ABAG housing allotment ‘unlikely to change’

It will be interesting to see how the Planning Commission and the City Council spin this–on the one hand demanding that Stanford build housing, while on the other hand trying to get out of it’s requirement to build more housing.

Despite the negativity of the Mike-Marvin pas de deux, the Planning Commission is very interesting to watch. Every one of the commissioners is knowledgeable and serious. I find it educational. Even enjoyable, if you enjoy learning about a subject that’s outside your expertise. That’s saying a lot about a city meeting.
And the chair keeps a polite, but tight rein on any tendency to speechify. That is a real talent in a chairperson.
Unlike other city meetings, I don’t get the urge to escape. Every commissioner has something to add (unlike the council where some take the opportunity to talk about themselves or blow smoke).
I wish other commissioners would watch them and learn how a city commission should operate.

The key statement is:

“If the city doesn’t comply, it could lose state grants such a $1 million it is currently receiving to help with the proposed Alma Street affordable housing project, Chief Planning and Transportation Official Julie Caporgno said.”

Translation: If we just say “no”, we will lose the ability to get subsidies for even more BMRs. So what? We don’t need (or want) BMRs.

Just say no.

Mary: “Please list five places in Palo Alto where you would put some of this housing, three places where you would put new super markets to feed the new – and old – residents, and new acreage to expand the schools or build new ones. Will there be high-rises, and if so how high? Transportation? Will there be a law stating that there can only be one auto per household? What kind of auto? Can Palo Alto refuse to pay any tax for the VTA and plow it into our own bus system? How many more police and fire personnel would we need – and how many more public safety vehicles? From where is the money coming to pay for all of this? I’m not arguing with your point of view or disputing it. I just want to know your solutions for your point of view. “

Mary, Much of this has been gone over on prior threads.

Housing? Start with the California Avenue Corridor, followed by the southern border where PA meets Mt. View. Then we could look at housing over retail (this might satisfy your need for supermarket space) btw, are you aware that the average size for a market is 49,000 sq. ft. but some vocal Palo Altans won’t let those spaces go past 20,000 sq. ft. – so whose fault is it that we don’t have more market space? Consider that we could up our height limitations by one or two stories – say 15-20 feet. That would take some of the land pressure off.

El Camino is ripe for further development. We could make El Camino a very nice boulevard, with wide sidewalks and more shopping (and even narrower streets). Why not talk to some developers about this idea? How about bringing the state into the conversation?

Schools? Go to multiple stories. San Mateo and Los Gatos have done this, with great success. Why not Palo Alto?

Money? That comes from all our new citizens, and all the business that they bring. It comes from a revitalized series of small neighborhood commercial centers, serving those neighborhoods, and well-integrated with housing. It comes from the added social capital and contributions of new residents.

Transportation? We don’t want to mandate one car; this isn’t Soviet Russia. That said, there is a lot more that we can do to get people out of their cars. Why aren’t we talking to other municipalities in our region to push forward a coordinated mass transport effort that lights up the enthusiasm of our citizens?

What I keep hearing from too many people around here are the words “we can’t do it”. That’s not how this city, or this region, were built. That’s not how this city, or this region, will remain sustainable.

“Money? That comes from all our new citizens, and all the business that they bring. It comes from a revitalized series of small neighborhood commercial centers, serving those neighborhoods, and well-integrated with housing. It comes from the added social capital and contributions of new residents.”

Let’s see. ABAG’s mandate is that half of the new housing we build will be subsidized Below Market Rate housing. So we’re going to get the money to build the BMR housing, the infrastructure, the schools, and etc from these “new citizens”…half of whom will live in the very same BMR housing we subsidize.

Sounds like an economic perpetual motion machine to me. The more we build, the more new citizens we get and the more money they bring….

I agree with John, but I think he left a key phrase:

“It also states that the city would need to provide a $375 million to $500 million subsidy to pay for the 1,875 affordable units.”

Yes, John, “Just say no!”

The logical place to build all these BMR units is East Meadow Circle. The City has already proposed that the empty commercial buildings be torn down and housing units be built there. Remember the Charette we all went to about a year ago on the future of East Meadow Circle when the Planning Department proposed thousands of housing units for those sites.

Where would they go shopping? Mountain View of course.

Where would the children go to school? Reopen Greendell and Cubberley.

It’s really amusing to see the same old arguments posted with the same old tired cynicism. It’s especially amusing to watch the same old tired jokes about where to put housing.

For the life of me, I can’t imagine anyone taking these anti-housing proponents seriously. Their arguments are rationalized by statements like “”Just say no!” and “ABAG housing in Monroe Park neighborhood”. These statements are really from the brightest bulbs in the bunch.

One thing to note in all the thread about housing is the “just say no” stance that this vocal minority puts out there. It would be more compelling if they said more than “no”, but that’s all they have going for them.

Even when someone proposes a way to accommodate housing in a novel way (e.g. housing above retail), it just goes over their heads, because they’re not thinking about “novel” anything. They’re stuck in a nostalgic past, looking beyond possibility, and focused on the rear view mirror that shows “the good old days”.

btw, I have yet to see ONE young person (under 35) at City Council meetings railing about “too much growth”. Could it be that young families moving into town support the growth that afforded many of them with an opportunity to live here?

Much of the ABAG housing is suppose to be allocated to moderate, and below moderate income households. These units would fall under the BMR program, and would be eligible to either those who live in Palo Alto or work in Palo Alto.

If they are qualified because they live in Palo Alto, it seems unfair that Palo Alto should be subsidizing someone else’s workers.
Similarly, if they are qualifed because they work in Palo Alto, why should Palo Alto be subsizing housing for corporations like HP, or the big law firms, or chains like Cheesecake Factory? Shouldn’t those firms pay their worker sufficient wages to afford housing? and if those corporations choose to locate somewhere else, wouldn’t that help to solve our jobs/housing imbalance?

Henry, Toddlers say “no” all the time. Do you listen to them? Point made.

We need maturity in measured decision making, which means not listening to citizens who have been spoiled as a vocal minority over these past years.

It’s stunning to see all those who wave the “green” flag cop out on the reducing the largest component of carbon emissions – i.e. emissions from commuting.

This will be an interesting debate to follow, and participate in. Certainly, we’re going to get a very good look at what those who have been hollering “I support green initiatives” are made of, when it comes to “walking the talk”.

Sashok and Mike are right. San Francisco is building 30 and 40 story residential structures south of Market as fast as developers can write permit applications. There’s no reason Palo Alto, with its copious open space and low rise corridors can’t outdo San Francisco, take our share of the growing Bay Area population, and save the environment at the same time. The small minded nostalgic vocal minority of oldtimers in town can’t grasp the glorious future to come. When Palo Alto was mostly fields and fruit orchards, few could imagine that we’d have 60,000 residents. Only the visionaries in town can see the future when we have hundreds of thousands or even millions of residents living in harmony with our environment and with one another.

Sashok is right, let’s lift our height limits now and get moving toward the future!

Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) goal is a to even out the benefits. Palo Alto with its extra resources, due to rich residents, will be burdened with extra number of BMR units, which will fill up first with people wanting cheap good schooling for their kids.

The schools will get worse, the community poorer, (more people less per capita revenue) and Palo Alto will no longer be such a rich ghetto.

If you have paid a fortune for your house here, this is not what you want to happen. However fair it is.

Palo Altos future will be more like everywhere else.

One factor that bears on this discussion is the means by which affordable housing is typically generated in Palo Alto, i.e., via “inclusionary zoning,” whereby developers construct affordable units as part of market-rate developments. On parcels of less than 4 acres, 15% of units must be affordable; on larger parcels, 20% must be affordable. Readers will see that the actual number of units “needed” to generate 1,875 affordable units via inclusionary zoning would be a whopping 9,375, assuming a 20% yield.
Even to generate ABAG’s allocation of 641 “moderate” units would mean 3,205 total units — to satisfy this subset of affordable units alone. If the city subsides the rest — at $400K-$500K per unit — we’d be looking at a total of 4,439 new units and a substantial new demand on scarce city funds.
Total population growth? The standard multiplier of residents per household is 2.7. Readers can do the math and envision the monumental impacts that growth of this scale would bring. Car trips alone would mushroom: each housing units brings 6-10 car trips per day, with only 2-4 of these job related (calling into question the assertion that building homes near jobs reduces car trips).
Yes, it’s time for Palo Altans to challenge pro-growth state policy, as seen in our outsized ABAG allocation.

