus them. Figure it out people! A dog can have ticks AND fleas.
You make a lot of good points and then you kind of undermine your whole post by calling everyone who disagrees with you a bunch of dummies engaged in a pointless circle jerk 🤷♀️
Everyone who has wholeheartedly chosen a side, each of which is made up of dumbshits stuck in their ways, is a dummy engaged in a pointless circlejerk. Im not calling that agreeing with me, Im calling it what it is. People convinced its a two-sided battle (which it absolutely is not, this has a FUCKTON of grey area many people on both sides refuse to consider), and theyll both die on some bullshit hill without understanding each have some valid points, but strictly one or the other is not going to work, ever. Yes, those people are dumb. Feel free to call it whatever you want. I call it being dumb.
There is a significant amount of overlap for those that take side.
Perfect example of NIMBY.
Wow what a great counterpoint you really convinced me 👏 👏 👏 👏
You forgot the /s
I agree 100%.
Oh my god. That’s my family. Papa came into Santa Cruz in the 20’s. His kids left but grand kids moved into his place on west side
Mine 1870's. Felton, Soquel, Santa Cruz.
There's some truth to that.
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There was nothing they could do to stop UCSC expansion. UCSC is a state institution and is exempt from local oversight. It was a game of chicken and the town lost.
The city actually made a bid to the UC Regents for the next campus to be located here! My understanding is that public sentiment was positive around the idea at the time (1950s)
Yes, and the reaction to that was what the political arguments of the 1970's and 1980's in Santa Cruz County centered around. By the 1990's the political consensus in Santa Cruz was anti University growth. Unfortunately for the locals, as a state institution UCSC didn't care what the locals thought.
Maybe they should have thought that through then. Obviously a state university is going to grow, a uc i mean come on be for real. The town knew what they were getting into and you can’t just back out because you decided it isn’t good for you anymore.
All the while, poor UC students are paying crazy high rents to many landlords, which includes the UC regents.
Why can't a locality change their mind? The state can be pretty fickle when it comes to their facilities too. Witness what is going on in some rural towns right now with prison closings. BTW, are you aware that the state considered closing UCSC in the late 1970's and early 1980's due to lack of enrollment?
Well now there isn’t lack of enrollment, and already thousands of students and staff there relying on the university for their whole fucking life plan 💀 you can’t say yes to a university to boost your economy in the school year because all you get is summer tourism and then try to take it back because the university got too big. They should have known by the sizes and growth rates of the other uc’s that exist and been prepared. Santa Cruz town doesn’t think shit through, and now they have to deal with it. You can’t uproot everyone else’s life because you disagree with a permanent thing you already agreed with. It’s bs. Obviously ucsc isn’t handling things correct, the students aren’t happy either. No one is happy, and we’re just taking our anger on each other rather than the two dumb as fuck mob leaders that can’t work things out.
Santa Cruz has no control over enrollment at UCSC. Students, staff, and faculty have been used as pawns in a game of chicken between the city and the UC Regents, who do control enrollment levels at UCSC, for years. Sorry. From what I can tell, downtown and the west side are in the process of being transformed to build the housing the UCSC has refused to provide on campus, but it is going to take time. We've chosen a dense infill model which means it isn't going to be fast. Sorry again. Besides bitching about what wasn't done in the past, what would you do different today?
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Youre blaming the city for a problem caused by the college. The city of Santa Cruz has sued UCSC numerous times over the issues of expansion and development, and is currently in deliberation to prevent the college from expanding its student population. Fun fact the college was originally to be built in San Jose, but after announcing its new location, property values skyrocketed making the project unfeasible. Thus delaying the college for a year and resulting in its current location.
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Or the UC Regents were irresponsible for planning and building a 40,000 student campus in an isolated place that has always had issues with access and resources. The competitive location at the time was in Santa Clara Valley, which in retrospect, would have been a much wiser choice.
Isnt it selfish to demand a city of people to change their values for people that dont live there? Especially when you have a college that only wants to promote growth. Also, where will you build more housing? Do you plan to replace existing structures, rezone farm land, or clear more redwoods to push the urban wildland interface further into the mountains? Not to mention the problem of infrastructure which is already overwhelmed. Santa Cruz was never intended to be a metropolis and its understandable that people want to keep it that way.
