By Noel Smith
The Capitola City Council finally made the decision on where to build the permanent branch library at its Jan 22 meeting.
The council voted 4-1 for the current location of the library at 2005 Wharf Road. The site will have to be enlarged by purchasing a residential property at 2091 Wharf Road owned by Joseph and Debbie Genge next to the existing 4,320-square-foot temporary library to make room for the proposed new 12,000-square-foot library building.
It had been estimated that a third of the patrons lived in Capitola, another third from Soquel, and a third from unincorporated areas such as Aptos and Live Oak. However, according to Janis O’Driscoll of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries, Capitola residents account for just 10 percent of the system’s 1.4 million transactions from April 2014 through Jan. 20, 2015. The current library is busy daily with the public using its computers and moms coming from as far away as La Selva Beach because of its children’s play area.
Civic Center?
The most contentious issue of the evening however involved the city’s plan to redevelop its 7-acre site at 420 Capitola Ave. to include an 80-room hotel, civic center which will include the police station, three level parking garage and a new public park.
After much discussion, the council decided against the original proposal of spending $25,000 for a consultant to research more about the project, but voted 4-1 (with Councilwoman Stephanie Harlan voting no) empowering Mayor Dennis Norton to appoint a 10-member committee that will develop a strategy for public outreach in the planning for the $20 million project.
“Let’s have the citizens come to us,” said Councilman Michael Termini. “We’re looking for grassroots common sense.” Termini said he was disappointed with the costly process of hiring consultants.
“Civic involvement has been very successful. They’ve brought to the city things that work, and that’s the critical thing here: things that work,” said Councilman Jaques Bertrand.
Harlan said she wanted to wait to wait until after the summer season to determine the use of the newly opened temporary parking next to city hall. “What is the problem we are trying to solve?” she asked. “Do we know there’s a need for parking structure? We don’t know. I think we ought to respond to community needs,” she added. “It feels like we’re trying to talk people into something. Why are we calling it a civic center? That doesn’t fit Capitola.”
City Manager Jamie Goldstein’s plan calls for using the tax income generated by the 80-room hotel to “self fund” the civic center which includes the police facility, parking structure, and public park. Without the hotel, Goldstein estimates the project would be too expensive for the city to fund itself.
Devcon Construction Inc. presented a pro bono conceptual site plan in 2012. It included a two-story civic center on the northwest corner of the Pacific Cove part of the property, with a 16,000-square-foot city hall including police, 10,000-square foot library, 2,000 square foot council chamber, and 1,200 square foot museum, with the price tag of $13.2 million. The study could be updated, as the library is now not part of the proposed project.
Local developers Craig French and Owen Lawlor last fall initially proposed an exclusive agreement to develop the project but residents objected, and the council is using a public process to determine their options.
The lower floors of City Hall and the adjacent police station were flooded twice in 2011 after the pipe taking the runoff from Noble Gulch and running underneath Pacific Cove Mobile Home Park broke. Since then, moving these city facilities out of the floodplain along Soquel Creek has been a high priority.
The city’s 7-acre property includes two parking lots, one behind City Hall and a temporary one the site of the former mobile home park, which opened last year. The plan calls for transforming the permanent parking lot into a three-level parking structure and the temporary parking lot to a public park.
“You think ahead 5 to 10 years, and it may be a 10-year process for us, but it’s an important process that we have to take,” said Capitola Mayor Dennis Norton.