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You know something is seriously wrong with housing when a $300K cottage in Downtown North sells 5 years later for $1.3M (in 2007). We’ve become a City of NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything). We need more innovative housing. Housing above retail. Housing near transit. Housing near JOBS. However one looks at it, the status quo can’t survive. The loss of $1M for BMR housing is chump change – watching the City get sued by low-income housing advocates for not building enough BMR housing is quite another. Just ask Pleasanton.

There’s more to statistics that the face value they present. In fact, the *context* within statistics are presented, and the *range of options* considered within that context, can make a statistic appear one way in one setting, and altogether another way in another.

More than a few residents are familiar with the numbers you present, but you have presented them in the way that is most liable to raise unreasonable fear about new homes, and therefore, the residents that would occupy them.

Note that the no-growth contingent is talking here about *keeping people out of Palo Alto*. That’s the bottom line. What potential resident does any one of the no-growth contingent want to face, and say “you can’t live here, because we’re full”?

Getting back to the ABAG numbers, there is no doubt that the projections are there, but why aren’t those projections countered with innovative alternatives that would accommodate the ABAG request, or some large percentage of that request?

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What about the jobs/housing imbalance here, and the commuter trips that that imbalance causes? What about the carbon load from those commuter trips.

This evening’s City Council meeting will present a number of purchasing and other tactics that will reduce our intra-municipal carbon load by 5%, almost immediately – and by another 20% by 2012. I expect our green oriented City Council to approve these tactics with glowing praise.

But what about that elephant in the room? What about the 40% of pollution caused by car trips? What about the *extra-municipal* pollution that our high job count brings? What about THAT? Will our “Green” City Council grab that difficult bull by the horns?
I can quote carbon load numbers; and health impacts from pollution; and diseases caused by commuter-induced stress; and raw inefficiencies caused at the organizational level by excess commuting, and so on. Why doesn’t Ms. White balance out her position with those numbers?

[Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

We just don’t see that happening. Where is the leadership on this issue? So far, the only leaders are those saying “no” to growth, and valuable new residents.

We can’t have it both ways, and shouldn’t. Either we praise ourselves for being “cutting edge” in terms of reducing carbon load (as one Council person has put it), or we’re not. We can chip away with the easy wins – like buying recycled paper, leasing lower emission vehicles, requiring LEED standards for buildings, etc. etc. These are easy things to implement, and popular with voters.

That said, our refusal to do *everything* we can (even though it may cause some initial sacrifice and pain) to meet the FAR more dangerous and insidious pollutants generated via our jobs/housing imbalance make everything we do look like so much “greenwashing” (a term that is used to describe the actions of a company, government, or other organization which advertises positive environmental practices while acting in the opposite way).

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We are asking Stanford to pony up housing for its job growth, while refusing to meet that same standard for jobs *that are already here*. We are praising ourselves to the high heavens about how liberal, and green, Palo Alto is – while at the same time creating a fear-filled scenario about how much new citizens cost, instead of the benefits that they bring, as we shuck and dive our responsibilities to our neighbors, and our own citizens.

Mike asserts,

“Like I said above, we’re going to find out what our city’s policy makers and citizen leaders are really made of in the next two years. If our city’s leaders don’t come through on this, certain powers-that-be are going to right after some mof the “favored city” advantages that we hold, starting with Basic Aid for PAUSD. Do we want that?”

In contrast, my posts rely on facts (not assertions) that can be independently verified. Toomorrow I’ll address the incorrect inferences that some, including Mike, make in their assertions regarding carbon loading.

[Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]
One could easily take your narrowly-focused, data-point-based analysis, and apply it to a 1950-1960 scenario, when Palo Alto’s population expanded at a greater rate than is currently projected (we more than doubled our population in ten years). We adapted quite nicely to that.

By 2030 we’re projected to have just over 80,000 people. Starting at 1980, that’s only a 45% population increase in **50** years. Why worry?

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Could it be that some Palo Altans want to enjoy the benefits of a high job index, but want others to pay the environmental cost for our “quality of life”? Why isn’t there a clarion call innovate new solutions to the coming population juggernaut, instead of a retreat into “protectionism”, based on city limits?

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As stated prior, we’re going to find out whether Palo Alto is all that it claims to be. Will our legacy be one of a city that got rich by dumb luck, and then turned the other way when the going got rough; or, will our legacy be that we hunkered down and led this Valley to a new resurgence, hand-in-hand, with the private sector?

Henry,

We are building in at normal rates. The no-growthers have been complaining about that for years, as they continue to complain about future projected growth.

and

Editor, why did you cut quotes form ABAG reports and citizen commentary that *clearly* show 1) Ms. White’s position to run directly against Palo Alto’s responsibility to manage the carbon load that emanates from its jobs/housing imbalance, and 2) her refusal to include variables that clearly show how “car trip” numbers are managed by other cities, in terms of carbon load.

Ms. White is touting her use of accurate data; I’m questioning her use of that data to make a point that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny in the REAL experience of many other cities.

for instance:
“”..development plan of dense transit corridors along with a plan to

phase in Bus Rapid Transit on major corridors that eventually will

convert into a Busway and around existing transit centers plan dense

TODs. **Curitiba redeveloped high density corridors where prior to its

development transit had only a 7% mode share but after the development

of dense corridors with buses operating on Busways the mode share

increased to 70%**”

Why did you edit that out?

There were other points made, as well.

The only consequence to ignoring ABAG is the loss of some state funding which would not cover the costs, financial and environmental, of following this out-of-date mandate. (Calculated before the subprime crisis began to spread to prime loans as well.)

The most conscientious step Palo Alto could take with respect to its regional neighbors is to stop adding new condos while they try to stabilize their falling home prices.

Competing with cities facing streets or blocks with multiple foreclosures is arrogant, destructive, and very short-sighted. Overall, the median price of California homes fell 13.4%, as of last month. 94304 is one of the zip codes needing to stabilize home prices because of foreclosures.

Palo Alto shares that zip code with East Palo Alto, which is actually closer to many job centers in this area than, say, Palo Alto Hills, or the furthest reaches of Barron Park.

With the exception of new housing specifically on Stanford land, for Stanford’s Medical Center, any new housing we add makes our neighbors’ problems more severe. Until we have median prices for sale of condos, we won’t even know if Palo Alto’s prices are sinking. Comparables are the gold standard for retail prices, and our single family homes tend to be different enough to make comparables dicey.

Build it, and they may not buy it. We’ll still have costs over contributions by the builders for utilities and storm drains and streets.

Palo Alto has often lost money, pursuing state or federal funding, getting it, then spending far more than anticipated or covered.

Instance: the bike tunnel to Palo Alto Medical Foundation. Wasn’t that supposed to be covered by a grant? If I remember, the cost was millions more – at least $3,000,000. It was more than double, it was poorly planned, since it didn’t have to go before the voters, and traffic safety corrections aren’t included in the cost, but should be.

This is what will happen if Palo Alto goes after ABAG. We’ll get a little more state money, and we’ll spend much, much more.

“Also, where is the benefit metrics shown for new residents? It’s NOT THERE! Why is this information missing, as if new residents are only a cost burden?”

Ok, I’ll bite. What are the cost “benefits” of BMR residents – who by definition cannot afford the market rate, including taxes, that others in town pay? They will be driving on local roads, sending kids to local schools, using other local infrastructure, etc. – so I think I understand the “cost burden”. Not to sound insensitive, but if they’re paying less of the common expenses of their residency in Palo Alto, exactly what is the “benefit metric” of low income people?

