Join Planner Sarah Neuse for a lunch-hour presentation with an overview of the City’s Multi-Family Objective Standards Project that will create new zoning standards for multi-family housing throughout the City.
Due to recent changes in state law, the City is now required to review new housing applications using only development standards that can be measured and described in an objective fashion. Drafting these standards provides an opportunity to address some of the ways multi-family housing has been harder to create in Santa Cruz and throughout California. The presentation will introduce the project and cover a brief history of zoning in the US, and how it has historically been a tool for excluding and segregating lower-income populations and communities of color. Creating objective zoning standards is one tool cities can use to start addressing this history and moving toward a more equitable future for all types of housing.