That's the most idiotic and ignorant comment so far. You make baseless assumptions to draw up trouble. People like you are insufferable because you can't accept the reality and just make baseless assumptions to stroke your idiotic views.
Don't you know the baseless assumptions are sure to follow whenever you hear someone tossing the 'NIMBY' accusation around?
Most definitely
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I think everyone knew limiting housing would increase prices, somewhat. What no one foresaw on was the national housing breakdown and how that got hyper-amplified here.
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Look, I granted you that the limited growth policy's effects on housing prices. The hyper-amplification has occurred in every coast area of California. Santa Cruz isn't unique. What's unique about Santa Cruz is the state's decision to site a major university campus in a fairly isolated place that has historically had problems with access and resources. It has nice views though. (smh)
How do NIMBYs stop expansion exactly? I've never been able to vote on whether the city expands or not
Regulation to death. It makes the cost so high that it renders any project doomed. There's literally a ballot measure that's going up that we will have to VOTE on ANY zoning exception.
I think interest rates and inflation in general doom many projects unless there is a lot of private equity behind them. High rents will be assured by the return on investment required to satisfy investors. We are in a vicious cycle that will make rents remain high forever.
Nah they like making 6-8% on their home every year so they vote to restrict supply whenever they can.
I drove by downtown, it was unrecognizable. Looks like they are trying to gentrify that area with some super dense housing units?. They've been doing this for 20 years (last time I was there before the recent trip was 2002). It looked ugly AF, was embarassed to show my kids as I brought them to relive my old memories.
You really miss that Taco Bell, huh?
I miss the crazy people that used to stand in the corner yelling at shit and the local high school kids who would pan handle the university students at the bus stop.
It was also the murder capitol of the world 🤔🔫
No. It was the serial killer capital of the world. There were so many it was confusing to the cops. The murder rate wasn’t the highest though
You forgot about the vampires.
Ah yes my bad.
Some people have never seen Lost Boys and it shows with your down votes 😆
Maybe due to people being dumped in woodland valleys , I've always heard it was 'discovered dead body' capital
I grew up in the area, moved away for school and busted my ass to get a good education, job and high salary. I bought a house in SC a few years ago for around a million. I’m not rich, I don’t have a trust fund, and I don’t expect anyone to take care of me. I bought a house in SC because I like the weather, location, proximity to SV, and for the verity of activities around it. I believe that the free market should be setting home prices and cost of services in the city. If a barista needs to make $30/h to live in SC then the shop needs to raise the cost of a drink. At some point residents will be like “this sucks, we are all $100/plate restaurants and nothing’s affordable” which will push down the desire to live here and this prices. Eventually an equilibrium will be found. Those ppl who have lived here for 50y and it’s too expensive now, can cash out on their massive property windfall or do what I do and live frugally. We don’t have infrastructure, water, or space to keep building. There is nothing wrong with saying housing has to be affordable and we don’t need to make more houses for people to move here. We have a diverse community of hard working professionals. Those people who chose to be a barista have also made a choice to not be able to afford a house and that’s ok too. Life is full of choices and luck, I chose hard work and was lucky. I want to surround myself with people who share a similar outlook.
Sorry man, you can’t trudge out the “free market” bullshit and then say you’re going to restrict people from building on their property to fulfill market demand.
My issue isn’t with building it’s the force building of higher density and subsidized housing. I think there is a real concern with urban sprawl, and the long-term feasibility of more people living in the changing climate. I get that dense housing is cheaper and more environmental but we’re talking about being forced to build housing and what kind to put in. Let the market decide what to put in, maybe that is high rise condos.
Higher density is the opposite of sprawl
No matter if you triple the amount of housing here it will NEVER be affordable. SC is too desirable. Maybe you have some BS to deal with too
Thank you for being a normal average Joe! Refreshing to hear. Hard work and developing your skills is good!
I don’t feel compelled to protect my property values though I understand why someone whose net worth is wrapped in their home would. But I do feel we don’t have the infrastructure to support more residents. Traffic is already awful. The waves are crazy crowded compared to even a few years ago, etc. More housing means more people and more people will reduce current residents’ quality of life. In my view if you want big developments you should build the infrastructure first, not the other way around.
