Capitola Council Approves Controversial Senior Housing on 38th Avenue

Despite being voted down twice by the planning commission, the Capitola City Council Thursday approved a controversial senior housing project putting a 23-unit, three-story onto a four-acre lot at 1575 38th avenue, near Orchard Supply.

"You are bringing in life and vitality to that neighborhood, particularly at night," said Councilman Dennis Norton, with the majority. He said seniors in the complex would be able to walk to the movies, the Mall, the businesses around 41st Avenue. "Is this a good place to put seniors? Yes, it is."

Mayor Stephanie Harlan disagreed. 

"I don't see three stories in that area," she said, adding that neighbors would be uncomfortable looking up at a high, dense mass of a building. 

Supervisor Jon Leopold, who represented neighbors just over the border in unincorporated Santa Cruz County, asked the council to consider his constituents whose homes would be overshadowed by the building.

"We've heard a lot about the trees," said one neighbor who was fiercely against it. "I'm representing the people, who aren't being considered as much."

Seven redwood trees on the property are threatened and will be monitored by an arborist. The city legislated that residents of the complex must be over 62 years old.

A doctor, who set up her practice in a small office in the neighborhood also objected, although she'd have plenty of new patients from the project.

"I moved here because of the way it was zoned," she said. It is not zoned for the dense, planned development this would be.
She said the assumption of homeowners who buy in an area is that the zoning won't be changed. She said two stories, or 27 feet, as the zoning is now, would be preferable. But the way it will be built, the windows of the center will look into the windows of her practice.

Despite the residential/commercial zoning, there is a 30-foot high storage building also nearby, but the council wasn't sure whether that was an exception or whether it was built before the area was zoned.

Developer George Ow spoke in favor of the project, which borders his King's Plaza Shopping Center. He had opposed it before, saying he thought it would bring too much traffic and density to it and the residents would hate the commercial noise from his center, which includes Orchard Supply.

After writing a letter in opposition, Thursday he said he had a change of heart and that he thought seniors were in need of more housing. "I could see living there one day," he said.

The project will house high-end seniors, who pay as much as $400,000 for a single unit or $5,000 a month.