Editor,
In “San Mateo County officials join CASA discussion,” in the Tuesday, March 19, edition of the San Mateo Daily Journal, the article cited Peninsula officials urging caution and warning about the unintended consequences of the CASA compact and state legislation being proposed to address the housing crisis.
I would like to remind those officials of the consequences of the status quo: the housing affordability crisis the state and CASA are seeking to solve. I would also like to remind those same officials that despite efforts to increase housing on the Peninsula, there are competing efforts to increase office space without any housing to balance it: San Bruno, Menlo Park and Burlingame have all approved or are close to approving expanded office space for YouTube, Facebook and Oculus.
MTC and the state are recognizing the gravity of the situation. I would like to see more Peninsula officials adopt similar language and urgency.
Nathan Chan
Millbrae
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(3) comments
It is absolutely alarming that Scott Weiner's SB 50 and the CASA compact are even being taken seriously as these unfunded mandates are a ridiculous attempt to fight a so called "Housing Crisis." The fact that these unfunded mandates are attacking our local governments when the state dissolved one of the key funding sources for affordable housing, The RDA's, is hypocrisy at it's finest. How can they expect the cities to create affordable housing with little to no funding sources? Well, we know how that has turned out so far. Now CASA expects cities to give up 20% of their future property tax incremental revenue so developers can come into single family neighborhoods and build stack and pack luxury housing with little to no BMR units and walk away with all the profit. High Tech, one of the cherry picked power brokers behind CASA and SB 50, are doing very little to build more affordable housing when they are the ones almost solely responsible for the jobs/housing issue. I would challenge anyone to compare the total annual revenue of all the cities in California against one major tech company such as Apple. You might be surprised. Unfortunately Scott Weiner and his YIMBY and WIMBY cohorts only see things in black and white. Life doesn't work that way. .....more to come!
Seems like we are being asked to pay higher taxes, deal with more traffic, rent control, and allow our cities to be Manhattanized all so the FANGS continue expanding? When did the purpose of government shift to that of allowing the unbridled expansion of a handful of businesses at the expense of its citizens?
Nathan, at least you said that you would “like” to see peninsula officials adopt similar language and urgency instead on saying they “must”. However, we elect our city officials to represent the citizens of our cities. We want them beholden to us and to carry out the will of the voters. I know that you might think that our cities are not at full capacity but many of us who have lived here for years do. Mandating housing and taxing citizens to pay for it is something that an oppressive and punitive government does. Fight state and regional officials who think they have the right to take away your rights, dilute your vote and shove policies down the collective throats of residents.
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