Below-market-rate apartments for teachers and school staff are proposed near Swift Street in Santa Cruz. (EHDD Architecture) 

The proposal off Swift Street would include:

• A four-story building with three wings connected by open-air bridges.
• 100 homes, including studios and one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments.
• 119 parking spaces.
• A walking path along the complex from Swift Street to Sgt. Derby Park.

All homes would be rented at about 60% to 65% of market rate.

In a May 2024 community meeting, school district leaders said the homes would be offered to all district employees except for administrators.

The housing would be built with bond money that Santa Cruz City Schools residents approved in 2022 with Measures K and L. Voters approved $371 million in bonds, about $19 million of which was earmarked for new employee housing.

Feb. 6, the Santa Cruz Planning Commission voted in support of the project. 

“Ninety-five percent of our declined [job] offers cite affordability as the reason,” said Santa Cruz City Schools Superintendent Kris Munro, at the meeting. “This project will have lasting impact on our ability to retain outstanding educators for decades to come.”

Raymond Mendoza, an elementary teacher at Monarch Community Elementary School, said he can afford to live and teach in town only because he and his wife rent from his parents. The new development would enable him and others to “work as a teacher and raise a family in Santa Cruz, which currently doesn’t feel like an option,” he said.

At the Feb. 6 meeting and a May 2024 community meeting, some residents said they were concerned that the project did not include enough parking spaces, and that the overflow would take up local street parking. 

The project should be held to the same parking requirements as single-family homes, said a neighborhood resident at the Feb. 6 meeting, who did not give his name. “Currently, the project falls extremely short.”

A housing project is planned near Gateway School off Swift Street in Santa Cruz. (Santa Cruz City Schools)

A rendering of the proposed educator housing project includes two existing single-story buildings and a new building with three wings. (Santa Cruz City Schools)

One-hundred apartments are proposed near the 300 block of Swift Street in Santa Cruz. (EHDD Architecture)

A rendering shows a four-story apartment complex near the 300 block of Swift St. (EHDD Architecture)

(EHDD Architecture)

(EHDD Architecture)

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