Santa Cruz Against Runaway Development is an all-volunteer, grassroots group of Santa Cruz City (and some County!) residents who hail from a patchwork of backgrounds: from retired teachers and current students to general contractors, servers and software engineers. We’re parents and grandparents. Gen Z and Gen X. In short: we’re a representative slice of this wonderful place we call home. 

As with many residents, we’re painfully aware of the affordability challenges facing Santa Cruz (and California in general), and follow recent home building legislation and local development with interest.

We support building more housing in Santa Cruz, but have serious concerns about a number of currently proposed projects: from aesthetics and size (tall buildings, tiny units), to lack of parking, affordability, and little-to-no options for purchase (perma-rent to corporate landlords). The way it's being approached at the moment, the new construction happening in Santa Cruz will not lower cost of living, isn’t helping people raise families or build equity, passes over the middle class and sets a precedent that doesn’t bode well for our future. 

We formed this group with 3 specific objectives:

1) To call attention to in-progress and proposed large developments, keeping neighbors informed about how they might be affected so they can provide feedback to their local representatives (city council and supervisors, along with state officials). 

2) To advocate for more housing in Santa Cruz, but smaller scale (up to 8 stories - preferably 6) projects with a greater emphasis on affordability and that eschew the “office park” generic aesthetic seen in recent builds and proposal.

3) To combat misinformation surrounding the connection between housing inventory, state-mandated building quotas, California population trends and affordability… and to advocate a return to local control and decision making where new construction is concerned by pushing back against legislation like SB35 and SB330, laws that have effectively disenfranchised local governments.