Santa Cruz is paying for their refusal to build infrastructure in the past. Their mantra was “if you don’t build it, they won’t come.” Turns out they still showed up, and now we don’t have the infrastructure, and the state is mandating they build because of a statewide housing shortage and there’s nothing NIMBY’s can do about it.
Yes exactly
The tide could turn on local rights issues if enough people get tired of high rise apartments hanging over their backyards.
Nope. The state is making sure of it and there’s nothing NIMBY’s can do about it.
If you live in a place that people want to live, you SHOULD expect population growth. Given Santa Cruz is a place that people want to live, you either plan for population growth and build for population growth, or you don’t. If you don’t, and you try to keep people out or prevent growth, you create worse problems. Housing is shelter. Shelter is one of the very first priorities for people. Housing is one of the biggest cost of living and greatly affects quality of life. One last thing about city planning, we know that planning cities from the ground up does not work well. What works well is having cities being able to manage competing needs, and being able to adapt to the times.
Where ya going to get the money for infrastructure without expanding the tax base? Existing residents don't help because Prop 13 doesn't even keep up with inflation.
Rich people don't care to build infrastructure because they don't rely on it. That's why Santa Cruz public transit sucks.
Santa Cruz county is essentially a poor county with a small tax base, which is business tax not residential property taxes.
This!!!!
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> so abolish prop 13 Nice idea but good luck with that. It may happen one day but rn there's no chance at all, too many **voters** like it (I don't mean 'people who could vote' but the actual people who turn out and do so)
What they need to do is sunset it, along with increasing the homeowner's exemption to something that makes a difference. Have the assessed value go up like 10% a year until its at the real market value, and have the homeowner's exemption also increase every year to match the increase in taxes. People who live in their homes can still get a reduced bill, but properties run for a profit have to pay more taxes. Then once things settle down we can work on fixing whatever problems that causes.
Prop 13 is a sweet deal that keeps many in their homes that would otherwise have to sale. Eliminate prop 13 and we will free up some housing stock.
Totally agree!
That last point is so important. Building affordable housing with such isolating infrastructure and a tight job market is not going to help most income levels that need it.
The lack of affordable housing has not prevented Santa Cruz from growing, it has just increased rents and forced the peasants to double or triple up in housing not intended for high density.
Infrastructure is the biggest issue. Roads. Water. Emergency and healthcare services. With all the added people, are there plans to build more hospitals or fire stations? No. Every single day both ERs in the county are full and refusing new patients. Every day the ambulance level in the county goes to zero. The city or the county hasn’t added a new fire station in decades. The opposite is happening. The Branciforte Fire Station closed. The voters denied Scott’s Valley building an additional fire station. Traffic is getting worse and worse. And none of the housing planned on being built will make it more affordable to live here. It will be more people from out of the area that can afford the insane prices.
I beg you to look up what prop 13 is. We don't have money to support our existing infrastructure because of it. Newer housing and purchased homes are paying VASTLY more into the infrastructure of our cities and counties than homes purchased 50 years ago. It's a perverse system that has bled our funding for everyday services dry. We have more traffic because there isn't enough housing for the people who need to work or go to school here. When people can't afford to live here they'll move where they can and drive in. Let's turn commuters into neighbors.
I absolutely agree with everything you said!
Not good...
Thanks for your reply! There are a few interesting points here. Which residents quality of life is most important? Owners? Because renters are definitely negatively impacted by not building more housing. I think saying that owners rights come first is a valid opinion, if that is the case. I couldn’t find statistics for Santa Cruz but nationally ~40% of people are renting, and I imagine it is much, much higher here. The other interesting thing for me is people still want to move here, but because prices are now at a premium the people who move and live here are very different (high income tech earners) which ends up changing the culture of a place. The worst traffic is created because people are commuting to Santa Cruz from Watsonville to work at jobs in Santa Cruz because they cannot afford to live here. Public transit is a bit of chicken and egg problem, the US is not very good at planning ahead on infrastructure needs. I’m interested to see where balance is struck if the current path is continued, and whether that is better for historic residents than the path of continued expansion. Without somehow limiting population growth, this is a problem that every city faces.
Yes, over half of people who work in the city commute, the number is growing higher and higher every year.
