Rent in Santa Cruz is forcing neighbors out: teachers, servers, the workers we depend on, our own family and friends.

The City has a proposal to help fix this: an Affordable Housing Ministerial Approval Overlay District, which would let 100% affordable housing projects get approved administratively, as long as they meet standards the City has already defined, including:

* Location only in areas already zoned for multifamily or mixed-use housing
* Protection of environmentally sensitive land
* Objective standards for evaluating heritage trees
* Holding a community meeting to receive public input on project design

Nothing is changing regarding where projects can go, how they must protect the environment, and how they must fit the neighborhood. The overlay leaves the applicable standards exactly as they are. It changes only the process: a project that meets them is approved administratively after holding a public community meeting, instead of facing a separate public hearing.

Today, the City still requires many housing projects to go through an obsolete discretionary process built around giving decision-makers another chance to say no. But state law now generally requires the City to approve housing projects that follow the applicable rules. The overlay would bring the City's process in line with that reality.

Our obsolete housing approval process costs our community:

* The costs to build go up. Much-needed affordable housing sometimes doesn’t get built at all.
* The City takes on avoidable, costly legal risk.
* Fewer homes get built for the people who need them most.
* Our public dollars spent on affordable housing help fewer people afford rent.

Santa Cruz's own Housing Element already commits the City to this goal: streamlining approvals for 100% affordable projects. This overlay is how the City follows through.

We, the undersigned, urge the Santa Cruz City Council to:

* Adopt the Affordable Housing Ministerial Approval Overlay District
* Approve 100% affordable multifamily housing by-right in eligible zones, when it meets the City's own objective standards
* Follow through on the commitments already made in the City's Housing Element
* Give Santa Cruz's affordable housing projects the certainty they need to actually get built

Santa Cruz should be a place where people of all incomes can live, and where affordable housing actually gets delivered.

Affordable housing can’t wait.