Kaiser Permanente has been planning a medical office building at 5490 Soquel Avenue (on the ocean side of Highway 1, between Soquel and 41st Avenue) that will bring over 300 employees and thousands of patients to the location on a daily basis. The four-story, 160,000-square-foot medical facility will span almost 5 acres and include a 730-space parking structure. (By comparison, Watsonville’s Civic Plaza Garage has 460 spaces and the largest parking garage in downtown Santa Cruz, at River and Front Streets, has 477.) The closest bus stop to the proposed location is over a mile away, on Capitola Road. The Sierra Club opposes construction at the currently proposed location because it does not meet our standards for land-use policy and because it would require the County to amend its General Plan.

County zoning doesn’t currently allow the Kaiser development at the proposed location. For this project to win approval, the Board of Supervisors must amend the County's zoning maps. In addition, the project at the proposed location is not consistent with the Sierra Club’s Transportation Policy.

The proposed location presents challenges for Kaiser employees and patients who wish or need to use public transit. With limited transit access, vehicle miles traveled per person (VMT) will increase, adding to congestion on Highway 1 as well as on neighborhood streets that drivers use to avoid highway traffic.

The Sierra Club believes that, instead of amending the General Plan, the Supervisors should direct that the new facility be built in the Medical District (as described in the Sustainable Santa Cruz Plan) on Soquel Drive—a major transit route and site of imminent improvements for bicycles and pedestrians. There are suitable properties there, including the 6-acre lot at Thurber and Soquel Drive.

The Sierra Club’s Transportation Policy is based on the following principles:

• Design to prioritize walking and biking
• Design to increase public transit use
• Design to reduce vehicle miles traveled per person

Santa Cruz County’s General Plan currently supports:

• Land use patterns that reduce urban sprawl
• Land use patterns that enable reduction of vehicle miles traveled per person.
• We encourage you to contact your elected representatives and let them know that this project will increase auto dependency, with ill effects on public health, transportation network, and social equity. Contact your County Supervisors at: BoardOfSupervisors@santacruzcounty.us

See our extensive comments of the Draft Environmental Impact Report here: 2021-08-10 Sierra Club Comments DEIR Medical Bldg.pdf