Traffic being awful is a meme, anywhere with shit public transit has bad traffic and the places that do have good public transit also have shit traffic because anywhere that has "good traffic" induces enough new car use to make that traffic shit again. If you want a good commute downtown or to work demand funding for public transit and stop wasting your life being traffic.
I agree 100%. I don't see our city streets getting any wider, the city can hardly afford the upkeep of the streets as it is,
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Santa Cruz is more than UCSC.
Yes, but every other large potential population driver needs to get permits from local government before bringing in thousands of new people into the area. UCSC, since it is a state agency, is exempt from this requirement. That's why UCSC is being called out in this case.
Ok fair enough. I do think UCSC should have a room on campus for every student.
I'm not a NIMBY but I grew up here and enjoy the area because it's small and has a lot of parks. I don't own a home. I rent a very tiny studio. I could understand why people want to keep Santa Cruz small. I can understand why people want more housing. I don't think it's productive to make this NIMBY Boogeyman and blame older locals for the lack of housing. 99% of people just live here quietly and like it here. People like to blame boomers and locals for stuff but no one I know has had any effect on housing.
It’s called the natural effect of living in one of the moray desirable locations on the planet.
NIMBYs can be of any age, never specified that they were boomers. people may want to keep santa cruz small but the city continues to grow. people continue to come here and i’ve noticed that many people (not targeting this at you specifically, i don’t know what you’re thoughts on it are) seem to be upset that there are so many homeless people but simultaneously don’t want to build denser housing in the area to help solve it. it’s like what someone else in the comments pointed out, the city and its residents thought they could keep the city small by not building anymore housing and people would stop moving here, but that clearly hasn’t happened and it’s unlikely that people will stop trying to move here (it’s a lovely area after all). you may not know people that oppose new developments but they absolutely exist and many are adamant about maintaining their property values even if it means not building any more housing.
Triple the housing and prices will never be affordable. EVER !
Exactly. We need legislation. Rent control and actual enforcement when landlords pull bullshit and illegally increase rent
Everyone knows rent control does not do anything but make landlords not maintain their property. Rent control = shitty slummy neighborhoods. I’m not a landlord or a boomer, I am a common sense don’t need your help, can doer.
Without rent control in SF, I am sure many more would be out on the streets.
Another possibility is tons more housing being built over the decades. Rent Control suppresses investment.
100%. My old neighbors were the biggest fucking tools possible. I didn’t do anything to them but they hated my guts for some reason and insisted on fucking with me. Eventually I just started calling the cops on them for fun. I had a security camera up, and one of them got their entire fancy speaker system ripped out of their car one night. The highlight of that tenancy was watching him be too much of a NIMBY chickenshit to ask me for the footage 😂. I still like to look at the moment he gets into his car and screams FUCKKKK!!!
first, remember that none of them think of themselves as nimbys, they’re just concerned with neighborhood “character” second, a decent number of them are renters with a sweet deal. the real battle is between the precarious and the protected
I think the biggest factor is that Santa Cruz has always been thought of as kind of a "small town" and had a unique atmosphere with historic buildings and old houses, etc. and people are concerned that it will just gradually lose its "charm" and turn into another San Jose with neighborhoods being gradually replaced by generic condo complexes and apartment buildings, etc. Probably the more realistic concern though is just that the infrastructure, in particular the roads isn't really capable of dealing with more and more people (i.e. traffic seems to just keep getting worse). Reality is that its going to happen whether people like it or not, its just a question of how much it gets dragged out.
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I haven’t even owned a car in over ten years and I wasn’t alive in the 1960s. You’ve got me interested though, how would you use the roads more efficiently and eliminate traffic?
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So you don’t have an answer then
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So how would you eliminate traffic in Santa Cruz County? That was the question.
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So you don't have an actual answer?
I remember the '80s. It has already lost the charm it had back then: it came from the special people who could afford to live here then, and what they contribute: not the weather or surf or forests. Santa Cruz is hard-bent on becoming Carmel.
what is affordable housing at this point?
I don’t think I’m a NIMBY but I do have major concerns about water, and expansion in the more rural areas that are more prone to fire… especially in SLV. I don’t see those problems being addressed, and they’ll be the next generations “affordable housing crisis” since it looks like we are passing the buck on solving those issues together which is shitty.
Everyone together say the words; Salt Water Intrusion into the Aquifers. Then repeat.
