5 ms·

"We're attempting to take care of the needs of some of the neediest in our community at the same time we're trying to take care of the safety of those residents

"We're attempting to take care of the needs of some of the neediest in our community at the same time we're trying to take care of the safety of those residents who live in this community" I know I can get pretty fired up about zoning laws in the bay area but what a pile of utter horse shit. It's not a community when only the rich get to live in it. And the notion that this is a public safety issue is a complete lie. Just like every other zoning issue in the bay area this is an issue about rich jerks not wanting to see poor people. It's about exclusivity and segregation. Don't want people living in cars, maybe you should allow affordable housing to be built? To all the residents of the bay area. Wake up and realize that the bay area has grown in population and is now a dense urban environment. Build some dense urban housing and stop pretending that everyone can live in a house with a yard. As an example check out Ordinance No. 4101 from Palo Alto's zoning code: "To minimize the negative streetscape impact the construction of new two-story homes could have on established one-story neighborhoods, the Council, on July 13, 1992, adopted the Single-Story Height Combining District (S) regulations. The purpose of the ordinance was to preserve and maintain single-family living areas of predominately single-story character. The maximum building height in the "S" district is limited to 17 feet and a limit of one habitable floor. " Basically, to protect the view we need to not have affordable housing. That's the trade-off here. Density is ugly and we would rather pretend that we all still live in the 1970's. Or read this article: http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/07/29/palo-alto-mobile-homes http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/07/29/palo-alto-mobile-ho... Not everyone in Palo Alto is a millionaire yet. But pretty soon they'll have to be if they want to stay.

anigbrowl 13y ago
I'm particularly perplexed by the Libertarian Pacific Legal Group filing suit to prevent the implementation of a high-density housing plan for the Bay Area: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2013/08/06/legal-group-sues-to-stop-plan-bay-area.html?page=all http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2013/08/06/lega...
- NoPiece 13y ago
  What's perplexing about a libertarian group not wanting some regional agency imposing a housing plan on a city that doesn't want it?
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    The Libertarian Group is in Sacramento, and is trying to use State environmental law to prevent the local governments in the Bay area from cooperating on a plan to build high-density housing. I'm not sure which 'city' you're referring to here, as PLC isn't representing any particular city, and Sacramento (where they're based) isn't part of the Bay Area, not that that makes a huge difference legally speaking.
    - Shivetya 13y ago
      They are not the only group going after this development. Many smaller cities in the affected area also raised issues but their hands are tied. Even the Occupy movement doesn't like the PLC. Developer groups are against it in many areas as they have stated time and time again, high density housing of the type required is the domain of the wealthy and will not serve the purpose the PLC claims to address. It should not get a free pass because it sounds good. It takes away the ability of local government to determine what best use the land has under their domain. It tells builders what they have to build. It tells owners what they have to rent/sell for. It an attempt at one size fits all for an incredibly varied landscape. Let alone, the OP who brought up this groups complaint fails to address how the PLC would even begin to help the homeless in their cars. The PLC certainly isn't about fixing that. If people want to fix the homeless issue they are going to have to look away from city governments, across the country they are going out of their way to hide the homeless, drive them into the subs. The reason is simple, they don't have the money to deal with it and they don't see any benefit in keeping these people in town. The very party that runs most cities across the country, the very party that claims it wants to help the poor, only wants to do so provided they don't have to see them or live with them
      - anigbrowl 13y ago
        Even the Occupy movement doesn't like the PLC. The Occupy movement doesn't like anything except the sound of its own voice, which is why their internal meetings require 90% majorities to decide anything. Even semi-anarchist unions like the IWW don't impose such unworkable restrictions on their internal governance. I'm not sure what this 'PLC' you're referring to is. I'm talking about Plan Bay Area, which was put together by the Association of Bay Area Governments, an umbrella group of the 9 Bay Area county governments. It's not some external agency imposing its mandate on local governments, it is the local governments.
- deleted 13y ago
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NoPiece 13y ago
I don't get the obsession with density. Palo Alto is a small suburban town. People move there to get away from urban life and density. There is plenty of infill to be done in San Jose and San Francisco before you need to worry about Palo Alto.
- mahyarm 13y ago
  I think the large amount of traffic during rush hour around those highway exits say otherwise. Several megacorps with tens of thousands of employees each have campuses in the region. It's an artificial area kept artificially suburban in a long stretch of continuous suburbia.
  - NoPiece 13y ago
    That's not true - the largest "megacorp" in Palo Alto is HP and they only have around 2000 employees. The only employer with more than 10k is Stanford, and the only employer with more than 5,000 is the Stanford hospital. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto,_California#Top_employers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto,_California#Top_emplo...
    - mahyarm 13y ago
      I said the area, where they all share a similar development policy. You have to include Mountain View, Menlo Park and Sunnyvale. They are all contain Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Symantec, etc. Not to mention many several hundred employee companies such as Palantir and a bunch you haven't heard of.
      - NoPiece 13y ago
        You don't have to include them because they are separate cities with separate governments and separate growth plans. And they don't have similar development policies. Palo Alto is different from Mountain View which is different from Atherton. Mountain View has WalMart and Costco and Google. Palo Alto limits retail to 20k sqft, so there are no big box store or even supermarkets. Atherton just has a bunch of big houses. The differences are great - it lets people pick what the like and live there.
deleted 13y ago
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anigbrowl 13y ago

