831 Water Street City Council Public Oversight Meeting

On Tuesday, October 12, the Santa Cruz City Council will hold a public oversight meeting for Iman Novin/Novin Development Corporation's proposed development project at 831 Water Street.

At the meeting, the City Council will assess the project's compliance with the City's objective standards criteria and accompanying density bonus request for an affordable housing project proposed pursuant to SB 35 (planning and zoning: affordable housing: streamlined approval process).

The group 831 Responsible Development is urging council to deny the permit, and has posted the following update:

URGENT: Please email comments to Council now, make plans to attend Tuesday (Oct. 12) meeting

We want to remind you that the Santa Cruz City Council is scheduled to conduct its “oversight” meeting this Tuesday, October 12, on the fast-track development application submitted for 831 Water Street.

It is critically important that you consider doing two things now related to this meeting:

1. Please let the City Council know where you stand on this 5- and 4-story behemoth, which would be located just feet from one-story houses, would create massive transportation problems on a key transportation corridor, and would lead to numerous other significant health and safety issues for people who live in, work in, and/or travel through this area of our city.
* We’re sorry for the last-minute notice (the council agenda was just recently published), but the deadline to email comments to the council is Monday, October 11, at 5 p.m.
* The email address for council communications is: citycouncil [at] cityofsantacruz.com.
* It can also be helpful to send a copy of a message to the council members’ individual email addresses; they can be found here: https://www.cityofsantacruz.com/government/city-council/councilmembers

2. If you are able, please calendar and make plans to “attend” the October 12 Zoom meeting to make your voice heard. Please join the meeting and, if you can, chime in with your 1-minute public comment.
* The October 12 agenda, schedule, and video/audio information are available on this council page: https://ecm.cityofsantacruz.com/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=1785&doctype=1

Your support in these two areas is critically important, as the latest staff recommendation to council members is to approve Novin Development’s SB-35 fast-track application.

We have been (and are still) reviewing the material accompanying that recommendation. But given the tight deadline for commenting, we just sent our own letter to the Council — continuing to urge members to reject an application that has been (and remains) incomplete and flawed. Here is our group’s letter: https://831responsibledevelopment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/council-letter_10-10-2021.pdf

Please feel free to reinforce any of our issues in your own email to Council members. And also don’t hesitate to add your own personal perspectives on aspects of this proposed development that most concern you. Every voice matters, including yours!

As we have consistently said, our 831 Responsible Development citizens group remains very supportive of affordable housing — and very supportive of locating it on this very site. But we cannot support a proposal that makes no effort (at all) to be reasonable and responsible.

THANK YOU (very, very much) for your continued support!