Santa Cruz Chamber Of Commerce Opposes Downtown Initiative

SANTA CRUZ, CA — The Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce has followed the Downtown Library Blended Use Job for the earlier six years considering that voters permitted Measure S in 2016. Following the most recent dialogue and the introduction of a signature collecting petition generate to put an initiative on the November 2022 ballot entitled “Our Downtown Our Foreseeable future,” the Chamber declared right now its opposition to the initiative. It seems that the initiative organizers will post the necessary signatures to the Santa Cruz City Clerk in early May possibly. If the initiative qualifies for the November 2022 ballot it would considerably delay the downtown library project. In essence, the initiative would remove the capacity for the Town to establish the library on Good deal 4 at the corners of Cedar and Lincoln and Cathcart in downtown Santa Cruz.

Let us just take a broader glimpse at this challenge: In June 2016 voters authorized a $67 million bond to modernize, update and fix local libraries in Aptos, Boulder Creek, Capitola, Felton, La Selva Seaside, Stay Oak, Scotts Valley and the three branches in the Town of Santa Cruz.

The architectural design and style of the Downtown Library that is in system calls for a 35,000-square-foot library, 5,000-sq.-foot outside rooftop patio, and a childcare heart the library would be the hub to provide the entire county library process. The conceptual structure local community meeting is set for this Thursday, April 21.

Citing the Metropolis of Santa Cruz workers studies courting again various decades, the operate of the Downtown Library Advisory Committee and the votes by two Town Councils, all established that the most effective route ahead for the Downtown Library was as a result of a expense-productive combined-use task. If this initiative have been to go on a November 2022 ballot, the Town would drop a Downtown Library Mixed-Use undertaking that has been permitted two times by the Council and could eliminate tens of millions of pounds in affordable housing grant funding and tax credits joined to the 125-unit reasonably priced housing job. Additionally, the proposed initiative touts that they will develop additional cost-effective housing and re-direct resources to an very affordable housing fund, statements that are not factual.

The actual concentrate on of the initiative is the parking part of the venture that does not add a solitary new parking room to downtown – it only replaces some but not all the spaces in tons that will be closing. This substitute parking would supply some parking for 4 very affordable housing jobs with 355 models, all near to development stage. The projects will not have parking plenty, authorized by town incentives to cut down car or truck use. This considerably minimizes the expense of setting up and increases the probabilities of getting funding.

One particular reality initiative proponents disregard is that some of the a lot the initiative would give preference for housing are much too little for viable reasonably priced housing jobs. It commonly can take five to eight yrs to authorize and approve a housing undertaking, not including design time, to switch an thought into a task.

The Downtown Combined-Use Library Job is in the very last year of that organizing approach. Let’s not throw absent this chance toward an thought that exists only in the minds of men and women who have no knowledge in generating very affordable housing and a modern day library.

The Chamber of Commerce envisions a lively downtown that consists of a centrally found architecturally pleasant mixed-use library structure. It will complement other downtown assignments like the new Metro station, a new wellness and dental clinic, a Warriors facility, and a lasting farmers current market developed with realistic local community requirements in intellect instead than a person confined by an initiative.

The Chamber of Commerce recommends that registered voters in Santa Cruz must not indicator the petition. If you signed the petition, you can contact the City Clerk’s office at (831) 420-5030 to eliminate your name. If the initiative reaches the November ballot, the Chamber encourages Santa Cruz voters to vote No.