Santa Cruz County supervisors advance $140 million housing bond for November election

UPDATE: 08/08/18 4:30PM The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved putting a multi-million dollar affordable housing bond on the November Ballot.

“The board understand housing is a big issue it’s probably the number one issue locally right now and there’s a lot of stories about people and the housing prices they pay and what it’s doing to their families so I think the board was sympathetic to those voices and wanted to put the question to voters in November,” says County spokesperson Jason Hoppin.

One of the co-authors of the bond, Don Lane, says he’s been working on this for two yeras after serving for city council, “during that time I just heard story after story about the squeeze on housing and it just felt like even after I left serving public office If I wanted to work on something in the community that would really have an impact it would be affordable housing.”

The $140 million bond would provide funding for several things.

Lane says 75% would go towards preserving and creating new affordable rental housing for local working families, it would also help vulnerable populations like seniors, people with disabilities, and low income residents. 15% would go to shelter and housing for people experiencing homelessness and 10% would go toward first time home buyers programs.

The county says while it’s a good chunk of money, it won’t solve all of the housing issues, but would be a good start.

“It helps, but it’s not the solution, there’s additional tools that we need to deploy to address this problem,” says Hoppin.

The bond money would be paid back by County homeowners over a period of 30 to 40 years by an increase in property taxes.

“Each homeowner would pay a very modest assessment every year, the assessment rate at it’s highest,would be, and most years is won’t be this high would be $16.77 cents for every 100 thousand dollars of assessed value on a property. So for many people, a typical person, that’s probably in the neighborhood of 50-60 dollars a year,” says Lane.

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Tuesday the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors approved putting a multi-million dollar affordable housing bond on the November ballot.

The $140 million bond would provide funds for new affordable rental housing for local working families. It would also help vulnerable populations like seniors, people with disabilities, and low income residents.

There are also funds included to create new facilities and housing to address homelessness and to help first time home buyers.

The bond was approved 5-0.

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