How many of the current Palo Alto BMR units are occupied by Palo Alto teachers?

When asked a year or so ago, the answer of the city’s BMR coordinator was “None that I know of”.

Anyone have other information to the contrary?

“BMR” is a misnomer, because the price of the units cannot be determined by the market. These units are allowed to be smaller than other units in the project, and less desirably situated. They are not supposed to be of inferior construction. I believe the interior finish is required to be equal, but I’m not sure.

The formula is determined by federal law, and is based upon the needs of the mortgage industry. Specifically, Fannie Mae’s requirements for a qualifying mortgage.

We might provide housing for people who work in the city if Palo Alto itself were to go into the mortgage business.

Some high-priced housing areas, including ours, have earned an upward adjustment in the formula for setting the price. I’ve no idea what is going to happen in the near term, as major lenders (Wells Fargo Bank) turn out to have had risky standards for their prime loans.

The ill wind of the subprime crisis might possibly blow us some really affordable housing, out of the resale market.

Not to quibble with Mike, who clearly is the smartest guy here by far, but don’t we get the “transferred social benefits” of teachers teaching thousands of kids whether they live in BMR housing or not?

Last time I checked, PAUSD wasn’t having difficulty hiring teachers without the ABAG BMR’s. So it seems to me that whatever benefits we get from teachers, we don’t need to spend more on BMR’s to attract them. Maybe we should put the BMR money into improving the schools in some other, more effective, way.

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DEVELOPERS pay for BMR units, not our city. THAT’s a FACT.

For instance, how much did it cost our city for the 34 BMR units put into the old Hyatt-Ricky’s location? Answer: NOTHING (except the egregious delay costs brought about by those opposed to more housing, Ms. White among them)

How does that compare with Ms. White’s claim of $400-500K per BMR unit?

How about the various funds created by development impact fees. The DEVELOPERS are the ones that pay for these units. [Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

It’s true that for very low income (almost all rental) units built by non-profits, the city has a tradition of offering some financial help, along with state, federal and private subsidies – but PA’s contributions to those builds are *voluntary*.

So, where is Ms. White getting this number from?

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Is the city paying for BMR housing, or isn’t it? If the claim is made that it is how is it that we’ve only paid for a *tiny fraction* (if that) of BMR units which are, in reality, sold to buyers other than the city – even though the city has the right to buy them, and almost never does).

ABAG does not expect cities to pay for BMR units. Mike’s posts on this point are correct. ABAG and the state ARE asking cities including Palo Alto to plan sites for BMR units. If we have a good argument for ABAG it will only come after we put a good faith effort into the Housing Element update to see what we can do if we really try.

Karen has a good point about housing and commuting although it leads to the opposite answer from where she ends up. It is absolutely true that the major travel benefits from building more housing in PA will probably come from reducing non-work trips. But this is an argument FOR allowing more housing in areas like downtown where residents can walk instead of drive for many non work trips. And it is also true that buildign more housing in PA is likely to shorten commute trips as well.

All the arguments about schools and money are true for low and moderate income housing but they do not provide a rationale other than NIMBY for pushing low and moderate income housing onto other cities just so we can avoid our share of addressing a serious regional and social challenge.

Sharon,

If the city chose to pay for all the BMR units, it could cost that amount. But ABAG does not expect cities to pay for the units and that has not been the practice to date.

ABAG, which is a voluntary association of Bay Area cities, IS concerned about the challenges of providing housing for low and moderate income residents. And it is true that ABAG has a policy of asking cities to plan for and encourage development of this housing.

But any implication that ABAG expects Palo Alto (or any of the other cities all of which have low income housing allocations) to pay for and build all the units is misleading and deserves to be characterized as a scare tactic.

Sharon, the subsidy is the cost of schools for the children in those units, increase in utility infrastructure, wear and tear on existing roads, libraries, parks, etc. No one could build these units at $200,000 each, which would produce the $300,000 figure. Nor could most Bay Area cities buy the units at the higher figure at present construction and land costs. (But just wait. The real estate recession has just begun.)

For the last fifty years, the argument for economic growth has been for retail growth, which yields a net return in sales tax revenue. In some cities, office development is taxed, so that it at least is economically neutral.

Residential growth, even in single-family houses, is a net economic cost, a tax on existing residents. The arguments that Bern Beecham and Steve Levy have made recently are that Palo Alto has a moral obligation to make the economic and quality of life sacrifice that fruther residential growth will require. Bern Beecham went even further than Steve Levy, maintaining that all of us living here are a net loss to the city because of the services we want, so it’s wrong of us to complain about new residences, just because they’ll be a greater loss.

Bern forgot to allow for inflation, or for the many years over which we’ve paid for the structures and parks and schools, but at least he knew, and acknowledged, that advocates of residential growth are asking for a taxpayer subsidy.

I don’t see how the subsidy can be accurately calculated. Not that it isn’t real, but the further out into the future it’s estimated, the fuzzier the figures. Also, infrastructure can’t be purchased incrementally. An additional child who can be fitted into an existing school is a net gain in income. When the increase requires the district to add schools, the net gain becomes a very large loss. It’s the same with power stations, storm drains, streets.

What is incremental is the increase in City staff. Council could control that, but unfortunately, staff management keeps increasing, while we really need more employees at the working level.

One point that should be highlighted is that to the extent we do not subsidize the construction of affordable units, the way they are generated is through inclusionary zoning – using the formula that four market-rate units are built to yield one affordable one (with the market-rate units essentially subsidizing the affordable). It is under this scenario that developers “pay for” affordable units — but it is by building five times the the number of affordable units in toto (4 x market rate units + 1 x affordable units).
Thus to yield 1,875 affordable units via inclusionary zoning (without City subsidy) would be a whopping 9,375 new units total, assuming a 20% yield. And yes, this number would mean monumental growth that could not be supported by either our services or infrastructure. It’s easy to see why some who post are uncomfortable with these growth calculations, but the numbers are valid.
To generate ABAG’s allocation of 641 “moderate” units through inclusionary zoning, as has been the practice here, would mean 3,205 total units merely to generate this subset of affordable units. If the city subsides the balance — at $400K-$500K per unit net capital cost — we’d be looking at a total of 4,439 new units and a substantial new demand on scarce city funds, not to mention unsupportable new strain on our obsolete infrastructure.
I’m not saying there are easy answers, but we should recognize what the facts are.

Pete, So you don’t pay have to pay taxes if you choose because they cause “financial harn” and it is ok to ignore laws becasue they are passed by so-called “bureaucrats”. Or you run red lights when you choose because traffic laws are imposed by so-called “bureaucrats”.

Are we free to choose to break any laws we wish because laws are passed by bureaucrats?

If you think BMR requirements are bad law, try to get the law changed. Otherwise how about trying to obey the rules even when you don’t like them.

Is that what you want Palo Alto to become–the city that ignores any policy or law that it doesn’t like? Why does being able to afford a house in Palo Alto give us any special rights when it comes to obeying the law, which in this case is to make a good faith effort to find sites for 2,800+ new housing units in our Housing Element update?

C Mullen: “The real estate recession has just begun”

Another scare tactic. Please, speak with any real estate analyst worth her salt, and you’ll find that Palo Alto real estate is “golden”. It’s not going down, recession or no recession. the only thing that will happen here is that the rate of increase in value may slow down.

Pete Averil: “If companies can’t hire workers locally, they’ll expand somewhere else. But so what?! “

So what? Go ask regional significant corporate leaders that same question; they’re scared to death about the rise in housing costs here, and what that means to their businesses, and their ability to attract employees (and other new businesses).

Put Silicon Valley on your trajectory of rejecting a significant increase in residents here, and Carol Mullen’s scare tactic about housing values falling just might come true. Are you even remotely aware of the competition juggernaut that the region will face in the next 5-20 years, and how the lack of affordable housing will create massive opportunity cost losses? The ignorance, and narrow thinking on this issue is just plain stunning.

