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Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

darrellowens.substack.com

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Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#101

Post by jltsiren »

russellbeattie wrote: post #92

My son just went through this and got super lucky to find a place, but out in Capitola. UCSC's campus is absolutely massive with huge areas of unused, unforested land [1]. There is more than enough space for more dorms and apartment houses as well as the accompanying utility systems needed. If they're going to continue to increase enrollment, they need to bite the bullet and put up some goddamn buildings. They simply…

The university wants to build new student housing, but many people in the university and many locals don't. There are concrete plans to build housing for a few thousand additional students on campus, but the plans have been on hold for years as people oppose them for environmental and aesthetic reasons.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#102

Post by bombcar »

btbuilder wrote: post #81

Unless housing is built and controlled by UCSC the housing will be snapped up by more of the same and not change the equation that much IMO. If growth is wanted and accepted by the majority of voters (which I don’t believe it is) then a unified plan that involves significant transport investment is needed. Traffic on highway 1 in both directions or mission street are clear indications of this. I believe the universit…

The state should sit on the UC system and forbid them to allow more students to attend than they can provide housing for.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#103

Post by bombcar »

foogazi wrote: post #89
vineyardmike wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of students want to live off campus, as adults, instead of being on campus. It’s unconscionable that the city would be so un-accommodating to students while exploiting them for rent money and economic gain.

> Plenty of students want to live off campus, as adults, instead of being on campus. Sounds like an adult choice to me then > It’s unconscionable that the city would be so un-accommodating to students while exploiting them for rent money and economic gain. How can they be both un-accommodating and yet get rent payments, by definition they are being accommodated

The students want to live off campus in a paradise for as close to free as they can.

It’s an impossible situation.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#104

Post by bombcar »

Dig1t wrote: post #9
ramesh31 wrote: post #2

Santa Cruz is a tiny dot of land between the mountains and ocean. The only crisis is in overpopulation, brought about by the tiered UC/CSU credentialism. Does anyone really think UCSC provides a better undergrad education than the average CSU? They literally have the exact same state mandated curriculum. But FAANG will hire someone with a UC degree over a CSU, thus the system is overflowing.

As someone who went to a CSU and works at a FAANG, I don't really agree about the credentialism thing, but I do agree about the overpopulation thing. The only real solution IMO is just to build more housing in California. For that to happen though, we need increased density which requires relaxed zoning, but NIMBY's want to preserve their city in its exact state forever, so we end up with this craziness.

If only we had a rapid rail backbone so people could live further from these desirable cities without losing easy access to them.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#105

Post by bombcar »

millimeterman wrote: post #13
ramesh31 wrote: post #2

Santa Cruz is a tiny dot of land between the mountains and ocean. The only crisis is in overpopulation, brought about by the tiered UC/CSU credentialism. Does anyone really think UCSC provides a better undergrad education than the average CSU? They literally have the exact same state mandated curriculum. But FAANG will hire someone with a UC degree over a CSU, thus the system is overflowing.

There's nothing inherently impossible about building a dense, thriving city on "a tiny dot of land". I fail to see how the issue is overpopulation and not an abject failure to construct housing in line with the number of people who want to live there.

The problem is the people who live and vote there want the city to remain as it is - certainly it would be a successful city if it were as dense as Paris, but it wouldn’t be Santa Cruz anymore, but Paris West or something.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#106

Post by bombcar »

nradov wrote: post #85
vineyardmike wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> aesthetic Most people find European cities more beautiful. SC is an ugly city. Even SF is much more pretty. > ecological It’s pretty well established that cities are ecological superior to suburbs. > socioeconomic Money extracted from the economy by landlords is money not flowing and being used to spur economic activity. VC firms have lamented that they have to invest in bigger rounds because growing headcount in e…

People don't choose to live in cities like Santa Cruz for the architecture. That's kind of missing the point. No one cares what the buildings look like. Noted VC Peter Thiel reduced his investments in the SF Bay Area because housing got too expensive. Most of the funding just flows to landlords. https://www.sfgate.com/expensive-san-francisco/article/peter...