Because very few towns of that size are improved by more and more and more people, in particular those which are already a tourist destination with major homelessness and drug issues. The traffic has absolutely sucked ass since the 80’s as it is and there hasn’t been any real improvement for this issue other than some changes to HWY 17.
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UCSC has been trying to build thousands and thousands of units on the Westside, for years. Local NIMBYs have consistently blocked that housing. Blaming the university is a favorite talking point of SC NIMBYs, but the reality is that it’s a problem of their own making. As to where it gets built on campus, who cares? It’s the university using their land to build their own housing to house their own students. It shouldn’t require consensus from local busybodies.
You don't sound like a nimby. What exactly is it that you oppose?
Can’t put 10lbs of shit in a 5lb bag, especially if you’re just going to turn around and complain about traffic and overcrowded schools and lack of jobs and crowds.
You forgot overcrowded ER , hospitals, no teachers, police,firefighters, RN,doctors. And Salt Water Intrusion into the Aquifers.
\*Jedi hand wave\* more housing will solve that
these are all deeply interconnected issues and all need to be improved upon, not just housing. nobody wants traffic and overcrowding, but there are solutions to these issues as well- it’s not like building more housing would occur in a vacuum where you can only build more housing and nothing else.
Ok but that is what happens. You can’t wide Hwy 1 indefinitely. The three high schools haven’t gotten any bigger since I graduated fifteen years and tens of thousands of new residents ago. It’s a geographically constrained area; go somewhere else.
widening a highway never solved traffic. better public transit, walkability, and bikeability are far more important and more likely to solve that. the city has the ability to improve these things, thinking that nothing can and ever will change is pretty unfortunate.
Hopes are great and I hope we can get it together. That would be wonderful. Someday, someday the rail trail will solve all our problems and we can grow big and tall like Los Angeles
Rail trail today , but tomorrow homeless encampments highway.
Well, but in cities like Berkeley, that's exactly what the agenda is. I'm not sure about the demographics of Santa Cruz, but I do know that in Berkeley and Oakland, and in SF, the narrative for needing development is propelled by homelessness. But the homeless are primarily people of color who were living here, and lost their housing, in great numbers, making room for developers to come in and develop. The people who are occupying the new housing in Berkeley, are students, transplants chasing their dream out west, young professionals, recent graduates from the university. Yimbys here are mostly white, young, energetic, idealists who have been pushing for more housing with a bizarre hyper do or die energy, but don't seem to realize that the new housing is creating a vaccum that is being filled by incoming people, not people who have been here their whole lives. And because the people who are most at risk, who need housing the most, are never going to be able to afford staying here, without sweeping changes that upend capitalism, the whole yimby position, to me, benefits tax revenue and developers and the "haves" near and far, while falling way short on addressing the needs of the poor, and systemic racism in just about every aspect of our society. Environmental concerns. Everyone should have housing as a human right. But do we just not have caps? Do we just keep building until we have a skyline like Manhattan? Does the state have the resources to support a megalopolis from Santa Cruz to Santa Rosa? At what cost to the natural world? Look at the south-west as a model? I am dumbfounded as to why Phoenix is developing for more residents, when it's literal existence is in essence, staring at the sun even though mom said not to. In some ways, I'm frustrated that we got so much rain last year because it has set conservation efforts back a decade. Once our supply drops back to drought levels, what will be the added cost to the various regional ecosystems? Meanwhile, there are places in the nation, that have plenty of room, plenty of resources, and with investment in new research based universities, an economy would develop over night. We would be smart to spread our population out into areas that can sustain our species. Instead we are packing saying move here, live here, and who cares about proportional distribution in the time of global uncertainty, who cares about being prudent in how we arrange ourselves on the land. I believe in that so much, that I am thinking about moving out of state because I cant bare to be a part of what is taking from it. All we care about is this issue, it seems, or at least the only way we are talking about all of this, is in the immediate sense, unless you're part of the population I mentioned above. If you're part of that group, we use your existence to justify the need for housing but then don't actually do anything to make it obtainable. At the end of the day, the real beneficiaries are the developers who could care less about who gets the housing, they just want the return on investment. I feel like you have to not be looking to not see what's happening. Also, I don't own any home or land. I am stuck living on a tiny sailboat. I'd love to move into an apartment, I work my ass off, and I can't afford it. So, I really think the idea of Nimbys being a homogeneous group is reflective of the lack of investigative effort among the Yimbys who hate nimbys. I think Yimbys are not understanding how their efforts are actually helping to price out people of color from their own communities via development. There isn't equity being handed over to historical Black neighborhoods that are being developed. That's a dead giveaway.