I don’t even want to think about the consequences to our city’s schools )and our pocketbooks) is we don’t put forth the good faith effort to meet ABAG requirements that Steve Levy is calling for. How much will it cost us if we lose Basic Aid? That’s another cost that those who are thumbing their noses at ABAG haven’t even begun to consider.

As usual, the anti-growth contingent is suggesting strategies that will COST Palo Alto FAR more than taking on new residents in numbers that meets our responsibility to the rest of the Valley, and the environment.

Donnie’s suggestion that Palo Alto withdraw from ABAG really appeals to me as a good first step in getting our fiscal house in order. This is a layer of government that’s lost all direction. There are many higher priorities than giving their employees a job. Six months’ notice?

I wonder if the people working for ABAG live near their place of work?

Please note the internet links included in my Guest Opinion on this topic (http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story.php?story_id=6304. An excerpt follows (and apologies for the repeat):

“Let’s look at some of the influences on policy in Sacramento. The California Building Industry Association (CBIA) — the “official voice” of 6,500 member companies — outlines its mission on its Web site: http://www.cbia.org/index.cfm?pageid=425.

It lists a “top ten” set of reasons to join, one of which is to improve a firm’s bottom line. But the number-one reason to join is: “Advocacy. Our lobbyists work year-round in Washington, D.C., Sacramento, and your community to promote the homebuilding industry and protect your livelihood.”
Another influential organization, Home Builders of America, Northern California (HBANC) has a political action committee. The committee’s purposes, according to HBANC’s Web site (www.hbanc.org are to “identify local and state elected officials and candidates for office of the State of California who have supported the political and economic interests of the California building industry, or who are or may be in a position to support those interests, and to make financial contributions to their campaign funds, and to participate, where consistent, with the objectives of HBANC, in local, regional, or statewide ballot measures and issues campaigns.”
State policies appear to reflect building-industry objectives while ignoring costly infrastructure backlogs that exist right now.
The Division of Housing Policy Development, part of the State Department of Housing and Community Development (www.hcd.ca.gov describes its own work as follows:
“HPD also administers state housing element law, including the review of local general plan housing elements; prepares numerous state plans and reports and conducts research to facilitate housing development and improvement, including an annual report on redevelopment agencies housing activities; and provides a wide range of technical assistance to local governments, public and private housing providers, business and industry groups, housing advocates and interested citizens.” .)
The top “Strategic Objective” of the state Department of Housing and Community Development is to “Increase housing supply by strengthening the effectiveness of housing law as a tool to reduce local regulatory barriers.” Performance measures include introduction, approval and passage of legislation; the number of stakeholder groups who support the legislation; and higher issuance of building permits in compliance with housing element law.” (www.hcd.ca.gov
So the state DHCD intends to 1) increase housing supply and 2)reduce our authority to control our own destiny, imposing top-down unfunded mandates that seem to closely reflect the wishes of the building industry.
The crux of my concern on this issue: we lack the fiscal and facility resources to keep up with the population we have now, much less accommodate the pace of growth being pushed at the state level. Mike, Steve and others can talk all they want — but no one with regulatory authority is talking about a “good faith effort.”

“we lack the fiscal and facility resources to keep up with the population we have now, much less accommodate the pace of growth being pushed at the state level”

We do *not* lack the fiscal and facility resources to serve our present and future populations. The only thing we’re lacking in Palo Alto is political will, held back by those whose desire it is to freeze Palo Alto in time.

Regulatory authorities mandating population growth? Laughably absurd. They are attempting to manage growth that – like it or not – our region is going to experience over the next few decades. (a 20-25% growth in population)

Ms. White, Carol Mullen, Donnie are now putting forward outsized conspiracy theories about “authorities”, to keep Palo Alto from fulfilling its obligations to its own citizens, neighboring communities, and the environment. Any serious look at the no-growth arguments reveals a tendency toward an unwillingness to share the consequences of growth that Palo Alto has been fortunate enough to enjoy. That’s unfortunate, and shrinks from the possibilities that remain dormant in this potentially great city.

Here are some good and bad examples of development
http://www.planetizen.com/node/27897#comments

Here’s an article showing how it’s necessary to bring housing in closer to – and into – town.
We have to build new housing, period. There is no other way out.
http://www.planetizen.com/node/27897#comments

The poster above who referenced bureaucratic “fatal conceit” is really on to something. I just spent a half hour perusing the ABAG website. http://www.abag.ca.gov/

I was both appalled and alarmed at the level of control the ABAG people think they can and should assert over our cities and our lives. I was equally shocked at the hubris displayed in the various “predictions” about the future in the several reports referenced on the site.

Carol Mullen’s paean about the end of local government is not an exaggeration if one reads the AGAG site critically and literally. The only reason there isn’t more outcry about this gross usurpation of local control and governance has to be that most people aren’t paying attention to this shadowy bureaucratic creation, and the designs it has on our futures.

We have great reason to suspect the ability of planners at any level of government to accurately accommodate the future. But at least when planning is done at the local level, residents who know most about local conditions and have reason to care most about their communities, have direct input into the process. When detailed “planning” about population growth, income distributions of new residents and types of housing allowed are done by a remote body like ABAG, we’re smart to be wary of what we might get.

When residents of Bay Area communities become aware of what ABAG is up to, they apparently are as upset as I have become reading the ABAG plans. http://www.knightsenpress.com/article.cfm?articleID=874, http://www.ptreyeslight.com/stories/nov22_01/housing_updated.html, http://www.marinij.com/fastsearchresults/ci_5012149, http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2007/04/26/news/local/doc46303f389bee4649176151.txt,

Don’t take my word for it. Go to the ABAG website and see for yourself what these hubristic planners have in store for us. We need to thank Karen White and Carol Mullen for spreading the alarm on this.

We need to impress on our council the need to fight this. And any councilmembers who want to give in to the blandishments of real estate developers, corporate shills (like some on this thread), and social Utopians need to be reminded that recall remains an option.

I don’t think Palo Altans will stand for this.

The City Council will discuss its response to ABAG at its meeting Monday, 12/10. If you’d like to share your views directly with our elected officials before then, so they will have time to consider your thoughts before the meeting, please email city.council@cityofpaloalto.org.
Readers can also email a Letter to the Editor of the Weekly, editor@paweekly.com and Daily, letters@dailynewsgroup.com.

There’s information to use in the letters to City Council Karen White requests, compiled by someone who hasn’t yet posted in this thread.

Here is the link to Elaine Meyer’s list of projects already built or approved in Palo Alto. She has put it up with the review comments of Palo Alto’s Planning Department.

http://elainesneighborspace.blogspot.com/

Those whose primary concern is the school district really need to review what Elaine Meyer has organized and map it onto current elementary school boundaries. What’s built or approved is going to have a brutal impact on the schools; one that money can’t fix.

“Having PA drop out of ABAG does not relieve PA of its obligations any more than saying you don’t support the war in Iraq relieves you of the obligation to pay taxes.”

Very true, but you won’t find a resonance with that reality, here. The NIMBYs have no idea how hot it’s going to get. There are chips on the table, and one of those chips is labeled “Basic Aid”.

If those who are so inclined toward ‘exclusionary’ zoning win the NIMBY wars, our Basic Aid status *will* be threatened, and most likely, lost.

City policy and PAUSD policy makers had better put their heads together and think *really* hard about this one, because given the forward pressures re: population/housing that this state is going to experience, those municipalities who don’t pony up for their share of the impact on growth will be offered various – shall we say – disincentives to their propensity to selfishness. Just desserts.

Either we find a way to put forth the *best* effort we can to accommodate *our share* of the consequences of growth, or there will be lobbied efforts to bring on consequences.

