Santa Cruz City Council Approves Anti-Homeless Landscape Designs for Ocean Street Entrance

For years, chain-link fencing has been used to keep homeless people out of the two public spaces at the entrance to Ocean Street, however city staff is recommending that no fencing be added to the beautification project designs.

"If it is determined that fencing is needed, it will be added during the next fiscal year as part of the approved project budget," a staff report for the October 28 City Council meeting stated.

There was very little discussion or debate about the proposed anti-homeless design elements, as the agenda item for the Ocean Street Beautification Project was placed on the meeting's consent agenda.

To date, public discussions concerning the so-called landscaping improvements of the Ocean Street Beautification Project have largely focused on keeping homeless people out of the public spaces. There has been no mention of adding benches to the area for public recreation, or perhaps constructing a kiosk to provide information about homeless services.

$850,000 has been budgeted for the beautification project, and construction is scheduled to be completed by the end of June 2026.

Some elements of the proposed designs draw on previously completed projects in Santa Cruz, where hardscaping elements have been added to traffic medians to deter pedestrian use.

Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley has led the call for the adoption of prevention measures to deter loitering on traffic medians in the City.

At the March 14, 2023 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council, Keeley made a motion to direct the city manager to return at budget hearings with a plan for installing "safety devices" that prohibit loitering on traffic medians at the busiest intersections in the city. In response to requests from Keeley, staff said anti-homeless hardscaping options could be included in the designs for the Ocean Street Beautification Project.

After the process of selecting artists for the beautification project was completed, city staff brought a set of preliminary design renderings to the June 24, 2025 City Council meeting.

David McCormick, of the city's economic development department, is the project manager of the Ocean Street Beautification Project. During the June 24 City Council meeting, McCormick spoke about the public survey undertaken at the beginning of the design process. According to McCormick, one of the key takeaways from the survey was that the public wanted the city to deal with "unwanted vagrancy and panhandling." Public surveys also found that people didn't want pathways through the public spaces, but at the same time, the they didn't want the fencing to remain, according to McCormick.

One of the key considerations of the project was, "balancing the idea of an attraction versus an attractive nuisance," McCormick stated.

After McCormick concluded his presentation, Mayor Keeley expressed concerns about removing the fencing from the area.

"Right now when you come into to town it looks like you are entering a medium security facility," Keeley said to McCormick. "You've got chain link fences to keep people out of those areas because when we didn't have those there, people were in those areas all the time. So are you now saying we are going to do this and there's no fencing around it of any kind?"

"I think that's the question," McCormick replied. "So far, the community's desire is to not have fencing."

"I don't think it's hard to predict what's going to happen without a fence," Keeley replied. "People are going to be there, they are going to camp there, they are going to panhandle there, they are going to walk across the intersection because they don't have it together or whatever. I don't think we can go forward with this without an understanding of what the fencing is. This isn't to create a park, this is to create an entrance to our city."

"The only way we solved that problem before was to put fencing up, and it looked like hell and it still looks like hell," Keeley stated.

Keeley added that he "loved" the artwork in the preliminary designs, but he also claimed that, "our experience in Santa Cruz has not been that if you put up something beautiful like that it's going to stay beautiful."

"I don't get why we would do this without fencing," Keeley concluded.

McCormick asked the Mayor, "Would you like to put up more robust fencing?"

Keeley then made a motion to add fencing options to the design proposals.

McCormick mentioned that the public had said that the fencing in design renderings, "felt more like a prison fence."

"Without that fence, this is going to last about two weeks of being pretty, and then it ain't going to be pretty," Keeley replied.

Councilmembers, with the encouragement of the City Manager, wound up agreeing to bring back fencing options to the next discussion of the project's construction.

Multiple members of the City Council cautioned against adding fencing to the designs.

"I spent a decade working on homeless response infrastructure, and fencing doesn't always work," Councilmember Susie O'Hara said. "In fact, it often creates more problems than you would expect."

"People hang their stuff on fences," O'Hara stated. "It's really challenging for a public safety response."


The full discussion of the Ocean Street Beautification Project at the June 24, 2025 Santa Cruz City Council meeting can be viewed here:
https://youtu.be/QoxN7j_axx8?si=Sk9c__Bf_lZqhHt1&t=11184

More background information:

Mayor Keeley Targets the Homeless with Surprise Traffic Median Motion (March 2023)
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2023/03/20/18855028.php