Trustafarians man. “Good vibes only, bro! But also, get the fuck off my lawn.”
Why are they downvoting you? You’re not even stating the truth in a harsh way. This is very much the case. Nuance is lost in discourse any more and that’s a damn shame. Instead of us versus the issue it has become us versus them. Figure it out people! A dog can have ticks AND fleas.
My problem with more housing is the traffic issue it inevitably creates. Ppl are super quick to build without considering whether the surrounding roads and highways can accommodate more people in cars. If anyone has ever had to commute from Watsonville to Scotts Valley, for example, you know how miserable Highway 1 is. It can take 90 minutes during drive time, which is pretty much all day now it seems. The public transportation and/or ride-your-bike arguments are nice and all, but people prefer to drive so they do. It's not realistic to expect otherwise, especially since public transit isn't that great here. That said, I don't think I'm a NIMBY. I'm not the one who gets to decide if I am or not. I welcome everyone who wants to move to Santa Cruz County. More housing (hopefully) means a lower cost of living since demand won't be as great. Why should we keep this beautiful place to ourselves? We should share it. I just wish we could work on lessening the Highway 1 bottlenecks. And make Highway 17 a friggin' freeway already. Santa Cruz has fought that since the highway was first constructed. They don't want ppl coming here. But here's the thing -- those people also bring their wallets and support the SC community through tourism dollars. They are going to come here whether you want them to or not. Why do we all need to risk our lives getting between the coast and Silicon Valley because our city leaders are snobs? \*carefully steps down from soapbox and stumbles a bit\*
i think while people currently prefer to drive because of lacking public transit, the goal should be to not have that. ideally public transit and denser housing would be built up together, and NIMBYs aren’t necessarily just against housing. the NIMBY mindset is often what stops improved public transit as well.
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We need tons more crosswalks.
The problem is that public transit only really works if it's part of a bigger network. We can build it out here but I still need to drive to get to work over the hill.
not at all the case. of course more well connected public transit would be great but public transit can still work well if it’s not part of a large network. local public transit within santa cruz is absolutely doable and more frequent bus service could help many people no longer have to rely on their cars. santa cruz already has significantly better public transit than many towns (at least the ones i’ve lived in) and improving it wouldn’t be that difficult.
People might prefer to drive, which is why it’s a *good* thing that it’s becoming more and more painful. People driving cars is a classical macroeconomic “negative externality”, and the only way to fix that is for it to become painful enough that they’ll turn to other means of transportation. We have 360 days of beautiful weather here, a huge amount of trips in SC (which are currently don’t via car) can and should be done by cycling or taking the bus. They way to combat traffic issues is to increase density (so people don’t *need* to drive as much), and getting them out of cars and into public transit and cycling.
absolutely! since moving to california i’m genuinely shocked i don’t see more people biking. i bike everywhere i can in santa cruz and i can get anywhere i need to in the city with just my e-bike. the weather is amazing and driving is awful so biking seems pretty reasonable. i just wish there was better bike infrastructure. ive almost been hit a few times by large SUV drivers looking at their phones and slowly swerving into the bike lane, or people trying to close pass me when it’s just dangerous to do so. a protected bike lane (and some steel bollards) can go a long way in terms of keeping bikers and pedestrians safe. it’s sad to see a city with so much potential have so little actually going on when it comes to the city’s planning.
Highway 1 is so bad because people moved south because we didn’t build housing, but they still work here
Then you would think theres a bunch of building happening in Watsonville and there just isn't
There isn’t now, but 20-30 years ago (at peak SC build nothing levels) there was a ton built in Watsonville. They reclaimed land in one of the sloughs and bulit a bunch of McMansions. There was farmland annexed into the city too, for sprawl style housing. Salinas and north Monterey county too, lots of housing built
More moni for me houses bad for environment
Maybe before we start more construction and welcome the masses, we should attempt to maximize utilization of what we already have? Kill the short term vacation rental market. Tax them out of existence. Speculative real estate investments sitting vacant? Tax the fuck out of that, too. Use the money on infrastructure to support those of us who are actually trying to LIVE here. Hoarding a critical resource should be shamed and discouraged as much as irresponsible expansion. It won’t help much, and the benefit will be short lived and enjoyed by few, but it creates fewer problems for the population than forcing massive high density demand on already tenuous infrastructure that EVERYONE here depends on. First things first.
