Editor,
The Daily Journal recently made readers aware that the Peninsula Health Care District plans to build hundreds of units of market-rate housing on the vacant parcel where Peninsula Hospital previously stood. Given that the land in question is publicly owned, how is this even remotely acceptable?
Public land is a precious resource, and given the rarity with which it becomes available, we must ensure that it is used in a manner that responds to our most pressing public needs. In the current environment, what the community most urgently needs is affordable housing. The unaffordability of housing has caused the widespread exodus of middle- and lower-income community members, many of whom are vital workers whose services are critical to making our community run.
If the intention of the PHCD is to build market rate units, how much would these units would rent for? At newly built apartment complexes nearby, one-bedroom apartments are renting for $3,500 to $4,000. How does this relate to the income of some of our community’s essential workers? Child care workers and home health aides both earn less than $3,000, EMTs and ambulance drivers less than $4,000, substance abuse counselors and pharmacy techs less than $5,000. None of these community members can afford $4,000 in rent. These are the people we most desperately need housing for.
On Monday, Nov. 26, PHCD will conduct a Town Hall to discuss its plans for this parcel of land. The meeting will be 7 p.m. in the Lane Room at the Burlingame Public Library. If you believe that maximum public benefit should be derived from public land, please attend to help ensure that the public is not shortchanged.
Karyl Eldridge
Burlingame
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(1) comment
These are good questions. Presumably the proceeds from the market rate apartment units will go toward providing adequate service for the healthcare district. That seems like a public benefit.
Similarly, providing apartments for rich folks to move into means that those rich folks are not bidding up the price of existing housing, and pushing out someone less fortunate. That too seems like a public benefit - preventing displacement of lower income individuals.
What I don't understand is why we have forced the below-market-rate units to compete with the market rate units. We can have plenty of both, by permitting more of both types of housing to be built on the property. This would also increase the revenue going to the healthcare district.
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