County · California
Santa Cruz County General Plan
What Santa Cruz County, California is permitting and building, tracked from official state open data. The General Plan is Santa Cruz County's long-range blueprint for land use, housing, and growth.
Source: California HCD Housing Element APR
Housing & development by year
| Year | Units permitted | Units entitled | Projects |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 55 | 471 | 169 |
| 2024 | 155 | 38 | 268 |
| 2023 | 142 | 8 | 247 |
| 2022 | 298 | 25 | 205 |
| 2021 | 100 | 27 | 155 |
| 2020 | 142 | 38 | 175 |
| 2019 | 76 | 129 | 147 |
| 2018 | 103 | 16 | 101 |
The plan document
Read Santa Cruz County's official General Plan: Santa Cruz County General Plan →
Elements · 2 Verifier-checked summaries
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The Built Environment Element's foundational goal (BE-1) establishes a sustainable development framework that plans for growth in urban areas, encourages walkable neighborhoods and vibrant activity centers that foster increased mobility, health, and quality of life, and coordinates land use and transportation planning across agencies locally and regionally. Objective BE-1.1 preserves a distinction between urban and rural areas of the County, encouraging new development to locate within urban areas at a growth rate compatible with available public facilities and services and not exceeding the State's overall growth rate. To implement this, the County maintains an Urban Services Line to clearly delineate areas with full urban services that are appropriate for development and discourages changes to it.
Verifier-checked · grounded in the official document
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Santa Cruz County's Housing Element is one of seven required elements of the County's General Plan and is the only element requiring regular updates (currently every eight years) plus review and certification by a State agency. This 2023-2031 (6th Cycle) Housing Element represents the County's intent to plan for the housing needs of the county while meeting the State's housing goals set forth in Article 10.6 of the California Government Code. It is designed to function as an integral, internally consistent part of the overall General Plan, following a comprehensive General Plan update completed in 2022 and certified in 2023.
Verifier-checked · grounded in the official document
Element summaries are generated from the official document text and held unless every fact is grounded in the source. Links open the jurisdiction's own published documents.