Overview and Purpose

Purpose

The City of Watsonville (City) initiated a Specific Plan for Downtown Watsonville to establish a clear vision for the future of Downtown Watsonville.  The Downtown Watsonville Specific Plan builds on the historic origins of the Downtown area, celebrating its historic buildings, community events, and open spaces, while harnessing new ideas, investment, and innovation. The Specific Plan knits together the historic Downtown with adjacent industrial and residential areas to create walkable, complete neighborhoods with a mix of retail and services, amenities, employment uses, and residential buildings that help to activate Downtown throughout the day and into the evening, seven days a week.

The Specific Plan serves as a comprehensive planning document and regulatory tool for implementing the City’s General Plan and guiding development in Downtown through customized land use and design regulations and recommendations for improvements to the public realm.  The Specific Plan is intended to be a tool for developers, property owners, City staff and decision makers by providing strong and clear policies, development standards, and a vision that guides land use decisions, infrastructure improvements, design, and economic development activities in the project area.

Overview of the DWSP Process/Timeline

The City initiated a Specific Plan for Downtown Watsonville in 2019. Creating a Specific Plan for a downtown is a complex task - it involves research and analysis, evaluation of current and future trends, creating new policies and regulations, developing a regulatory document, and preparing an environmental impact report. 

The result of the Specific Plan process is a comprehensive regulatory document which reflects the voices and ideas of the Watsonville community. Therefore, throughout the multi-year process, Watsonville staff and the consultant team conducted outreach with the community for input on various aspects of the Watsonville Downtown Specific Plan. City staff and the consultant team took these opportunities to listen, inform, and translate the community’s and stakeholders’ viewpoints and vision, and continually reported back on how the information gathered were shared and used. 

(Note that the initial timeline was prepared prior to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic).