Jacob Pierce’s article “Embarrassing Development” (GT, 9/29) is a crass distortion of the issues, and falsely conflates opposition to indebting the City over $80 million for an unneeded parking garage to somehow not being serious about affordable housing. The City of Santa Cruz has committed insignificant funds to affordable housing to date, but wants to incur a debt of $80 million to build a multi-level parking structure that can only accommodate 100 housing units on top (but hasn’t actually secured a commitment from anyone to build those units). Every two parking spaces (including associated ramp space) is one less residential unit, and yet none of the advocates for building this giant structure have advocated for reducing the number of parking spaces. According to multiple consultants, we have a surplus of parking downtown. Wouldn’t it make more sense to incur some debt to construct more affordable housing, instead of more parking spaces? And why just downtown Santa Cruz? What about the rest of the city? Why don’t we have a city-supported housing trust in Santa Cruz like other cities around the country? Why don’t we make it simpler to divide single-family homes into duplexes or triplexes? Why don’t we convert our widest boulevards into standard width with an extra row of small homes? Why do we keep on committing precious land area to more roads and parking lots? Stopping the “Taj Garage” will not harm affordable housing prospects in Santa Cruz—it will actually allow us to direct funds where we will get more bang for the buck. This article just adds to confusion, and contributes nothing to a better vision for our city.
Len Beyea
Santa Cruz
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So much Stephen Kessler false narrative being repeated here. Almost every word is incorrect that it doesn’t pay to waste time refuting every point.