The Inspiring Enterprise: An Accelerator for Social Ventures in Santa Cruz County, held their first Workshop Series called Be Part of the Solution. This slide deck was shown at the fourth workshop about Housing in Santa Cruz. The presentation detailed what the City and County of Santa Cruz are doing and the challenges of creating affordable and accessible housing in Santa Cruz.

1. Housing
Santa Cruz County
The Inspiring Enterprise
www.theinspiringenterprise.com

2. Housing - An Overview
Planning, Zoning and Development Policy
Building Codes and Permitting
Approval Processes
Point of Sale, Taxes
Limiting Factors

3. Planning for Housing
➔ General and Supplementary Plans
➔ What is Zoning?

4. Planning for Housing
What is a General Plan?
How is it implemented?
A general plan is a comprehensive, long range and internally consistent statement of a city's
development and preservation policies. It sums up the City's philosophy of growth and preservation,
highlights what is important to the community, and prescribes where different kinds of development
should go. State law requires that cities prepare general plans and regularly review and update them.
The preparation of the draft GP 2030 was a community based process led by a 17 member General
Plan Advisory Committee.

5. Planning for Housing
What is Zoning?
Zoning describes the control by authority of the use of land, and of the buildings
thereon. Areas of land are divided by appropriate authorities into zones within
which various uses are permitted.

7. Examples - Public Planning
➔ Ocean Street Plan
➔ Beach South of Laurel Plan
➔ Sustainable Santa Cruz County Plan

8. Ocean Street Plan

9. BSOL

10. BSOL

11. Sustainable SC Plan

12. Building Codes
➔ California Building Code
➔ Local Green Building Code
The California Building Standards Code, Title 24 serves as the basis for the design and
construction of buildings in California. Improved safety, sustainability, maintaining consistency, new
technology and construction methods, and reliability are paramount to the development of building
codes during each Triennial and Intervening Code Adoption Cycle.

13. Building Codes

14. Permitting - (my fav)
➔ Submission of Application
➔ Review by Planning Staff
➔ Public Hearings
◆ Planning Commission
◆ Historical Preservation
◆ City Council
➔ Grant Building Permit

15. Permitting - Continued
➔ California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
◆ potential for environmental review
◆ negative declaration
A Negative Declaration or a Mitigated Negative Declaration shall be prepared when the Initial Study shows
that: (1) there is no substantial evidence, in light of the whole record, that the project may have a
significant effect on the environment; or (2) the Initial Study identifies potentially significant effects, but
revisions to the project agreed to prior to public review would avoid the significant effects, or reduce them
to a less-than-significant level; and there is no substantial evidence that the revised project would result in
a significant environmental effect
➔ Coastal Commission?

16. Permitting - Fees!!!
➔ Fee for Application
➔ Building Permit Fee
➔ Water/Sewer Hookup Fee
➔ Inclusionary Zoning Fee - Impact Fee
➔ Parking Mitigation Fee
➔ ~$22,000 in added cost

17. Point of Sale - Taxes
➔ Point of Sale Retrofits
➔ Transfer Tax
➔ Financing - Mortgage
➔ Property Taxes - Prop 13
By Proposition 13, the annual real estate tax on a parcel of property is limited to 1% of its assessed value. This "assessed value,"
may be increased only by a maximum of 2% per year, until and unless the property has a change of ownership.[8]
At the time of
the change in ownership the low assessed value may be reassessed to complete current market value that will produce a new
base year value for the property, but future assessments are likewise restricted to the 2% annual maximum increase of the new
base year value.

18. Prop 13 Continued
Proposition 13 sets the value of properties at the time of purchase, with a possible 2% annual assessment increase. Therefore,
properties of equal value have a great amount of variation in their assessment, even if they are next to each other.[4]
The disparity
grows when property prices appreciate by more than 2% a year. The Case-Shiller housing index shows prices in Los Angeles,
San Diego, and San Francisco appreciated 170% from 1987 (start of available data) to 2012 while the 2% cap only allowed a 67%
increase during this 26-year period.
➔ Redevelopment Funds
Changes to Proposition 13 may result in an unintended windfall in tax increment revenue for local redevelopment agencies which
are restricted severely by state law on how they may use the funds. Redevelopment agency revenue in California is kept separate
from cities' general funds, which are used to pay for basic services such as fire, police, parks, streets and so on.

19. Limiting Factors
➔ Housing Affordability in a “post
redevelopment era”
➔ Affordability? Area Median Income
◆ Housing Authority
◆ Section 8
➔ Density Bonuses

20. Where are we now?
➔ Median Home Price in CA: $437,000
◆ Santa Cruz: $700,000+
➔ Rents on Average 50% higher than U.S.
◆ Santa Cruz least affordable in Country - NAHB
➔ 40% less dense than comparable urban areas
➔ Estimates: 100,000 additional units for 10 years!
Source: Legislative Analyst Report, March 17, 2015

21. Neighborhood Resistance
➔ Identified as Biggest factor in stopping new
housing
➔ Abuse of CEQA and CCA
➔ Case Study Aptos Village

22. Stay Tuned!
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janneke@theinspiringenterprise.com