On Thursday night the Capitola City Council left its special meeting about rezoning for high-density affordable housing torn between approving two or three sites and setting the stage for a showdown next week over a property on Park Avenue.
On Thursday night the Capitola City Council left its special meeting about rezoning for high-density affordable housing torn between approving two or three sites and setting the stage for a showdown next week over a property on Park Avenue.
Mayor Bob Begun and Councilmembers Ronald Graves, Sam Storey and Dennis Norton were in accord on some things; they agreed to include Capitola Inn, across from the Nob Hill grocery store on Bay Avenue, and remove Capitola Gardens, behind the new Whole Foods site, from the list of four rezoning sites proposed by the city’s planning committee. Councilmember Kirby Nicol was absent.
The properties at 600 Park Avenue and on McGregor Drive remain sites of contention. Between the two, Graves and Storey favor rezoning only the McGregor site, while Norton and Mayor Begun insist that Park Avenue must be included in order for them to consider rezoning McGregor. Capitola needs to rezone by June 30 in order to identify the location of 29 units of low and very low-income affordable housing in accordance with the state’s Regional Housing Need Allocation (RHNA) requirements. The new zones must fit 20 housing units per acre.
Graves and Storey, along with about 10 Park Avenue area residents in attendance, insist that a new housing development would disrupt the neighborhood and significantly increase traffic in the area. If the parcel is rezoned for high-density housing, some residents say, there should be strict development restrictions. Some of the suggested restrictions include keeping the buildings to a single story with large setbacks from the street—a combination that makes reaching the 20-units-per-acre density unlikely.
Mayor Begun and Councilmember Norton, however, want to include 600 Park Ave. for rezoning. Norton, who agrees with the planning committee’s assessment that the Park Avenue site is more likely to be accepted by the state, told Santa Cruz Weekly he included McGregor in his proposal as a compromise if the rest of the council includes Park Avenue, although he does not believe McGregor should be rezoned. Norton and planning committee members contend that while the McGregor site is vacant and city-owned, it is at least 1.5 miles from shopping, has no sidewalks and experiences high noise levels from Highway 1.
According to the planning committee’s presentation, the Capitola Inn is walking distance from shopping, bus lines and public schools, and no residents would be dislocated. “The Inn is centrally located,” said Terry Thomas, a resident of a the Park Avenue area, “and you could fit 29 units on it.” However, there are concerns that there is limited public road access and that the state would be unwilling to buy the property because the Inn is still in operation.
Nicol must break the stalemate over the Park Avenue and McGregor properties when the council reconvenes its regular meeting Thursday, June 25 at 7pm.
