As we indicated in a recent blog post and email message to you, the City of Santa Cruz is hosting a “community meeting” on Thursday, Aug. 12, concerning the massive development proposed for 831 Water St. The meeting is scheduled to take place between 6 and 7:30 p.m.

This is just a reminder for you to try to make it a priority to “attend” this Zoom meeting — especially if you believe, as does our 831 Responsible Development citizens group, that the “streamlining” application the developer has resubmitted remains completely insensitive to the legitimate concerns so many city residents have raised about his proposal.

Our group’s petition signers, now totaling more than 500, have made it clear that we are very supportive of adding affordable units to the city’s housing inventory. And, we are very supportive of doing so on this very site — but not at a scale and with a design that creates numerous health and safety issues by overwhelming an entire area of our city.

Here is the city news link promoting the meeting; it includes a corrected link to access the meeting, as well as other log-in information.

Related to Thursday’s meeting, our group sent a letter last month to the Santa Cruz City Council, underscoring the fact that we support housing on this site. Our letter also pointed out the many flaws in the developer’s SB-35 application with respect to “streamlining” the permit process. (SB-35 would omit environmental review and Planning Commission or City Council hearings, as well as public input.)

We have subsequently sent a revised letter that reiterates our original concerns and speaks to the relatively few revisions the developer made to his application after our first letter was submitted. Here is a link to our revised letter.

If you agree with these concerns, please help us underscore these points by attending and speaking during the August 12 meeting.

THANK YOU!

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As we mentioned in our first post and message about the August 12 meeting, we recommend that you log in bit early if possible as the city has only set aside 90 minutes for the entire meeting. If the only other community meeting held on this proposed project is any indication, the developer may take up a big chunk of the meeting at the outset by describing and promoting his desired project, leaving not enough time for public input. So get in early in order to get in the queue to comment. Attendees can also use the meeting’s “chat” functions to register their concerns. Thank you!