Editor,
Foster City is right to question the Association of Bay Area Government’s demand that the city produce over 2,000 housing units in the next 10 years. Without any feasibility analysis, ABAG’s secretive algorithm assigns housing quotas to Bay Area cities.
Foster City officials correctly cite lack of infrastructure and public transit — supposedly key factors driving the need for ABAG in the first place. But they missed the most glaring contradiction of the mandate: A Dec. 3 article in Cal Matters reports “A new study published this week projects that the number of affordable housing units at risk of flooding in the United States is projected to more than triple by 2050.” Foster City is included in the top 20 at-risk cities in the United States, and the report states “Affordable housing has a greater chance of flooding than general housing “in nearly all of the top-ranked cities.”
Do ABAG statisticians live under a rock? ABAG is mandating affordable housing be built at sea level, at a time when agencies nationwide are trying to prevent exactly that, in preparation for inevitable sea level rises. What more should we expect from an agency that is totally unaccountable to voters, serving under the influence of developers and unions.
Kristin Mercer
Belmont
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(8) comments
ABAG is an illegal organization and has no constitutional authority over cities. Any regional government organization does not have the authority over cities that ABAG claims to have over Foster City. Foster City and other cities along the peninsula need to stand up as one against ABAG, whose board is filled with unelected, appointed politicians and lawyers that don't have a cities best interest in mind. Go on the attack, make ABAG come out of its shell and defend their proposals. They are nothing more than the little man behind the curtain and are quite weak once you drill down on their power.
That is as convoluted as playing the swimming pool game 'Marco, Polo'
ABAG is more Three-card Monte from Sacramento.
SB 375 was signed into law in 2008. It requires that regional planning agencies create a land use and transportation plan to meet GHG (Green House Gas) emission targets. They are tasked with doing so by creating a Sustainable Communities Strategy or SCS. However, assumptions in the SCS do not supersede local codes or authority over land use in any way. General plans and zoning codes drive the SCS, not the other way around. So... Foster City... stand your ground!
Belmont has lots of Hills that are free of the risk of flooding. Let's build some affordable housing there, or the hills of every city on the Peninsula. Oh, that's right, not in my backyard.
Hi, Cindy
I don't think ABAG is an "illegal organization" and not being a lawyer... I cannot say what authority they may or may not have under the Constitution. It was put together about 60 years ago by non-elected city staffers and some city council members spread hither and yon across the Bay.
What's interesting is that ABAG Board members are not elected. As a result, there does not appear to be proper oversight on a self-identified "agency" that wants to wield a lot of clout over Bay Area cities. The question may not be "should they?" but rather "can they?" do so. I don't know.
There's no such thing as a free lunch... who pays for ABAG?
Ray--Cindy never claimed ABG was an illegal organization. It was Patrick Henry, aka Chris Conway. With that being said, ABAG is indeed a three card monte.
Tommy... slow down. I did not say or imply that Cindy challenged the legality of what ABAG does. Although my reading of her comments is that she favors ABAG over Foster City having a greater say in the construction of new... and affordable ... housing. I say that because she made reference to Belmont and the NIMBY response by a lot of folks on the peninsula when they hear more housing units have been proposed by a regional agency to be built in their city. But I could be wrong in my interpretation...
Maybe Cindy and I are kindred spirits on part of the local housing issue. Recently, there was an uproar by Redwood Shores residents re: a hotel being purchased by the county to house elders on fixed incomes. That uproar was based IMO largely on NIMBYism. I submitted a comment challenging that uproar.
I still don't know why Cindy mentioned Belmont...
And, yes... we agree. ABAG is Three-card Monte (and they're playing with our money).
Don't be silly Cindy. building in the hills is very expensive. Affordable housing needs to be built where land is least expensive and where regulations can be modified. A family member who is in this business assures me that housing can be built at a lower cost if prevailing wages are waived, permitting is streamlined and fees are reduced. All of those factors, and others, are making the the construction of affordable housing unnecessarily expensive. As an avowed liberal, you need to realize that your political adherence, and what they have spawned, is the main obstacle to such construction; it is not the the "greedy'' developers.
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