Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare • Hacker News Board

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#111

Post by millimeterman » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:42 AM UTC

johnea wrote: post #96

So, I have to agree there is a major shortage of affordable housing. But, I have to disagree that this is due to a lack of building. 20 years ago, there was no housing crisis. Period. In 20 years, did the population suddenly increase by 20%? No, of course it didn't. In fact the US population is very flat in recent decades. What changed? Short term rental!!! A huge portion of the housing stock purchased, much by corpo…

While some comments have pointed out that the population has increased, that doesn't actually matter. Because what's being discussed here is an increase in demand for housing in a specific city.

Even if the country's population stayed the same, an increase of people wanting to move to Santa Cruz will drive up demand for housing in Santa Cruz. When you have sustained increases in demand over multiple decades but local governments that block any and all attempts at constructing housing supply to match, you get the ballooning prices you see now. That there is plenty of housing supply in Nowheresville, Nebraska is of little use to the people who can't afford to live in Santa Cruz.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#112

Post by abdabab » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:51 AM UTC

s3r3nity wrote: post #46

seahorserocker wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent article. Here we have it ^, the opposition to housing solutions. Not pitchfork wielding homeowners, but polite good citizens who are NIMBY and disguised as environmentally friendly people who really care for the city's character, as well as blaming the UC. Please tell me how the massive meth-filled homeless encampment behind the courthouse is being handled in a "progressive" way. By the way they were forcib…

> Increased density is coming to everywhere in California, like it or not. If you're hoping to have a well intentioned, successful argument with NIMBY folks, this is _not_ the way to do so. People who own the land & houses in an area are saying they do not want this. No matter how much you say "but I _really_ want it, and it's going to happen" is not going to change that. And they've been winning for _decades_....hop…

> bought in a pro-growth city

Which city is it? A pro-growth city in USA is a news to me.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#113

Post by millimeterman » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 2:57 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #83

millimeterman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Santa Cruz since the 70's has been a very environmentally conscious no-growth city Dense construction with high-quality public transport is a significantly more environmentally-friendly city design than a sea of single-family homes with mandatory car ownership. The latter may be more superficially "natural" - green swaths of suburbia vs. concrete jungles - but it really is only superficial. > San Jose style growth…

Most people who live (and vote) in Santa Cruz prefer to be in a low density area. While I understand that some people actually like to live in denser cities, the majority prefer some space and privacy. This is not unreasonable. Places like Santa Cruz have never had any real intentional urban planning, so building a lot of additional housing is going to overload the infrastructure. They would need to upgrade all the u…

> Most people who live (and vote) in Santa Cruz prefer to be in a low density area. While I understand that some people actually like to live in denser cities, the majority prefer some space and privacy.

Sure, there's nothing wrong with that. What _is_ unreasonable is fighting tooth and nail to prevent anyone without a sufficiently large bag of money from moving to Santa Cruz to try and preserve that low density.

> Places like Santa Cruz have never had any real intentional urban planning, so building a lot of additional housing is going to overload the infrastructure. They would need to upgrade all the utilities, build more schools, and completely revamp the transportation system.

I don't see how this is a valid argument against densification. It's not as if the current infrastructure in Santa Cruz was just lying around when people got there. Every growing population center has had to deal with expanding infrastructure to match. This isn't some novel, unsolvable problem.

> Good luck convincing any long-term Santa Cruz residents that they should sacrifice their quality of life and live in the middle of a construction zone for years for the sake of reducing someone else's rent.

Why should they get to decide? Why are their preferences so much more important than those of poorer or newer residents?

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#114

Post by millimeterman » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 3:08 AM UTC

abdabab wrote: post #112

s3r3nity wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Increased density is coming to everywhere in California, like it or not. If you're hoping to have a well intentioned, successful argument with NIMBY folks, this is _not_ the way to do so. People who own the land & houses in an area are saying they do not want this. No matter how much you say "but I _really_ want it, and it's going to happen" is not going to change that. And they've been winning for _decades_....hop…

> bought in a pro-growth city Which city is it? A pro-growth city in USA is a news to me.

There are cities that are pro-growth in the sense of not having NIMBY zoning but that have awful urban planning from a transportation perspective. Houston and Atlanta come to mind. Pro-growth perhaps, but certainly not pro-density. I don't know of any city that has both pro-growth housing policy and decent investment in public transportation.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#115

Post by bombcar » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 3:49 AM UTC

millimeterman wrote: post #110

bombcar wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 owne…

As prices on rentals rise high enough there won’t be a renters anymore - because at 100% tax all the landlords would sell.

