We vote against the proposed location of 5940 Soquel Ave (Soquel frontage road) for this important healthcare facility. This is a vital need to the community and the proposed location on Soquel frontage road will provide no public transportation for Santa Cruz residents. The closest bus stop is a mile walk away. The most direct walking route from the mall bus stop to the proposed Kaiser facility would force pedestrians to unsafely walk along the busy frontage road, Soquel Ave., and over Rodeo Gulch, where there is no sidewalk, to get to the facility.

 

In addition, the Soquel Frontage Road is currently dysfunctional and fails the needs of the current neighborhoods and daily traffic volume. Instead of addressing this failure of a road with effective solutions, our Supervisors are proposing to build something that will greatly exacerbate the situation.

 

In order to build the facility on the Soquel Frontage Road, the Supervisors will have to change precious multifamily zoning property, which is desperately needed for our community, to commercial zoning. We are not willing to sacrifice our neighborhoods and displace 9 other businesses for commercial zoning. 

 

We are disturbed.

 

Adding a facility with 750 parking spots not only condemns the existing neighborhoods but all frontage road travelers as well as every person working and visiting the facility daily. The current system does not have the capacity to make this influx of daily population work. This will be the largest facility in the county, it should be located somewhere widely accessible.

 

As a recap, we vote no to this proposal at 5940 Soquel Avenue  for the following reasons:

1.  A change in zoning laws from desperately-needed multi-family residential to commercial.

2.  Displacement of existing businesses and employees - a loss of local jobs and community welfare

3.  No public transportation to this site which disproportionately affects disabled people seeking care at Kaiser.

4.  No meaningful changes to existing traffic problems. There is no proposed frontage road widening, no proposed on-ramps or off-ramps, and no proposed bridge to relieve this already congested area. The pedestrian bridge, while helpful, will not make a dent in the critical traffic problem along the frontage road, Soquel Avenue/Soquel Drive interchange, Gross Road, and 41st Avenue. The build up from this congestion will impact all surrounding neighborhoods, exacerbated even more so by Google Maps and Waze.

5.  Increased traffic means increased time for first responders to enter and exit the nearby neighborhoods. Many of these neighbors are elderly and deserve timely fire/paramedic services.

6. The availability of several other parcels around Santa Cruz County that have existing zoning/roads that would be more suitable for this 160,000 square foot development.
 

We are asking our Supervisors to not sacrifice our neighborhoods and our residential areas to create new commercial zoning. We are asking our Supervisors to find an already commercially zoned space that will make this project a success, not only for the community but for Kaiser, Kaiser employees and Kaiser patients as well.

 

Thank you for taking the time to sign.