Hotel over housing not smart growth
Contrary to public perception, I find a lot of people are ambivalent about any particular development.
Take the large (and largely market rate) rental housing to go up on Front Street downtown. I think most people have some distaste for tall, blocky buildings going up next to the river, but we also agree that more housing near transit and jobs is a relatively “smart” place to build it. So, we argue about the affordability percentage rather than arguing against the housing. But then, to our shock and dismay, we read in the Sentinel that one of those large buildings is not planned to be housing, but a boutique hotel.
That’s not OK. Our ratio of low-paid service jobs to housing in this town is way out of balance. And supplanting an obvious spot for housing with a hotel will make it worse. Where are the people who work at the hotel going to live? And this is not a locally owned hotel with union wages. This is a proposal for a boutique hotel to be operated by an outfit out of New York. Service jobs would be located here while the profits would go to the East Coast.
The fact that hotels stimulate the economy to create more low-paid service jobs is a good thing in some places. Not here.
Moreover, unlike rental housing, a hotel is not smart growth. While the people who live in the housing will potentially walk to jobs and services, hotel guests will not. They are not going to take the train we don’t have and they are not going to take the bus. They are going to drive cars. And since the hotel plans to provide 60 parking spots for 220 guests, that means that 140 guests plus their employees will be parking in subsidized city lots. Why should we build more parking spaces for wealthy people out of town, instead of building more housing for the people who live here? Why should we conserve more water so that wealthy people from out of town can shower in a hotel?
I was shocked to learn that the city is in the process of “selling” two small parcels of public property to the hotel developer. To do so they have to declare them to be “unusable surplus land.” Downtown parcels of around 500 square feet might be surplus in some other city, but not in Santa Cruz. That land could easily be used for affordable housing, which is the intent of the state surplus law.
Perhaps the city is helping the hotel with an eye on potential hotel tax revenues. I am not sure such revenue works out to a net profit once you factor in the parking, police protection, and other costs of hosting the hotel. But even if it does, what’s good for the city corporation is not necessarily good for its citizens.
If the city needs more revenue from hotels, let’s raise the hotel tax, which is currently on the lower side for coastal California.
As a member of the member owned Santa Cruz Community Credit Union. I was especially chagrined to learn (again in the Sentinel and not through my bank) that the Credit Union is considering selling its main branch to the out of state hotel developer. The Credit Union’s Mission Statement states that it is working for the good of the community. I don’t see where helping a hotel come to town is a community service, even if the Credit Union makes lots of money and can do lots of loans to low-income people by selling.
If you are a member of the Credit Union, please come to a Special Members online meeting on the subject from noon to 2 p.m. Friday. And/or send your opinion to feedback@scccu. org.