The tone of much of the support for ABAG on these forums is personally troubling. I’ve seen it argued over-and-over (albeit probably by a single poster)

#1. The rich and powerful are going to bring “magnum force” against any residents who dare to stand in the way of this i.e. expensive lawsuits targeting private citizens, state-level punitive actions, trying to damage PAUSD by removing Basic Aid (The only sensible school funding component of prop 13)

#2. Its our “responsibility” to the region and the environment. Right now seems the environment card is being played as the strong card … but the growth-centric emphasis here is about economic growth, not about saving the environment. Build more housing and they will come, cheaper labor and credit-card happy consumers …but its not going to cause people to abandon settlements in Gilroy, Fremont, Tracy. Houses there are still going to be bigger and much cheaper … so we will definitely have more commuter traffic from outlying areas, AND much more local pollution. What is going to lead us the way of the dinosaurs is the unquestioned assumption that economic stability can only come from steadily increasing population rather than innovation and improved efficiency.

#3. Name-calling anyone who doesn’t agree that more denser housing is a positive for everyone (NIMBY, parochial, no-growther, selfish, etc)

#4. everyone is missing the point … mass transit can solve the problems with central planning and the new residents will cover all the school/infrastructure costs. We’re all going to love living in tigher quarters with all our friends.

Mass transit can help … but ABAG is pushing to build housing and bring in more people way before any of these to be discovered transit solutions could be implemented. Anyone think we’ll be able to really use public transit on a daily basis within 7 years, 10 years, … ? So you’re talking about perhaps decades of much local environmental degradation until real transit solutions can come to pass. i.e. densify first, then figure out how to deal with the problems later (maybe). I do agree it might work (in a particularly unpleasant way) …make the traffic /pollution problem so bad, it will drive people to look for alternative transit solutions. Having lived in Manhatten, I can vouch for the fact that there are conditions where anything is better than driving a personal car.

If new residents in high-density housing are just a boon to the municipal coffers, how come Bay Area governments aren’t out protesting that they’ve been given too small a share of the housing assignments?

#5. Fairness … Sorry Steve Levy, I respect you for keeping your posts more level-headed, but this is a hard argument to make seriously since anyone can justifiably ask, fair to whom?

From the perspective of a resident it is nearly inconceivable that some un-elected bureacracy at state level should have a legal right to dictate how municipalities manage development within their boundaries. Personally I don’t see ABAG having any moral authority to dictate BMR housing as long as its development is left up to the profit-maximizing private sector. This is essentially forcing municipal governments to finance BMR on the backs of their residents since developers have no reason to not seek maximum profit. Convert BMR development to a not-for-profit model and you’d probably see more success and less resistance. Take the many, many thousands of dollas in profit the developer makes for each BMR unit and turn it over to the local municipality to pay for school / infrastructure impacts and that would be more “fair”.
Only way I can see to do this would be to have a governmental-style development agency manage the development … but we’ve seen examples in the past of how well that works.

Generally I don’t think its worth effort trying to convinvce people on these forums … since no policy decisions are made here. Better to concentrate on City Council and other elected representatives who do have some influence. One thing is true … those most in line to benefit from high-density development have a lot of money at stake and a lot more political clout than the average resident.

“Neither ABAG nor CDHDC has the legal authority to withold Basic Aid for failing to comply with ABAG mandates. Basic Aid is dispersed by the California Department of Education under provisions of the California Constitution. That can’t be changed without a statewide vote. Neither ABAG nor CDHDC have anything to do with it — and cannot by law affect Basic Aid.”

You’re partially correct,in that “Neither ABAG nor CDHDC has the legal authority to withold Basic Aid for failing to comply with ABAG mandates.”

However, it wouldn’t take a statewide vote to repeal Basic Aid – entirely, or selectively.
Think about how the wheels turn in Sacramento, especially when honest attempts to ask local governments for help in managing growth are resisted by those communities that have been the most favored recipients of that growth.

There is a storm brewing in Sacramento right now, because Arnie is determined to see environmental standards accomplished in this state – on way or another. There are the beginning footsteps of a concerted effort to begin to link various programs together, as incentives, to encourage compliance around a host of initiatives.

Housing and education are inextricably linked in many Basic Aid districts. That is not lost on bureaucrats in Sacramento. Be aware that this is no scare tactic.

It’s ironic that you speak about the “danger that is posed by giving control over something as basic as local development to distant bureaucrats”, because the greater danger for this region, and the state, going forward, is how to plan foro the adequate housing necessary to fuel continued growth, reinforced by the *real* fear that companies are beginning to look elsewhere to start up enterprise (in addition to other problems).

What continues to surprise is all fevered resistance to ABAG, when in the end an accomplishment of the ABAG goals, or something close to that, would profit our region – making it more desirable to do business in, make it more sustainable, and largely contribute to our California Governor’s *determined* commitment to keeping our environment intact.

To all who think that Palo Alto can continue to put its hand in the cookie jar, while depriving neighbors of their due, the advice is “proceed to aggressively deny ABAG at your own risk”. The wheels have begin to turn

I don’t know whether Mike of College Terrace knows what he’s talking about in general, but it is clear he has no idea of the legal basis for Basic Aid.

Basic Aid for schools is guaranteed by the California Constitution; it’s not legislative. It would take a constitutional amendment to eliminate Basic Aid. This can only be done by a statewide vote (or by a Constitutional Convention – something that has no prospect of happening.)

In any event, Basic Aid accounts for only $120 per student. This is only a little over 1% of the Palo Alto school budget. We need all the school funding we can get, but if the comments of various school board members are correct, the damage to the school district from complying with the ABAG mandates would considerably exceed the Basic Aid amount. If so, the trade-off of losing basic aid for maintaining the overall integrity of our school system budget might be worth making.

It’s a trade-off we don’t have to worry about however since there is no authority in Sacramento to “turn wheels” that would cut basic aid, and a vote to rescind basic aid would have little chance of passing.

In fact, I would think a vote to rescind the authority of ABAG and the DHCD to regulate development in local cities would have a much better prospect of passing. As the links in Dan W’s post show, people all over California don’t much like bureaucratic meddling in local development decisions.

Perhaps there is some confusion about the term “basic aid”?

It almost sounds like certain posters think the state would act in a punitive manner to force PAUSD to lose their Basic Aid status and become a Revenue Limit district. Or are they suggesting that the increased population density would bring PAUSD back to Revenue Limit status because the number of students in the district would be increased by so much?

In any event, I don’t see why the California would actively seek to force a district to lose their Basic Acid status, because as was pointed out above, the state only spends a very small amount of money on PAUSD students.

According to Edsource:
The California Legislature set revenue limits for each district in 1972, roughly according to the district’s expenditures on general education programs. The variation among revenue limits was great, and the Serrano v Priest court case eventually required the state to make districts’ general purpose money more nearly equal per pupil. By 2000, 97% of the state’s students were within a band (known as the “Serrano Band”) of about $350.

The Legislature and governor almost always provide inflation (cost-of-living) adjustments to revenue limits. However, neither the school board nor local voters can increase the revenue limit. If local property tax revenues rise within a district, the increase goes toward the district’s revenue limit. The state’s share is then reduced by the same amount.

In 60 to 80 of the districts, property taxes exceed the revenue limit. In the past, these districts were allowed to keep the money and also get the constitutionally guaranteed state “basic aid” of $120 per pupil. Beginning in 2003-04 the state meets the requirement through categorical funding, and these “basic aid” districts are now called “excess revenue.”

fyi,

Basic Aid *is* constitutionally mandated. That’s not in dispute; however, Basic Aid is satisfied (funded) through categorical grants. Categorical grants can be reduced (or increased) by the Governor and/or the Legislature, in the budget. It’s helpful to be aware of this fact.

It’s a given that $120 per student isn’t much, but think what that immediate loss would mean to PAUSD. Doesn’t anyone remember the near-panic a few years ago, when Basic Aid was threatened by the Governor? Why was that?

Another way to leverage compliance (among many) would be a lawsuit pointed at communities that create policies that constraints for “fair housing”. Given the absolutely crazed valuations of residential property here in California, the term “fair housing” will take on a whole new meaning.

One way, or another, Palo Alto will build a good deal of what ABAG is asking for. Many carrots and sticks can – and will – be devised to make sure that California’s future is not compromised by a small number of cities who don’t want to pull their weight.