So repeal prop 13 for non-owner occupied properties, and tax rental income at insane amounts.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#107

Post by vineyardmike »

foogazi wrote: post #89
vineyardmike wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of students want to live off campus, as adults, instead of being on campus. It’s unconscionable that the city would be so un-accommodating to students while exploiting them for rent money and economic gain.

> Plenty of students want to live off campus, as adults, instead of being on campus. Sounds like an adult choice to me then > It’s unconscionable that the city would be so un-accommodating to students while exploiting them for rent money and economic gain. How can they be both un-accommodating and yet get rent payments, by definition they are being accommodated

> How can they be both un-accommodating and yet get rent payments, by definition they are being accommodated

The article said there is a huge population of students who live in their car because they can’t find housing, on campus, or off.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#108

Post by russellbeattie »

jltsiren wrote: post #101
russellbeattie wrote: post #92

My son just went through this and got super lucky to find a place, but out in Capitola. UCSC's campus is absolutely massive with huge areas of unused, unforested land [1]. There is more than enough space for more dorms and apartment houses as well as the accompanying utility systems needed. If they're going to continue to increase enrollment, they need to bite the bullet and put up some goddamn buildings. They simply…

The university wants to build new student housing, but many people in the university and many locals don't. There are concrete plans to build housing for a few thousand additional students on campus, but the plans have been on hold for years as people oppose them for environmental and aesthetic reasons.

I think we both know how many legal and political levers can be brought to bear by large government institutions when they wish. This is a priority and the NIMBYs in this case are being absurd. In the 1950s Santa Cruz actively campaigned to have the campus there with widespread support from residents. They signed up for it and that huge chunk of land was granted with the idea of having plenty of space to have all the students on campus, and for future growth. The residents were repaid by the skyrocketing values of their homes. The current residents either grew up with that knowledge, or chose to move there despite it. The city can't just decide 60 years into its existence that they've changed their minds and want to limit the university's growth. That's what the plan was from the beginning.

Anyways, when the UC finally decides it has to be done, Santa Cruz will have little power to stop them short of an outright legal war. Like I said, they simply don't want to.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#109

Post by millimeterman »

bombcar wrote: post #105
millimeterman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing inherently impossible about building a dense, thriving city on "a tiny dot of land". I fail to see how the issue is overpopulation and not an abject failure to construct housing in line with the number of people who want to live there.

The problem is the people who live and vote there want the city to remain as it is - certainly it would be a successful city if it were as dense as Paris, but it wouldn’t be Santa Cruz anymore, but Paris West or something.

> The problem is the people who live and vote there want the city to remain as it is

There's no good reason that Santa Cruz should specifically stay the way it was 50 years ago or whatever. Personally, I would have liked for Santa Cruz to remain the way it was before people came and tore up all the nature to build a bunch of suburbs, but I can't get what I want either. Culture is inherently ever-changing; Santa Cruz may be _different_ in 50 years if densification and growth was allowed but I don't see how it would be somehow not be Santa Cruz.

There are real, severe economic effects from trying to freeze a city in an arbitrary point in time. At some point the well-being of real actual people needs to be prioritized over the aesthetic preferences and property values of a few NIMBYs. Especially when those aesthetic preferences essentially boil down to hating multi-story apartments and public transit.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#110

Post by millimeterman »

bombcar wrote: post #106
nradov wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't choose to live in cities like Santa Cruz for the architecture. That's kind of missing the point. No one cares what the buildings look like. Noted VC Peter Thiel reduced his investments in the SF Bay Area because housing got too expensive. Most of the funding just flows to landlords. https://www.sfgate.com/expensive-san-francisco/article/peter...

So repeal prop 13 for non-owner occupied properties, and tax rental income at insane amounts.

You are effectively just proposing an enormous tax (read: price increase) on renters, which seems like the exact opposite of what needs to be achieved. I would support completely repealing prop 13 though.

Demonizing landlords, developers, and property investment firms at best does nothing and at worst actively makes the housing situation worse by further restricting supply. No amount of disincentives to property ownership will solve the core, fundamental problem that _there is not enough housing_. Any solution that doesn't increase supply is no solution at all.

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