Santa Cruz County unveils ADU program

SEACLIFF, Calif. (KION-TV)- Santa Cruz County rolled out their assistance ADU program to fight the housing crisis. 

People like Nancy Schultse know that affordable housing in the area is a huge problem. 

“Well, we have a housing shortage,” Nancy said. “And we definitely need them.” 

ADUs can seem like a great idea, but are not easy to build without help. 

The Principal Planner in the Community Development and Infrastructure Department in the Housing Section in Santa Cruz, Suzanne Ise, said that people are often scared to start the ADU process because there is so much that goes into it. 

“What we find is a lot of average homeowners just are daunted by the process,” Suzanne said. “You know, it's a lot of time, it's a lot of money. You're basically managing a little construction project in your yard”

But who exactly will be benefiting from these units? Suzanne Ise says that families in different phases of life would highly benefit from having these ADU units. 

“They’re very often adding it for a family member,” Suzanne said. “Maybe they have kids who gone away to college and want to come back, but they can’t afford the rents in the area, or maybe their parents are aging and would like their adult children to be near them so they can help them as they age.” 

People like Nancy, are very interested in having their own adu units in Aptos. 

“I would love to have an ADU to rent to students,” Nancy said. “Or an elderly person, or whoever.” 

She thinks that ADUs could be a part of the solution to the housing problem in the are as a whole. 

“I think that unfortunately, a lot of people are not in my neighborhood type of people, which is sad because we do need the housing and rents are exorbitant,” Nancy said. “I think an adu would solve part of that problem.” 

However, there are some people, just like Russ Newhouse who have concerns with ADU units being rolled out into the county. 

“Personally if I were in a situation that people didn't need those units, I would not really want to necessarily be living with everyone else that is of the same situation in life,” Newhouse said. “I think having diversity and living as diverse a life as possible around a variety of people is really helpful.” 

Russ recently moved to Santa Cruz county and is concerned about how spread out the units will be. 

“I thought it'd be nice if they could be spread out a little bit,” Russ said. “More in smaller sections.”

But people like Nancy, are hoping to see similar efforts happen outside of Santa Cruz county. 

“I hope that the counties step up to the plate and make it easier for people like me that want to have affordable units for other people,” Nancy said. “Or when I'm older and might need to live next to my son”

As of 2023 no ADUs have officially been completed. But in 2020, there were 24 built. In 2021, there were 37 built, and in 2022, there were 7 built. 

Santa Cruz county said to apply at the website if you’re interested.