I’m looking forward to watching the state monitor Palo Alto’s (and some few other cities) “good faith” efforts toward providing the housing supply to meet Palo Alto’s expanding future.

Palo Alto Unified services Palo Alto, Los Altos Hills & kids who on the Tinsley program from East Palo Alto.

[Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

I meant sell, not see, the Utilities Department.

Judging from past performance, if we’ll pay for it, the Council will sell us any rubbish that appeals to the City Manager.

> Basic Aid *is* constitutionally mandated.

There seems to be some confusion about the term “Basic Aid”. In one case the term means funding of the school district from local property taxes, and the other use is the Constitutional guarantee that the state would provide some money to any district that was a Basic Aid District (about $120 per student). The Governor and the Legislature found a way around this a few years ago, so Basic Aid Districts are not getting this additional money at the current time.

School Districts can shift from Basic Aid status to Revenue Limit status, based on the amount of property tax generated by the property within the district’s boundaries.

It is a cherished canon of our faith-based suburban planning that adding housing in Palo Alto will reduce commuting. If hard data to support this notion exist, I have not seen it. But I have seen contrary data.

In 2004 Joe Kott, Palo Alto’s then transportation chief, conducted a survey of commute patterns in this town. He found that only 46% of working Palo Altans worked at jobs within 10 miles of their homes. To drive (no pun) the point home: ten miles from anywhere in Palo Alto is out of town, therefore more than half our working population was employed outside Palo Alto. Will that pattern change if we add more residents? Why will they find the local jobs more alluring than the current population does?

Kott also found that 88% drove to work in private vehicles (57% of these single occupancy), 10% biked or walked, and only 2% used public transit. Only 2% used public transit. Not surprising in an affluent town, perhaps. So why would we expect our new neighbors to be more inclined, or more able, to use public transit than we the existing residents?

The answer to all this is that the state needs to assign everyone to jobs and housing. That is the only way to ensure that we all live within walking or biking distance of our jobs. The state, in its infinite wisdom, will also need to assign families to residences close to schools.

Also, once assigned, people will not be permitted to change jobs, nor will companies be allowed to move.

“Solution” and Tom are onto something. The argument that building housing here because jobs are here fails completely on the merits. The Jones family moves from Sunnyvale to Palo Alto to be closer to a Palo Alto workplace. But what about the family that moves into the now-vacant Sunnyvale home, in what’s called “backfill”? There’s absolutely no guarantee that these new Sunnyvale residents will not also work in Palo Alto!

The “environmentalist”, “commute reducing” justification for the ABAG housing is only the most recent of a series of tendentious claims put forward to support the ABAG mandates. It, like the claims preceding it are only red herrings, and fail miserably when analyzed rationally.

The real reasons underlying the fervent push for housing mandates, as Karen White has detailed, have more to do with the alliance of convenience among interests who support this kind of regional planning: the building industry, activist do-gooder groups, Utopian dreamers bent on remaking society, and rent seeking corporate interests who want cheap worker housing.

Previously, we’ve seen ABAG supporters tell us we need to build the housing because growth is “inevitable” and so we have no choice but to accommodate our share. Left uncommented upon is the obvious fact that if the housing we’re told is needed to accommodate “inevitable” growth isn’t built, the growth that would fill that housing can’t occur.

Then we’re told (mostly by the corporate shills who inhabit this site) that the economy will fail if we don’t grow. This ignores the plain fact that the local economy has done just fine for 40 or so years without heavy-handed regional planning. Local business leaders have been able to accommodate to rising housing costs by moving jobs to where the lower cost worker housing is, like Texas and Idaho. The higher priced labor remains here. No reason that can’t, or won’t, continue without the ABAG mandates.

In other threads, Steve Levy, has tried the “moral obligation” argument for the ABAG housing since so much of it will be BMR subsidized housing. This too has failed to gain much traction among residents who sacrificed to be able to afford Palo Alto, and who wonder why we need to accommodate lower income people here in town who would do just fine in neighboring cities with lower housing costs. Even in liberal guilt centers like Palo Alto, the argument that anything that putatively helps the poor should be done by the government is wearing thin. The increasingly obvious failure of the Opportunity Center – which not totally coincidentally qualifies as ABAG BMR housing – has awakened more than a few residents to the real harm that can be caused by social activism run amok.

The “environmental” case for the ABAG housing is only the flavor of the week in this litany. As Tom, solution and others point out, it is laughably at odds with the reality of life in the Bay Area. Build more housing, and the workers won’t be riding bikes to local jobs. They’ll be getting in their cars and driving like the rest of us. More housing here, will only make the local roads more crowded and cause more local pollution – while doing NOTHING to solve the climate crisis – which seems to be the popular corollary to the current justifications for ABAG.

The closer people look at the ABAG mandates, at the real harm they would do to our schools and to the character of our city, and at the specious justifications for them, the more alarmed they will become. The only way the ABAG housing will come to pass is if it is sneaked stealthily past an uniformed citizenry. Thanks to Karen White and other concerned citizens, that’s less likely every day.

Steve Levy totally misses the point, which is this is a bad unworkable law, and our system of government allows us to protest and change bad unworkable laws. Government OF the people, yes, but most importantly BY the people and FOR the people.

Tom is correct. It’s also instructive to understand that the Housing Element update requirements are not the same as civil or criminal laws that apply to individuals as Levy implies with his comment about children and law breaking.

Rather the requirements for Housing Element Updates are in statutes passed by the legislature. The only penalties for not producing an acceptable updates are possible loss of state funds – which so far have never really been applied. While there has been discussion of “fines” for cities that don’t follow the statues, this has been roundly rejected by the legislature time after time.

As Tom suggests, it would be in the spirit of honorable protest for if California cities objected to unworkable and/or unjust statues by failing to comply. This kind of pressure and the publicity it would engender could be enough to get the law changed.

Residents in many other cities are already discussing just this kind of action, as the links in Dan W’s post above show. This kind of concerted protest is just what we need I think.

Of interest to the ABAG supporters might be these studies indicating that non-compliance with ABAG style Housing Element Updates does not reduce the amount of affordable housing that actually gets built:

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_203PLR.pdf

http://www.cacities.org/store/itemdetail.asp?id=4746&parentid=20&category=0

To quote from the summary of the latter:

“the report finds no strong connection between noncompliance [with Housing Element Update requirements] and the underproduction of new housing-even of multifamily housing, which tends to be more affordable than single-family homes”

Thus, the only evidence available indicates that the ABAG requirements – complicated, expensive and contentious – don’t produce any meaningful results.

We can accomodate ABAG including BMR components with zero effect on PA schools.

> How about obeying the law as a good reason?

Hmmm .. wonder what Steve Levy would say about the Dred Scott decision, and whether one should obey the law of the land where slavery was concerned–as sanctioned by the US Supreme Court?

Emoney, where would you build two more elementary schools in Palo Alto. And where would you put the middle and high schools that would also be necessary.

Perhaps our City Council should ask for a meeting with neighboring City Councils on this matter.

Control of zoning drives most local governments, most local economies. I think ABAG threatens everyone whose income doesn’t depend upon speculative development. If they are smart, even speculative developers will see problems ahead, if they’re committed to this region for the long haul.

For all sorts of reasons, including overlapping school districts, wanting the economy and the real estate market to stabilize, it may be that speculative housing development isn’t welcome in any of ABAG’s constituent cities at this time.

What’s this guy Mike talking about? I’ve lived in Palo Alto for 33 years. Since 800 High, Ricky’s and the many other development projects that anti-growthers protested were built, the traffic, conjestion and noise – all impacts the anti-growthers warned about – have come true in spades. Contrary to what Mike says, I think the anti-growthers have a stellar track record. What is he talking about when he says “miserable”?!

I also dont understand what he is thinking when he says that “mass transit and housing can be scaled together” in the context of the ABAG mess. As I understand it, the ABAG housing is for the immediate 5-7 years. There is NO plan on the table for mass transit that could possibly come to fruition in that time frame. Anyone watching the so called BART extension, the SJ Light Rail or any of the other local mass transit projects knows it takes decades to get them up.