I'm particularly perplexed by the Libertarian Pacific Legal Group filing suit to prevent the implementation of a high-density housing plan for the Bay Area: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2013/08/06/legal-group-sues-to-stop-plan-bay-area.html?page=all http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2013/08/06/lega...

NoPiece 13y ago
What's perplexing about a libertarian group not wanting some regional agency imposing a housing plan on a city that doesn't want it?
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  The Libertarian Group is in Sacramento, and is trying to use State environmental law to prevent the local governments in the Bay area from cooperating on a plan to build high-density housing. I'm not sure which 'city' you're referring to here, as PLC isn't representing any particular city, and Sacramento (where they're based) isn't part of the Bay Area, not that that makes a huge difference legally speaking.
  - Shivetya 13y ago
    They are not the only group going after this development. Many smaller cities in the affected area also raised issues but their hands are tied. Even the Occupy movement doesn't like the PLC. Developer groups are against it in many areas as they have stated time and time again, high density housing of the type required is the domain of the wealthy and will not serve the purpose the PLC claims to address. It should not get a free pass because it sounds good. It takes away the ability of local government to determine what best use the land has under their domain. It tells builders what they have to build. It tells owners what they have to rent/sell for. It an attempt at one size fits all for an incredibly varied landscape. Let alone, the OP who brought up this groups complaint fails to address how the PLC would even begin to help the homeless in their cars. The PLC certainly isn't about fixing that. If people want to fix the homeless issue they are going to have to look away from city governments, across the country they are going out of their way to hide the homeless, drive them into the subs. The reason is simple, they don't have the money to deal with it and they don't see any benefit in keeping these people in town. The very party that runs most cities across the country, the very party that claims it wants to help the poor, only wants to do so provided they don't have to see them or live with them
    - anigbrowl 13y ago
      Even the Occupy movement doesn't like the PLC. The Occupy movement doesn't like anything except the sound of its own voice, which is why their internal meetings require 90% majorities to decide anything. Even semi-anarchist unions like the IWW don't impose such unworkable restrictions on their internal governance. I'm not sure what this 'PLC' you're referring to is. I'm talking about Plan Bay Area, which was put together by the Association of Bay Area Governments, an umbrella group of the 9 Bay Area county governments. It's not some external agency imposing its mandate on local governments, it is the local governments.
deleted 13y ago
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NoPiece 13y ago

I don't get the obsession with density. Palo Alto is a small suburban town. People move there to get away from urban life and density. There is plenty of infill to be done in San Jose and San Francisco before you need to worry about Palo Alto.

mahyarm 13y ago
I think the large amount of traffic during rush hour around those highway exits say otherwise. Several megacorps with tens of thousands of employees each have campuses in the region. It's an artificial area kept artificially suburban in a long stretch of continuous suburbia.
- NoPiece 13y ago
  That's not true - the largest "megacorp" in Palo Alto is HP and they only have around 2000 employees. The only employer with more than 10k is Stanford, and the only employer with more than 5,000 is the Stanford hospital. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto,_California#Top_employers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto,_California#Top_emplo...
  - mahyarm 13y ago
    I said the area, where they all share a similar development policy. You have to include Mountain View, Menlo Park and Sunnyvale. They are all contain Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Symantec, etc. Not to mention many several hundred employee companies such as Palantir and a bunch you haven't heard of.
    - NoPiece 13y ago
      You don't have to include them because they are separate cities with separate governments and separate growth plans. And they don't have similar development policies. Palo Alto is different from Mountain View which is different from Atherton. Mountain View has WalMart and Costco and Google. Palo Alto limits retail to 20k sqft, so there are no big box store or even supermarkets. Atherton just has a bunch of big houses. The differences are great - it lets people pick what the like and live there.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]