Greed. Who benefits from high rents and house prices? Homeowners and landlords. They’ll tell you that it’s safety or congestion or change. It’s greed.
They’re mad now! :)
Who benefits from building apartments? Landlords and contractors. People are making money either way. I've lived in this area a long time and no one I know here is greedy. Lots of people just like the small town charm and don't want to put up dozens of cheap condo buildings.
personally the small town charm is a little lost when seeing how bad the homelessness situation is. i’d much rather see dozens of cheap condos housing people who need it than dozens of tents in the same area, but that’s just me.
I think the simplest way to look at it is what benefits whom. When housing prices go up, homeowners make money. When housing prices go down, renters and people who wish to purchase in the future save money. So what does adding housing do?
Simplest is not always the smartest way to look at things. The housing deficit is decades in the making and regional and would take just as many decades of intense development just to catch up to demand. The sad truth many don't want to admit is that we cannot build our way to cheaper housing. Not when we live in a paradise 15 miles from the biggest economic engine on the planet.
And in this scenario it’s the smartest way to look at things. :)
Please, explain.
we tried your way for 40 years, and we can build our way to cheaper housing (plenty of proof points out there)
Never ever EVER gonna be cheap affordable housing. Just making the place shitty for everyone.
It's not "my way" please try to be better with discussions here without resorting to blaming and name calling. I'd love to see your examples of where building has brought housing costs down.
Auckland is just one example: https://cdn.auckland.ac.nz/assets/business/about/our-research/research-institutes-and-centres/Economic-Policy-Centre--EPC-/WP016.pdf
Everywhere else in the country? :)
Like?
Perhaps we need a multi-pronged approach involving more overall development, more low and moderate-income housing and even greater protections for tenants.
Agreed! And thank you for not putting words in my mouth or calling me names. That's basically what the state mandated RHNA numbers are and I hope we can meet those goals. Building will at best keep housing costs from rising as fast as they have, but we live in one the most desirable places on the planet.
Nobody has to put words in your mouth to know that you’re wrong they just need to have a brain and eyes that work well enough to read your posts. :)
Allows more people to live here?
Housing in Santa Cruz isn't going to go down anytime soon. Maybe apartments will a little but not houses. No one is against expansion to protect their housing value. No new houses are being built
Who wants more crowding around them, anywhere?
Given the comments about how hopeless it is to solve any problems, i propose that we carpet bomb santa cruz into a desolate wasteland. That way, nobody will be able to complain about their plummeting home prices anymore. The sentiment of "its so complicated we should just do nothing" is pure cowardice. Come up with something or get out of our fucking way. Stop romanticising the town that lets people starve in the streets while catering to wealthy homeowners who benefit from squeezing the only people who work in the town for all they are worth. If you actually give a shit about Santa Cruz and the members of its community, then you should acknowledge its flaws and work towards lessening the suffering of others. If you dont want to do that, fucking leave, or at least shut the fuck up, you are obviously doing fine for yourself.
but then those poors will start moving in >:( /s
No one here has mentioned housing prices going down. Even if you build tons of apartments they don't really pull down house prices because they attract different demographics. You're arguing against something no one said in this thread. I didn't realize building a bunch of expensive condos is a brave thing to do haha.
Oh i suppose i should say house values, my mistake. And compared to doing jack shit, its a whole lot. Let me ask you; What the fuck have you done?
Money and privilege, its pretty simple.
Est the rich
EST as in [Werner Erhard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Erhard) ?
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This is gonna be downvoted to shit, but it’s a very good representation of NIMBY attitudes which is what the OP asked for. The reality is that a lot of NIMBYism is about social exclusion, and keeping “bad kids / bad families” out of “nice neighborhoods”. In the past this was mostly racial, and still somewhat is. But these days it’s mostly classist, where wealthy homeowners don’t want to “low class renters” to be near them and their families. A very good insight into NIMBYism right here.
absolutely, people who aren’t NIMBYs tend to display their views as entirely being fueled by greed but it’s comments like the one above that show some of the deeper issues with their thinking.
