SANTA CRUZ — The city of Santa Cruz held a virtual community meeting Wednesday evening about the Clocktower Center project proposed to be built at 2020 N. Pacific Ave. in downtown Santa Cruz.
The project is being developed by the firm Workbench and consists of two alternate sets of plans. One plan for the project details an eight-story mixed-use structure with 174 housing units, and the other, taller version of the project is a 16-story mixed-use building with 260 housing units.
In April, Workbench Cofounder Tim Gordin told the Sentinel that the larger version of the project was 18-stories high. However, at the meeting Wednesday, the project was described as 16-stories and Gordin told the Sentinel on Thursday morning that the 18-story description was a mistake and that the building is intended to be 16-stories tall.
The virtual community meeting Wednesday evening began with a rundown of the two alternative projects from Santa Cruz Senior Planner Tim Maier.
“The project proposes redevelopment of the two lots located immediately north of Clocktower Park in the city’s central business zone district,” said Maier at the meeting. “As proposed, the existing buildings would be demolished and replaced with a new multi-story commercial-residential, mixed-use development.”
Maier pointed out that the two lots are roughly a half acre in size and are currently occupied by the now vacant Santa Cruz County Bank at 2020 N. Pacific Ave. and the Rush Inn and a real estate office at 113 Knight St. and 115 Knight St.
Maier then discussed some recent state laws that are intended to facilitate housing production such as Senate Bill 330, or the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, and others that allow developers to ignore local building standards, and in the case of Assembly Bill 2097, build housing developments with little required parking.
Workbench is taking advantage of these state laws for the Clocktower Center project and is legally allowed to increase the number of units in the project by 100% after committing to providing 30% of the housing units at a rate that is considered affordable in the county using state guidelines of area median income, which is $132,800 for a family of four in Santa Cruz County.
Maier explained that Workbench has submitted SB 330 preliminary applications, which are reviewed by planners in regard to the application’s completeness only. If deemed complete, the project becomes locked into the city’s building standards at the time of the preliminary application’s submittal and the applicant has 180 days to submit a full application or the pre-application expires. Workbench submitted the preliminary applications for the two projects on March 4.
“Under state law, as SB 330 pre-applications, staff cannot review and provide comments on the project’s consistency with city design or site development standards,” said Maier. “With the formal development application however, city staff will determine the permits needed, and once the formal application is submitted, review the project alternatives compliance with all relevant regulations and issue written comments to the applicant.”
After the formal application is completed, the project will be reviewed by the city’s Planning Commission in a public hearing and later by the Santa Cruz City Council, Maier added.
Maier handed control of the meeting to Gordin, who pointed out that questions would be taken through a chatbox and would be answered by Workbench staff during the presentation.
Gordin then talked about Workbench’s culture and outlined the ins and outs of state housing laws alongside facilitating three surveys of attendees during the meeting using the software application Mentimeter. The surveys included questions regarding where meeting attendees live and how they use the downtown, among many others.
After roughly an hour of online surveys and housing policy discussion by Gordin, Omar Hason of Workbench discussed the Clocktower Center project itself, which he described as a “once in a hundred year” development.
Following Hason’s presentation, the developers facilitated the meeting’s third online survey, which ran up to the hard stop time of 8 p.m. announced at the start of the meeting. The developers then hung around for an additional 15 minutes to answer questions of the attendees and outline the next steps.
Workbench plans to submit a full application before its 180 days are up at the end of the summer and more community meetings will be held about the project in the coming months.
For information, visit cityofsantacruz.com.
