I do think the city needs housing, for sure, but high rises? Baby steps maybe?
the problem is that the NIMBYs exist everywhere, and housing has to get built somewhere. if a municipality wants to create a district covering some portion of their area that maintains the idyllic beach town vibe, that doesn't cause a problem so long as they're also willing to create a district where building houses actually is allowed. but as long as every single neighbourhood says it's charm and identity is based on having no new housing built, where are people supposed to live?
What you’re saying really amounts to saying you want to stop immigration into your town. While I can understand the sentiment, the problem is that people feel this way in so many places that it is creating a crisis of housing affordability.
Most of the people living in Santa Cruz owning homes are not commuting to the Bay to work. They made their money in tech and have retired to the beach.
When did you last go? I remember when it was an idyllic beach town. I went a few months ago--it's a lot of Tenderloin south. Preserving a low-density community is exorbitantly expensive. Try it without cash and you overshoot into slum.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
Under the current state of California's pretty massive housing shortage, one city refusing to build housing just increases the financial burden on everyone else, and on top of that almost every city has, for decades, actively refused to densify in a reasonable manner. That's why the state has started with city-by-city explicit housing goals (with San Francisco looking like it will be the first city to hit the point of 'or else' penalties pretty soon).
> I'm not convinced doing so will even have an effect on housing costs
It's extremely straightforward supply and demand. It will take a while to catch up, though, because the country as a whole is still millions of housing units in the hole from decades of under-building.
It's really not. It houses a massive university, it's commutable to Silicon Valley and has been influenced by those booms and busts, it's steeped in counterculture and radicalism, and it has long faced serious issues with drugs and homelessness that are much more akin to a big city than a beach town.
I absolutely love Santa Cruz and I especially love the beach town aspects, but that's just one facet of the city and the surrounding area.
1) only the rich and lucky get to live there 2) build more housing 3) make the area less desirable
2 seems like the best option. Option 1 and 2 both could have the side-effect of causing 3.
There's plenty of other idyllic beach towns, but, unfortunately, this one can't stay this way.
Edit: Actually, forget all that. You're inviting me to live in Santa Cruz for a year? Do you have a place? I might take you up on that, what a lovely offer.
Speaking of single point of failure in Santa Cruz, there was a time when the entire area lost nearly all phone and internet because a cable was cut over in San Jose (https://www.mercurynews.com/2009/04/09/san-jose-police-sabot...). Sabotage!
The folks who took Santa Cruz commuter shuttles at Google seemed widely miserable.
https://labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/file/commute-maps/santacr...