Santa Cruz County Supervisors requested to review a proposed five-story apartment building in Live Oak after the planning commission approved it. Neighbors who oppose it and the developer have suggested they’ll take the decision to court if it doesn’t get their way. (Workbench)

LIVE OAK >> The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday is slated to review a proposed five-story apartment building in Live Oak. It was approved by the planning commission in October and has drawn the ire of neighbors, who appealed that decision. Both the developer and opponents have suggested they will pursue legal action should the supervisors’ vote go against them.

The highly scrutinized project at 841 Capitola Road near 7th Avenue calls for 57 units, comprising 35 one-bedroom apartments, 15 two-bedroom apartments and seven studios. Four units would be priced for extremely-low income renters and one for very-low income renters, based on state-set income limits. 

The vacant 0.88-acre property is zoned for up to 14 units, which can be doubled under state density bonus law. But the developer, Santa Cruz-based Workbench, took advantage of a different state law, known as the Builder’s Remedy, to propose the project.

The Builder’s Remedy allows developers to largely bypass zoning rules when a local government has failed to comply with state housing mandates. That includes when a city or county doesn’t have a state-certified housing plan in place, as was the case for the County of Santa Cruz in early 2024. California requires every city and county to map out how to accommodate more housing over an eight-year period in a plan called the Housing Element.

Santa Cruz County’s most recent Housing Element was due in December 2023 but not certified until April 2024, shortly after Workbench submitted a pre-application for the 841 Capitola Road project. In that four-month period when the county lacked a certified Housing Element, Builder’s Remedy rules were in effect. 

But Mike Reis, a neighbor who has retained an attorney and is raising funds to help him and his neighbors fight the project, has argued that the county Housing Element was actually in compliance by the previous month when the state’s housing agency notified county staff that it was “ready to certify.” 

“Every step after that was administrative,” Reis told Santa Cruz Local, adding that “very strong evidence,” in the form of communications between the county and state, would be presented at Tuesday’s meeting.

Tim Gordin, president of Workbench, said these communications were irrelevant. 

“Their argument is that phone calls and emails between people constitute approval,” Gordin said, but anyone who’s ever tried to get a building permit knows it doesn’t work that way.

Gordin also refuted claims from Reis that it was a potential conflict of interest for him to have served on the county planning commission from 2021 to 2024 — during which time Workbench purchased the 841 Capitola Road property and proposed Builder’s Remedy projects. Reis has questioned whether Gordin in his role as commissioner could have affected the timeline of the county’s Housing Element certification.

“That’s incorrect, there’s no conflict of interest,” Gordin said. “It’s the appellants grasping at straws to try and prevent housing from being built in their neighborhood.”

Supervisor Manu Koenig, whose district includes 841 Capitola Road, could not immediately be reached for comment. 

Reis and others who oppose the project have argued that the scale of the development would disrupt their quiet neighborhood.

“No one I’ve spoken to can justify the height of the building,” Reis said. “It just does not fit in a residential neighborhood.” He added that the 31 proposed parking spaces are inadequate amid a lack of on-street parking.

Reis said that though emergency vehicles would be able to access the apartment complex from Capitola Road, all other traffic would go in and out of Grey Seal Road, a quiet, dead-end street with a cul-de-sac where children often play. 

He said he agrees that Santa Cruz needs housing, but that an earlier Workbench proposal for 28 units at the site “made more sense.” Gordin said the 28 units weren’t financially viable, and that more housing was a “huge public benefit” in a county that has had a “dearth of market-rate apartments being built for the last 50 years.”

A separate Workbench proposal for a six-story housing complex near Dominican Hospital also took advantage of Builder’s Remedy rules. That project is awaiting another review after the county planning commission delayed a decision and asked for more information from Workbench.

A project on Graham Hill Road from a different developer also leverages the Builder’s Remedy.

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