At that point, all housing is owned by the housed and they can decide if they want more supply (they won’t).

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#116

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 4:21 AM UTC

millimeterman wrote: post #114

abdabab wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bought in a pro-growth city Which city is it? A pro-growth city in USA is a news to me.

There are cities that are pro-growth in the sense of not having NIMBY zoning but that have awful urban planning from a transportation perspective. Houston and Atlanta come to mind. Pro-growth perhaps, but certainly not pro-density. I don't know of any city that has both pro-growth housing policy and decent investment in public transportation.

[deleted]

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#117

Post by jjav » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 6:30 AM UTC

michaelwww wrote: post #16

Santa Cruz native here: I can understand the author's frustrations coming to Santa Cruz from the outside but there's more to it. He's describing a UCSC problem because the university is expanding without building enough dormitories and relying on development in the city instead. This is causing unrest among the natives who resent 5 story huge San Jose style apartment blocks going up in their beautiful city. The secon…

> UCSC problem because the university is expanding without building enough dormitories and relying on development in the city instead

This is the largest root cause of the problem.

Population of Santa Cruz is ~64K people. Enrollment in UCSC is nearly 20K. That's a lot of incoming students for a small town.

Combine with the geography of being surrounded by steep mountains and the ocean, there is very little area to the city.

City of Santa Cruz is ~8000 acres, all of it pretty much built already.

UCSC campus is ~2000 acres, a large part of it (couldn't find percentage) is forest and open land.

So while UCSC owns most of the undeveloped land in the area, they keep increasing enrollment but don't provide housing. Where are students going to go?

There should be a law that UCSC can only enroll as many students as they have housing for. They have plenty of land to build it.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#118

Post by jjav » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 6:50 AM UTC

seahorserocker wrote: post #36

michaelwww wrote: post #16

Santa Cruz native here: I can understand the author's frustrations coming to Santa Cruz from the outside but there's more to it. He's describing a UCSC problem because the university is expanding without building enough dormitories and relying on development in the city instead. This is causing unrest among the natives who resent 5 story huge San Jose style apartment blocks going up in their beautiful city. The secon…

Excellent article. Here we have it ^, the opposition to housing solutions. Not pitchfork wielding homeowners, but polite good citizens who are NIMBY and disguised as environmentally friendly people who really care for the city's character, as well as blaming the UC. Please tell me how the massive meth-filled homeless encampment behind the courthouse is being handled in a "progressive" way. By the way they were forcib…

> as well as blaming the UC

I mean UCSC is to blame (for the most part). UCSC keeps increasing enrollment without any concern as to where these students are going to live, knowing full well there isn't any housing available in the city.

Meanwhile the entity which holds the most undeveloped land in the area is UCSC itself!

UCSC has open land to build housing for all the students and then some.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#119

Post by jjav » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 7:01 AM UTC

slavapestov wrote: post #59

michaelwww wrote: post #16

Santa Cruz native here: I can understand the author's frustrations coming to Santa Cruz from the outside but there's more to it. He's describing a UCSC problem because the university is expanding without building enough dormitories and relying on development in the city instead. This is causing unrest among the natives who resent 5 story huge San Jose style apartment blocks going up in their beautiful city. The secon…

I feel like higher education and housing for students should be a higher priority than turning the city into a museum frozen in time for aging "locals".

To be fair, the only entity who owns very large amounts of undeveloped land in the area is ... UCSC itself.

The worst NIMBY in the area is UCSC. They want to bring in all the students but not provide enough housing even though they own tons of open land in which they could build such housing.

Re: Santa Cruz is a Housing Nightmare

#120

Post by jjav » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 7:10 AM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #21

Any idea what % of the rental market is students vs UCSC staff vs non-UCSC? It seems like the college shouldn't be allowed to enroll more students than the city has capacity to house. At minimum, it should be building more dorms on campus (I have no idea if that's feasible based on town layout).

> Any idea what % of the rental market is students vs UCSC staff vs non-UCSC?

Don't know numbers on rental market, but total population of Santa Cruz is ~64K people and UCSC has nearly 20K students. So it's a huge amount of students for a small town which already has very little housing for anyone (student or not).

> It seems like the college shouldn't be allowed to enroll more students than the city has capacity to house.

This is ultimately the only solution.

> At minimum, it should be building more dorms on campus (I have no idea if that's feasible based on town layout).

UCSC is the only entity who has very large amounts of undeveloped land in the area. They have all the space to build more than enough housing, they just don't want to.