831 Responsible Development

A few quick updates

When you subscribed to our 831ResponsibleDevelopment.org web site (thank you again!), we promised to send you only periodic email messages so as not to clutter up your InBox. It’s been a while, so we’re batching a few updates together to send to you in this latest post:

  • We began circulating a new flyer this past weekend in an effort to continue to call attention to the development that has been proposed for 831 Water Street. Our message is pretty simple: Our (growing) citizens group is very supportive of projects that add housing in our city, and we are absolutely supportive of housing being built on that particular site. We just expect such a project to be responsible, reasonable, and respectful in terms of size and scale. And safe. (It’s fair to say that we continue to believe that what amounts to a six-story development with more than 150 apartments — on that site — is not at all appropriate.
    • Please share this PDF of our latest flyer with others you know — and encourage them to go to our web site to join us in advocating for a project there that adds housing AND is more compatible with the long-standing neighborhoods in that part of our city. Thank you.
  • Speaking of our support for housing in general and on that particular site, one of our members surveyed several dozen others in our group to determine if there is consensus about a project at 831 Water Street that we could enthusiastically support. The results of that short survey are described here. (Hint: There was pretty broad consensus.)
  • We apologize for the late notice, but we just learned that the Santa Cruz City Council will consider at its Tuesday, March 23, meeting a proposal that could lead to the expansion of the Downtown Plan … and the development of more housing closer to the services the downtown offers. We encourage you, if you can, to listen in on this part of the meeting, as we are generally supportive of increasing housing densities near the downtown and reducing densities on parcels that will overwhelm neighborhoods. Whatever your view on that, please consider staying engaged on that subject as it could have ramifications for parcels like 831 Water Street. It’s Item 23 on the City Council agenda.
  • Lastly, please continue to encourage others in Santa Cruz to subscribe to our web site and to sign our e-petition.

Thank you (very, very much)!