Sacramento’s attack on our suburbs

Many city councils are now running scared about penalties such as “builder’s remedy” if they don’t do Sacramento’s bidding and fill their cities with such incongruous, massive housing projects, though at the expense of the quality of life for the residents they represent.

Yet, if you think about it, legislation can change with a stroke of a pen, and often does. But mammoth high-density stack-and-pack housing projects, once built, will be with us for the foreseeable future. And when they are placed in our suburbs, especially the smaller ones, they permanently alter and disrupt the tranquil character of those cities.

In fact, there’s an unspoken but very real attack on our suburbs and suburban way of life, including a frontal attack on cars and our freedom to drive where we please — though driving is by far the most convenient form of local transportation, whether for business or pleasure.

Nevertheless, most new multistory housing projects intentionally provide insufficient parking for the number of units, and cities are encouraged to remove car lanes as part of “road diets,” ostensibly to make room for bicycles.

There’s even a plan to remove parking on El Camino Real, which would be fatal to many businesses on that thoroughfare. And in desperation, some cities, including Menlo Park, consider doing away with their downtown parking lots altogether, so they can put required affordable housing quotas there, in spite of the dire consequences for business owners, their employees, residents and shoppers from nearby cities.

Along similar lines, Redwood City recently faced a controversy over a seven-story affordable housing development on Vera Avenue with 178 units and, shockingly, only six dedicated parking spaces. A Redwood City official admitted this is intentional, as the state actively seeks to discourage driving. Using climate change as a convenient excuse to get us out of our cars, officials have been refusing to require adequate parking for both residential and commercial projects. They figure people can, and should, take Caltrain — or the bus.

That’s the problem.

It’s a utopian concept that ignores the reality that we all have cars and greatly prefer them — therefore, we need parking spaces. Perhaps people can do without cars in New York City, since cabs are plentiful, and buses and subways traverse the city 24/7. But we’re here in the suburbs in sprawling California, and the necessity for driving goes with the territory.

Pondering that plan to build nearly 200 units with a measly six parking spaces — and those for the management only — a Redwood City resident wrote to her City Council lamenting the egregious lack of parking for some 500 adults with cars. She finds it “incomprehensible,” and she’s not alone. In fact, similar incomprehensibility, in one form or another, is plaguing residents up and down the Peninsula as we scratch our heads while normal suburban life is incrementally being turned upside down.

The genesis of the problem stems from a long-range blueprint no one talks about any more: Plan Bay Area — a one-size-fits-all program created by ABAG, the Association of Bay Area Governments, and adopted in 2013 in spite of massive pushback from residents all over the Bay Area. It’s a template for all of our cities to follow regarding transportation and vital land-use issues that impact the quality of life in our cities. And Sacramento seems to enjoy upping the ante.

But “one size” never fits all. What may work in one city may prove disastrous in another. After all, we take pride in our towns and their uniqueness. Each one has a particular history and character. What a loss it will be to us all if ill-conceived legislation were to obliterate the special qualities and individuality of our cities and leave us not only carless, but the victims of overcrowded, urbanized and dispiriting homogeneity.

Cherie Zaslawsky is a private writing coach/English teacher who works with high school students, focusing on improving their critical thinking and essay writing skills.