Editor,
Peninsula residents are being forced to build high density housing units by the State which is now in a seven-year drought while Gov. Jerry Brown is selling our water supply to desert-built Southern California to build the peripheral canal — again.
The state is dictating how much should be built in our cities, yet California is purposefully defying Federal deportation laws and cannabis laws. So, why should we adhere to laws that will destroy our quality of life?
On South City’s 5.9-acre PUC site, four developers are vying to build an 8-15 story and up to 847 units at the El Camino Real/Chestnut Street corridor, next door to our new two-story Civic Center campus, while across the street is another 173-unit development. This development does not fit this area and will bring more traffic, more congestion and a loss of quality of life for all South City residents. Â
The city, using an outdated 2011 General Plan, and holding title to the property, is hiding behind this inane state law as it invites more corporations into our 65,000-resident city. The biotech corporations have run out two prospective developers offering 1,200 residential units at Oyster Point, an area with ample open space and million-dollar views, the perfect location for this high-density development.
Let’s join together, those that are being pushed up against the wall, to combat any development that is so high density it will destroy what little quality of life we can preserve.
I am not against residential development, but this development does not fit in this area that adjoins other established neighborhoods. Build it on the east side where the biotechs are saying NIMBY!
Cynthia Marcopulos
South San Francisco
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(12) comments
"a loss of quality of life for all South City residents"
South San Francisco has thousands of low-income renters who have seen their rents double in eight years, thanks to a housing shortage and increased competition for the apartments they live in. This has led to widespread displacement and gentrification. NIMBYism does not help the quality of life for these residents.
An entry level teacher makes about $52,000 a year. The cheapest apartment for rent anywhere in the city is $1850 a month. That's 55% of that teacher's after-tax income, add any additional cost burden like a child or a dependent senior or significant healthcare costs and things get dicey really quickly. The housing shortage has not helped that teacher have a good quality of life.
More housing would help the quality of life for these people by reducing competition for the apartments they live in and reducing displacement.
I believe what has caused the escalation of housing prices is the proximity to Silicon Valley and San Francisco. The Peninsula needs to vote for rent control. However the point of the article is NIMBY, but that this area which is already densely populated should be low-density as it will be 1,020 units times how many people times how many cars right next to the 2-story Civic Center and the 5-story car wash.
The vast amount of open space undeveloped land is on the east side, as the writer says, near the Biotech. This isn't the normal "east side, Kevin Burke" that you see in San Francisco in poor neighborhoods -- this has a harbor (Oyster Point) and million dollar views just begging to be developed into high density residential, but developers (two of them) were kicked out because the biotechs (Genentech is bringing in 10,000 more employees soon to its campuses) are the ones saying NIMBY when its the employees of these firms mainly who need housing.
South San Francisco has allowed lots of office buildings to be built east of Highway 101. Where should the people who work in those buildings live? It is unreasonable for cities to bring in jobs and then expect other cities to provide the housing. There should be a state law that requires that cities allow one unit of housing for every job. Hillsborough is under no obligation to allow high density housing because they don't allow office buildings. If you don't want population growth then don't allow commercial development.
Let's get real.... all of the new housing that has and is currently being built up and down the Peninsula is not aimed at providing housing for someone in this income bracket. Show me a new development that is affordable for a teacher?? I would also like to ask our cities if they have being keeping track of how many affordable units have actually been lost due to new development?
Building more housing is benefiting the pockets of few and making life miserable for all!
Building more housing (especially near high-capacity transit lines) definitely isn't making life more miserable for all. In fact, it's proven to reduce traffic and rental prices. San Mateo County has drastically underbuilt for decades. In order to catch up, we have to make huge strides, and we have to make them quickly. The PUC site is an absolutely perfect place for a project of this nature and is a step in the right direction.
Please provide $$$ examples of which units are affordable near transit??
Every new development proposed on the Peninsula that I know of includes an affordable housing component. For example, one of the proposals for the development site this op-ed discusses provides 162 affordable/BMR units. More importantly, though, every unit we add increases the area's meager supply, forcing property management companies and landlords to compete for tenants by lowering rents.
jbennett: The cost of housing is a function of supply and demand. The demand is high because the supply is low. The only solution is to build more housing until there is an equilibrium between jobs and housing in San Mateo County. If we only allow "affordable" housing there will be long lines of people waiting years to get a place to live. Only an increase in supply will solve the problem.
The biggest drag on quality of life for renters is the astronomical rent they have to shell out every month to live here. We can't just keep say "I'm not against housing, BUT..." because that's the exact attitude that created the housing crisis. High density housing near mass transit is exactly what's needed to tackle both our housing and our traffic problems.
So Ms Marcopulos believes that people who live out in Mountain House, but commute to Silicon Valley, use less water than those who move into denser apartments in Silicon Valley? Even though the ones out in Mountain House probably have yards, whereas folks in condos or apartments would not? (And that's leaving aside how the long commutes contribute to climate change, which drives our water problems.)
"Let's inconvenience long time residents with higher density and over crowding and is there anyway we can make them pay for it too", said the progressive just coming to our city within the last 2 years.
If SSF and the County at large want to reap the benefits of massive job growth and office space additions (i.e. enormous increases in tax revenue to fund city operations, new revenue streams for existing businesses, etc.), then they must be required to build homes for those people. It's that simple. Nothing to do with 'progressive' or 'conservative' either.
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