Editor,
The headline on the Daily Journal’s coverage of the demise of Senate Bill 1120 described the attempt to legalize duplexes across the state as “divisive.” But it wasn’t divisive to the state legislators who represent San Mateo County. All five of our representatives in Sacramento either co-authored the bill in the Senate (senators Jerry Hill and Scott Wiener) or voted “yes” in the Assembly (assemblymen Kevin Mullin, Phil Ting and Marc Berman).
Detached single-family homes are lovely, but they are the single most expensive housing type we have. In virtually all Peninsula cities, buying a single-family home costs in excess of $1 million, and in a number of them, like Burlingame, Menlo Park and Palo Alto, such homes cost $2 million or more. Needless to say, these homes are usually out of reach of the teachers, firefighters and nurses that our communities rely upon, to say nothing of the lower-paid essential workers who staff our grocery stores and take care of our senior citizens.
Allowing “missing middle” housing like duplexes across the Peninsula would add sorely-needed homes without drastically changing the look and feel of neighborhoods. Chances are that many of this paper’s readers pass duplexes every day that look almost identical to single-family homes. And renting half of a duplex is almost always more affordable.
Thank you, senators Hill and Wiener, for your vision on this issue. Peninsula city councils would be wise to follow your lead.
Mike Dunham
Burlingame
The letter writer is a lead with Peninsula for Everyone.
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(10) comments
Could not disagree more with the author. San Mateo residents don't want to make duplexes out of Single Family Residences. Why? because we don't want cars piling up on our streets. we don't want more congestion in our neighborhoods and we don't want the character of our neighborhoods to change. With rents coming down dramatically and more inventory coming on the market from new construction, let the market take care of itself. We must continue to fight people like this author who have no business coming into your town and tell your city what they must do. It is the height of arrogance.
Why is it not "his town?"
He is from Burlingame, not San Mateo.
So, the guy who wants to let people build a slightly different kind of structure on their own property is arrogantly telling people what they must do, while the guy who wants to make it LITERALLY ILLEGAL to build any kind of housing except what his personal vision calls for as the Suburban Lifestyle Dream is the brave protector of liberty? Hah! Too funny, tell another.
go build your duplexes in your own town, no one asked you to build them in my town. We have zoning laws, you might want to read up on them.
'we don't want the character of our neighborhoods to change.' ....wow Chris, you just revealed another racist side of yourself. Everybody knows what you mean by that statement. They should build more duplexes on streets off of West 20th ave.
I know very few people who enjoyed living in an apartment long term, a duplex is and apartment. Why would you build something people will eventually not want?
Seems like you are using extremely anecdotal information to decide what people do or don't want. There are a lot of duplexes on the peninsula - they are bought and sold just like all other property, and there's not a glut of them on sitting for sale on the market right now. So seems like people do want them.
If nobody wants to live in this kind of structure, then how come you have to make it LITERALLY ILLEGAL to build them? Surely if it is impossible to rent them out, nobody will bother with conversions.
In fact, lots of people are perfectly happy to live in a small multiplex. I lived in a grandfathered duplex in San Mateo for about six years. The owner's mom had duplexed it ages ago, in order to rent out half for income. You can see the property, right here:
https://goo.gl/maps/SgmE9UBrhmLYXkSa6
Can you tell the difference between that and the other houses around it?
The people in the other half of the duplex, for most of the years we were there, were a young couple who were starting a family. Nice folks.
We eventually moved out to become owners. We now live in a single family home at which we rent out two rooms to friends -- so we have a four adult household. If we duplexed the building, our two friends could have their own private space, but the experience for our neighbors would not change at all. On the other hand, if we added a second floor, or an ADU in back, to increase our residential space, that would be more noticeable. Those are both entirely legal right now.
Basically SB 1120 is about giving people more choices, and more rights to do with their own property as they see fit. It's "making normal neighborhoods legal again".
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/7/3/making-normal-neighborhoods-legal-again
The people you know and their housing preferences don't matter. What matters is that there is very little affordable housing. I have lived in San Carlos for 18 years in a studio.
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