Santa Cruz Uses the Power of the People

Beach Flats seems an unlikely neighborhood for ground zero of a political firestorm. It’s just a tangle of one-way streets lined with aging cottages set so close to this city’s famed boardwalk that shrieks of roller coaster riders supply a constant chorus on a summer’s day.

But this is Santa Cruz, a seaside town whose liberal bent has earned it the nickname “Berkeley by the Beach.” And Beach Flats is a neighborhood that not only fought City Hall but transformed it.

“Power to the people!” said Philip Baer, 56, a member of the Beach Area Working group, which helped defeat a redevelopment proposal to expand the boardwalk and raze 19 houses and small apartment buildings in Beach Flats.

He and his wife, Jane, met in Haight Ashbury during the Summer of Love. His hair is still ‘60s shoulder length, although now silver; she favors flowing dresses that reach the floor. The couple have lived in Beach Flats for 20 years. All of their seven children were born in their onetime farmhouse on Park Place, which dates back to the 1850s.

Beach Flats, a historic neighborhood just east of the boardwalk, has fallen on hard times. Cottages once owned by affluent summer visitors are now occupied year-round by a growing population of Latino immigrant families who hope to move up and out. City officials described the original construction plan as an effort to spruce up the district, expand a lucrative tourist attraction and build some affordable housing on which the displaced would have first dibs.

But residents like Baer alleged that the redevelopment plan was driven more by greed and racism than by necessity. So they mobilized. They formed a committee, printed fliers, testified at City Council meetings, held rallies and talked to the press.

The result helped turned Santa Cruz’s municipal elections last fall into a political Armageddon. The boardwalk expansion controversy swept three slow-growth City Council candidates into office and changed the balance of power on the seven-member panel. In its first meeting, the new City Council thrilled Beach Flats residents by voting to significantly scale back the redevelopment plan and not demolish any homes.

Council member Michael Rotkin was not up for reelection but still was penalized for his support of the original proposal. The new council majority denied him the ceremonial post of mayor, even though it was supposed to be his turn in the rotation. He voted for the smaller plan but defended its predecessor as beneficial for Beach Flats, and said it had been carefully worked out over seven years with many public hearings.

“But in the last two years, I believe we became complacent. We didn’t go out and knock on doors and sell this plan to the people,” he said.

Baer, however, sees things differently.

“The politicians called this a blighted neighborhood, they quoted crime statistics that include the boardwalk, which gets millions of visitors each year, they used loaded language to talk about the neighborhood and had themselves convinced this was a hellhole. That was such a bunch of bull,” said Baer, whose house was not among those targeted for demolition. “This is just a poor neighborhood that could use some help. So we spoke up.”

Baer’s neighbor of 20 years, Maria Gutierrez, spoke up as well.

“I was very surprised and very happy at the outcome of the election,” Gutierrez said. “I think most of the people here were surprised that our neighborhood would win. They aren’t used to being listened to, so they didn’t think we could win.”

With its emphasis on a new shopping district and a hotel conference center, the original plan would have extended the city’s tourist season by several months, supporters said. It called for the realignment of 3rd Street, which would connect the boardwalk area to Santa Cruz’s strong downtown. It would have allowed a 1.4-acre expansion of the 91-year-old boardwalk, the addition of affordable apartments to replace the razed buildings, and a transportation plan to help deal with the increase in traffic.

The new council nixed the street realignment and the boardwalk expansion. It also reduced the new shopping district from 225,000 square feet to 125,000. A 250-room hotel conference center, part of the original scheme, as well as the affordable housing, are still in the planning stages, with final decisions expected later this year. The new construction would be on the site of a parking lot. The new council also gave credence to the idea that though poor, Beach Flats has a voice worth listening to, a history and culture worth preserving.

“Redevelopment is fine, but there’s a difference between going in with a weed whacker and going in with a surgeon’s scalpel,” said Keith Sugar, one of the council’s newly elected members. “I would much rather do this redevelopment in a well-thought-out way that takes into account the neighborhood’s history and maximizes community participation, than have the council decide what’s best for the people of Beach Flats.”

Beach Flats traces its roots to the late 19th century, when the area was a farm belonging to German immigrant Henry Uhden, said Ross Eric Gibson, an architectural consultant and local historian. Uhden, an avid fisherman, built a boathouse and rented boats and equipment to visitors from San Francisco and the Central Valley. Drawn to the warm pocket of water where the San Lorenzo River meets the chilly Pacific Ocean, visitors congregated at the river mouth, living in tents and the occasional fishing cabin.

In 1907, the boardwalk was built, and in 1924 the Seaside Co. opened the Big Dipper, a wooden roller coaster that still draws thrill-seekers worldwide and is one of Santa Cruz’s landmarks. By the 1920s, scores of families had built bungalows and cottages that served as summer retreats. Grocery stores, restaurants, bait shops and boat rentals soon followed.

The area remained popular until 1955 when, after a devastating flood, the Army Corps of Engineers built levees to protect the town. The quiet, tree-lined campgrounds were gone, the ocean view was blocked and access to the river was cut off.

“Suddenly landowners had all of these low-cost units and no one to rent to,” Gibson said. “The natural environment was gone and tourists didn’t want to stay there, fishermen had no use for it. So, out of desperation, the landowners rented and sold to anyone who would buy at low cost.”

Leonard Masini, 76, saw the transformation firsthand.

“My grandparents built that cottage right over there,” he said, pointing to a graceful bungalow covered with peeling paint and surrounded by a parched lawn. “I used to come here in the summers as a boy, and we had the run of the place. It was wonderful then, you can’t imagine how beautiful it all was.”

In the decades since Masini’s boyhood, Beach Flats has earned a reputation as a poor and crime-ridden neighborhood.

“Oh, it’s been through some rough times. . . . But it’s been getting a lot better in the last few years. The neighborhood is really improving, and I’m glad it’s not going to get torn down.”

But Jane Baer believes both supporters and detractors will get another chance to have their say.

“This isn’t going to go away, just because we won this round,” she said. “This is like the Monopoly game. We live on Park Place, and this time, we beat Boardwalk. But there’s always the next election. . . . Just like in Monopoly, there’s always another roll of the dice.”