If we build the ABAG housing, the people living there will be clogging our roads, our schools and over-burdening our infrastructure. As one guy above said, they won’t be riding their bikes to local jobs. The no-growthers are exactly right about that.

If the supporters of ABAG were at least honest about the effects of their proposals, we could have an actual discussion about the real problems we have respecting jobs and housing.

But as long as they’re spouting all this Utopian social scheming that no rational person can take seriously, there will never be honest policy making that includes most residents as participants.

Arguments like Mike’s only discredit ABAG because they reveal both a lack of seriousness, and the paucity of thought that has gone into the ABAG mandates. Perhaps that’s a good thing.

> What’s inherent in literally *every* post that criticizes
> ABAG (and increased growth) is an assumption that
> housing and mass transit cannot both be increased and
> scaled *together*, to vastly improive our carbon loading,
> strees from commute, and economic position.

We are a tiny little town of 60,000 souls, of which about 12,000 are children. The idea that Palo Alto knows more than all of the other people in the world (enough, anyway, that “we can lead” is preposterous on face value. Palo Alto can’t even pick a decent City Manager, as the last two have been right regular disasters!

> I wish I had a reach into every living room in Palo Alto, so
> that anti-housing and growth proponents could defend what
> has amounted to a pretty miserable record, in terms ofo
> the impact of their past efforts on economic sustainability here.

Sounds a lot like the sentiments of the “Brown Shirts” and the “Black Shirts” of the 1930s, who bullied their way into power and then unsuccessfully tried to dominate the world.

Here’s a fact-based challenge to my forum mates. Let’s presume for the sake of discussion that we absolutely must build 2860 more dwellings in Palo Alto. We can hardly contain our breathless anticipation at the prospect.

OK, where do we put them? Someone mentioned 800 High Street on this thread, so let’s use it as our paradigm of contemporary massed-residential construction in Palo Alto. It has 60 dwelling units. I recall that someone did this calculation before, but here it is again for reference: 2860 divided by 60 equals 47 2/3 800 High Street buildings. Now, will somebody (else) please go have a fresh look at this exemplary structure — it’s downtown on High St. between the 700 and 900 blocks, then study a map of Palo Alto, and tell this forum where we will put 47 2/3 more 800 High Streets in Palo Alto. No credit for partial answers; it’s 47 2/3 800 High Streets or nothing.

Tom,

The point of the Housing Element update is to be creative and diligent in searching for ways to meet the housing goals.

So if you are so sure you know the answer, why not just say “Go ABAG supporters, boy will you be surprised when you can’t find room for the allocated units”.

All the anti-ABAG folks are trying really hard to short-circuit a process that the City should do (ABAG or not) of regularly updating PA’s Housing Element. It feels to me like you think we might be able to find space for the housing and you don’t want that result.

Challenge away if you wish, but there will be a Housing Element update and we will find out what is possible soon enough.

Good Lawdy,

On further analysis, you will find that many of the problems you mentioned have their roots in suburban sprawl.

Some of those are:
-Crime in the city
-Low educational performance of our nation’s urban schools
-Lack of funding priorities for road and bridge infrastructure

Other problems that you didn’t allude to:
-Massive environmental pollution and degradation
-Health problems like asthma, lung cancer, allergies, etc. etc.
-Massive corporate inefficiencies related to lost job time, problems recruiting employees, on-the-job-inefficiencies

Incidentally, the low wages scenario is not the only thing driving the challenge to Silicon Valley’s hegemony. I suggest a talk with someone at the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Assn, or a local CEO, on what real problems our local housing shortages are causing – or, you might have a chat with a company CEO who decided to locate elsewhere, where housing was affordable, or another CEO who moved her company because housing here had become too expensive.

> Crime in the city

Yeah! The papers are full of stories of middle-class suburban house wives, driven to near-madness by the sameness of their homes and the utter sterility of their existences–driving into urban areas to rob, mutilate and pillage in order to regain a sense of individuality and purpose.

And all this crime — because of Sprawl!

Steve Levy has missed the point again, and so has Jeremy. I don’t know the answer. I don’t know where to put the 2860 more dwelling units in Palo Alto. That’s why I asked the proponents of this notion. Surely they would know.

I assumed they had thought this proposition through and come up with at least a draft plan. I would just like to see it. Perhaps others would, too. Draw a definite map, with counts, and post it on the web.

Or maybe I’m wrong: nobody has really thought this thing through.

Somebody has to do some reality-based thinking if this notion is supposed to become reality. So, for starters, I tried to make my challenge as easy as possible by basing it on the superdense condo complex at 800 High Street. That approach would require the least real estate. Take it and run with it, if you can. But vague references to unspecific “granny” units (BTW, I hate that term), mixed use office-residence developments, and other buzzwords don’t begin to answer the question: Where in Palo Alto are we going to put 2860 more dwelling units?

The Housing Element update will answer the questions about where the housing can go as required by law and common sense.

There are really two camps going on here in oppostion. One says it can’t be done but these posts are nearly always by people who think the housing is a bad idea–two separate questions.

The other camp is arguing straight out that it is a bad idea by citing traffic, schools and fiscal impacts. They would prefer that the traffic, children and costs go eksewhere but have no coherent theory of where this should happen or why it is fair.

Then there is a third camp that argues that freedom to control the City is involved. They argue in the name of freeedom for restricting opportunties for people who want to live here to have housing built for them–a truly one-sided definition of freedom.

Cities ultimately control their land use so why don’t we do the Housing Element update, see what creative people can find for housing opportunities, and have the Council vote after hearing input from residents (which I am sure will be forthcoming).

The burden of proof is on the opponents of making a good faith effort to provide the housing and as the original part of this post indicated, PA’s legal appeals will almost surely lose.

I agree that protesting against “bad” laws is a basic right but hardly think junking the Housing Element update process is in the same league as opposing slavery or going to jail to avoid fighting in a war or marching in civil rights protests in the South in the 60s’–all instances where the protestors were risking injury or prison.

And my guess is that religous leaders would be talking in support of the social goal of low-income housing unlike in the real kinds of protests that call forth our support where religous leaders stand for freedom and peace.

“Then there is a third camp that argues that freedom to control the City is involved. They argue in the name of freeedom for restricting opportunties for people who want to live here to have housing built for them–a truly one-sided definition of freedom.”

I want to live in Atherton. That freedom-usurping Atherton city government won’t rezone their town and “have housing built for me”.

I’ve never seen such ridiculous pap.

“Cities ultimately control their land use so why don’t we do the Housing Element update, see what creative people can find for housing opportunities, and have the Council vote after hearing input from residents (which I am sure will be forthcoming).”

I have no problem with this … its local control of land use, which has historically been the basis for many municipal incorporations in the first place… in many cases to fight over-development and sprawl.

“The burden of proof is on the opponents of making a good faith effort to provide the housing and as the original part of this post indicated, PA’s legal appeals will almost surely lose.”

It seems cities have the right to decide land use only IF it largely conforms to the imposed housing mandates. OK I get it. We are assigned housing numbers which are unrealistic, based upon a random formula… then when “good faith” efforts that don’t involve destroying local zoning fail, we can be sued (probably by developers) to force us to change our zoning. This really does sound quite “fair”.

Its also nice to see the Home Builders Association represented on the HMC committee as a stakeholder in deciding how to allocate the housing.

