This year, the Housing Division hosted multiple events to celebrate Affordable Housing Month 2022. The City and its affordable housing partners look for ways to engage with the community to educate and present the positive and extensive impact affordable housing has in the City of Santa Cruz. This year we accomplished that through online classes and webinars, housing policy panels, an affordable housing tour and a grand opening for one of our newest 100% affordable housing projects. Here are some of the highlights from 2022 Affordable Housing Month.

GROUNDBREAKING – Pacific Station South and Cedar Street Apartments 100% Affordable Housing Project with a special sneak peak of the Downtown Library Affordable Housing Project.

The tour began with the groundbreaking for Pacific Station South, the sister building to upcoming Pacific Station North. The Pacific Station South project is a 100% affordable housing project including 70 rental apartments and a dedicated medical and dental spaces anticipated to be the new downtown sites for Santa Cruz Community Health Center and Dientes Community Dental Care. The project will have ~15,200 square feet of ground floor commercial retail and residential amenity space. Construction completion is expected in 2024.

The next stop on the tour was Cedar Street Apartments-the mixed-use 100% affordable development planned for the Calvary Church parking lot includes 65 family rental apartments, ~2,160 square feet of commercial retail space and a public paseo. As of June 2022 the project site has broken ground.

The redesigned Downtown Library Affordable Housing Project brings together ~38,000 square feet of modern library programmable space plus a ~3,400 square foot roof deck, five stories of affordable housing with approximately 124 affordable units and three stories of parking.

To get on the interest lists for Cedar Street Apartments email [email protected] for Pacific Station South email [email protected].

ONLINE RECORDING – Affordable Housing Finance Class

This is an online recording of an October 2019 in person class taught by Chuck Depew of the National Development Council (NDC). Some of the questions he answers are “What factors need to be considered when developing affordable housing?” and “How does financing work?”. This video is available online HERE.

WEBINAR – Housing Choice Voucher Program Informational Webinar

The City partnered with the Housing Authority of Santa Cruz County to host a webinar primarily geared towards landlords which provided an overview of the program, highlighted and shared information about the Landlord Incentive Program, new incentives available to participating landlords, and more. This video is available online HERE.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING TOUR – Self-guided affordable housing bike tour

The self-guided bike tour was available to those who would like to go at their own pace to tour some of the affordable housing projects within the City of Santa Cruz. If you are interested in learning more about the affordable housing projects featured in the tour, or if you would like to see them yourself, you can find our self-guided bike tour map HERE.