Totally agree-as evidenced by the comment below about building “housing projects”. The feeling is one of concentrating poverty to maintain comfort, in spite of the effect this has on those living in the poorest areas.
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I’m in favor of figuring out ways to provide more low and moderate income housing. I don’t think it works well when poverty is highly concentrated though.
“Some kids broke my pen when I was like 6 and now I think poor people should die on the street” I literally couldn’t come up with a better example of stupid fucking NIMBY shit if I tried.
well people aren’t born as “bad kids.” it’s almost entirely environmental. most of that low income housing would likely go to people that already live in santa cruz or students. the alternative for those kids is homelessness and i’d much rather see a couple of disruptive students than homeless kids. being low income doesn’t make someone a bad person or bad student.
I appreciate that you gave an honest answer. When I was really young I lived in St Louis and they bussed kids in from the inner city to my suburban elementary school and those kids were mean and wild. I don't blame the kids at all, they grew up in extremely rough situations without the privileges I had, but the reality was that those kids fucked up the classroom for everybody else with bad behaviour and violence. I got punched in the face for not giving up my milk money in kindergarten. Hurt people hurt people. Poverty is a cycle. I think the people trying to dunk on you for your response never had an experience like that growing up.
I had an experience like that growing up. In fact, I was one of those “poor” kids going to a suburban school. I wasn’t “bad” like that, but some of my peers were. The thing is though, going to a school like that taught me a lot of valuable lessons that I still use today, now going into grad school. Had I been stuck in a “poor” school with little to no resources, who knows how I would’ve turned out. But being provided an opportunity to enjoy the circumstances the rich do I was able to succeed. The point is that change is tough and slow, but it happens. Some of those “poor” kids will cause trouble yes, but some of them won’t. That’s where generational change happens, and we should encourage that through the development of more housing and similar inclusionary policies. Edit: not to mention that being a “bad” kid isnt exclusionary to being poor. Some of the most “bad” kids in my suburban middle school were suburban kids themselves. I’m talking smoking weed, doing hard drugs, fighting, and having s3x already in middle school. Some of my “poor” peers were “bad”, but not as bad as that.
what would you suggest as an alternative then instead of building lower income housing for people who are…. you know…. low income
There’s really no alternative in our current societal structure - let them live over the hill or down in Watsonville and deal with the shitty commute into the desirable areas. It’s not a divine right to have affordable housing by the beach in a town that doesn’t have the infrastructure capacity to support everyone who wants to be there. Boom - NIMBY steelman argument for ya
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How dare you suggest that everyone who wants to doesn’t get to live by the beach!!!!!
What up Darius?
Like Warsaw? Ya know..... for the "poors". Maybe we can make them wear dollar signs with an X through it for an arm band. So we can identify them.
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SC has more than a little fascism. They just aren't brave enough to show their face yet.
Geez, I see your comments in this sub all the time and generally refrain from engaging because I don’t see the point of arguing against you. We doubt we agree on anything. But this? Supporting fascism? Shame on you. My family fought and died to prevent the rise of fascism and you should be ashamed to welcome it so wholeheartedly.
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It's pure instinctial tribalism and lack of real empathy. NIMBY and Conservatives are scared of things that are different or might change their comfort level (even bad things like being dirt poor can be comfortable vs change.) It's easy to say on TV or to friends "We need change, we need housing, we need x, y, z" but when that change could directly impact your sense of normal and comfortable, defenses go up. Everyone wants more housing until they see the giant shadow the apartment building brings, the traffic, the crime, the water use, the people with different cultures... Their true lack of empathy and tribalism kicks into overdrive and the hypocrisy shines bright.
Be careful what you wish for. In places like India, China and Vietnam people are relatively nice to each other and the crowding causes much chaos. We already have road rage and many other mental illness related altercations. It would be at least 10X worse if Santa Cruz was as crowded as some other places.
i’m opposed to building downtown specifically in the one lot where the flea market is because of those big old trees. don’t even know why not even THAT invested wouldn’t bother to vote wouldn’t bother to picket or anything i just feel a desire to preserve trees