In case anyone else has been wondering why Palo Alto’s housing assignments have jumped so high in this latest round, remember the nice ABAG housing formula:

(Housing Growth x .45) + (Employment Growth x .225) + (Existing Employment x .225) + (Houshold Growth near Transit x .05) + (Employment Growth near Transit x .05)

It turns out on more critical reading of their document, that:

“Following the Smart Growth Strategy / Regional Livability Footprint Project that was completed in 2002, ABAG’s Executive Board resolved to use these regional policies as the basis for projections. Since that decision, Projections assumes that, over time, local land use policies will move the region closer toward regional policies”

Wow! Unless I’m totally misreading this (Steve Levy?), the above formula, in addition to being random, isn’t using best-case factual driven estimates… it is using fudged “Projections” in an attempt to drive the region towards conformance with ABAG’s desired regional land use goals. i.e. The large housing assignment comes about because ABAG (for whatever reason) WANTS to see outsized housing growth in Palo Alto. Also notice the very low weighting factor for “Household Growth near Transit” … seems even ABAG is assuming new residents are going to be commuting by car (at least this IS pragmatic)

As far as Steve Levy’s 2 camps described above, both are saying the same thing based upon factual information
1. Palo Alto can’t absorb this much new housing … without significantly altering existing zoning laws. Posters are asking you how the housing can be accomodated and your answer is basically to change Palo Alto zoning practices.
2. Increasing housing at a pace not even influenced by local conditions absolutely will lead to more local traffic/pollution, infrastructure overload, and school capacity issues. To deny this is laughable at best.

For both reasons it can be argued that this rapid housing increase is not desireable. To deny that either of these self-evident things are true makes it difficult to take any other arguments seriously about the sum total impact of population growth where ever it occurs.

Finally, for those of you wishing to move to Atherton, there is a ray of hope contained in the ABAG document:

“The effect of this (income) allocation method is that the income distribution in each juristiction moves closer toward the regional distribution, as both a juristictions existing conditions and future development is taken into account. By addressing existing concentrations of low-income households, this allocation more aggressively promote (sic) an equitable regional income distribution”

Of course I have seen it said on these forums that BMR numbers in the ABAG assignments are “negotiable”. Since the formula is based upon “Projections” with circular policy reasoning, it would also be quite easy to game the system to maintain and even enhance selected income distribution inequalities. One example: make the largest weighting factor “Household Growth” and assign a particular city a small “Projected” household growth and another city a large one.

Dan and Carol,

Thanks for keeping to the issues and moving the converation back to the heart of our probable disagreements.

Dan, as you noted ABAG is inserting a policy goal into a portion of the housing projections and allocations. If you envision the Bay Area as a circle, the ABAG projections reflect the policy goal that more of the housing associated with regional job growth be built “in the circle” instead of outside the circle in the Central Valley or south.

BUT only one of the housing allocation factors is policy driven or, in your words, possiblY “circular”.

The existing employment and job projection factors are not policy driven nor is the existence of transit stations.

I would estimate it is fair to consder that perhaps 25% of the total housheold growth has been put “inside the circle” by ABAG to meet policy goals.

The math is then 25% of the 50% weight for future household growth is policy driven or perhaps, at most, 350 of PA’s housing unit allocation exists as a result of ABAG policies to locate more housing “inside the regional circle” than outside.

I would argue that this policy almost surely will reduce net travel both for work and non-work trips. ABAG’s goal is to shorten, not eliminate, commute travel and this will surely occur if more housing is built “inside the Bay Area circle”.

Housing growth may or may not be desirable to the region’s residents but planning for job growth without at the same time planning for the associated housing growth is surely “laughable” to use your words.

I personally think that we can handle the school and infrastructure needs and that the major issues are about money. But the present debate always ends up with Bay Area cities planning for and taking the job and revenue growth and then when it comes to housing we say it should go anywhere but in our city. I think it is fair to characterize that as a “not in my backyard position”.

And I have not seen any reason in these posts why it is better or fairer for the jobs to be “in the circle” and the housing to be more and more “outside the circle”. No one in PA is preventing people from living in Salinas or Manteca if they wish. This is all about whether it is good policy and fair to plan for more people to live in PA if they wish.

And even that discussion has two parts–one about allowing more expensive condos where the fiscal and school impacts are probably neutral or positive and one is about planning for more BMR units.

The posts are a real mixed bag here where many who are opposed to the whole concept of regional planning actually are sympathetic to BMR units and many who violently oppose BMR units are ok with expensive housing because it “pays its way”.

Carol, I am not clear about your comment about PA applying for exemption. Could you try saying it a different way? Thanks.

“I personally think that we can handle the school and infrastructure needs and that the major issues are about money.”

Gosh. It’s a relief to discover that the problems are only about money. That’s something we have no problems with in Palo Alto.

Anyone following these boards knows that both the school district and the city are having seemingly insurmountable difficulties coming up with funding for current infrastructure needs.

To dismiss the financial problems presented by building all this new housing, especially the BMR housing, which almost by definition cannot pay its own way, with one sentence borders on irresponsibility coming from someone who seems to want to come across as a policy expert.

How seriously can we really take the ABAG supporters when they write like this?

Dan,

I agree that these are serious issues and that the policy push is for more dense housing.

I disagree that the region’s population will, in the next 20 years, prefer more non-dense residential areas. But, if you are right, nothing that PA does in any way stops a household from living in Salinas or Manteca. so, if you are right and I am wrong, then more housing in PA will be shunned by buyers and that will end the story.

But I think you are better off sticking to the argument that what I want is bad fcr PA rather than that no one would buy. Nearly ALL of net growth in household formation in the next 20 years is in households aged 55+ and 20-34. The growth in households in the prime single-family buying group is virtually zero despite the region’s population growth. So I think the market will be coming to cities in the Bay Area with a good case for increased deman for denser, smaaller units.

Dave, I am mostly pushing the posters to come clean in their arguments. We have now established that what I support is, indeed, what the law requires, which brought forth the new argument that it is sometimes ok to flount the law if your case has high moral ground. Now we can debate whether BMR housing in PA occupies the high moral ground or that not allowing more housing is the moral position.

Similarly, many people have argued that we “can’t” handle the school enrollment despite that we handled a much larger enrollment on a lower tax base. I am only pointing out that this is actually about money (opening schools where we now get lease income and, perhaps, building more capacity.) I only get one vote just like you and am voicing my willingness to pay for added capacity to meet a growing population.

I do not dismiss the money issues. I am just trying to clarify what is about money so we can debate whether we can or should support increased infrastructure investments. I myself am not moved much by the argument to push school enrollment and people elsewhere without knowing why that is a better solution for all involved.

Chloe,

That is a question often asked on this post.

There are lots of things that PA residents don’t get to vote on

like paying federal and state taxes, whether the City can discriminate against people on the basis of their race, religion or sexual orientation, whether we should be in Iraq.

there are lots of cases where broader issues or laws prevent us from doing just what PA residents in 2007 decide. But we did get to vote for the City Council that is in charge of updating the Housing Element and this issue was front and center in local debate so in that real sense we did get to vote our preferences.

Steve, I don’t think there were any council candidates that took a strong stand on the ABAG housing. If I am wrong, please let me know.

This is a very important local issue, so why can’t we vote on it? We are not talking about voting on whether the earth is flat, or whether wars should ever be fought again. We are being asked to consider major new housing in Palo Alto. My feeling is that our council is not very comforatable with this issue. I think a vote would be a good solution for us.

Our council has put other housing issues to vote, so why not this one?

If the City builds these below market rate homes in Palo Alto, our family is leaving! There are loads of tech jobs in Oregon and Washington, and the schools are on par with those in Palo Alto.
We have relatives in both states and their children excel above our children in their AP courses. I believe that others will follow this trend, and there will be a surplus of homes available here.

Chloe,

I remember the candidates being asked about the ABAG allocations in the paper and in meetings. I think you can probably look up in the Weekly archives to see what was said.

I am not a lawyer but here is what at least one dilemma is about voting. A vote to refuse to consider planning for BMR housing would be directly in defiance of a state policy. But I think the even more delicate legal situation is whether advocates can claim reasonably that PA is discriminating against low-incoem residents in the City’s housing planning.

I am sure that some legal experts and low-income housing advocates who read the Town Square can give a more complete answer.

Steve Levy, following the California zeitgeist, seeks to turn this into an argument about morality, rather than policy. This is not about morality. It’s about policy and who makes it.

Those of us who moved to Palo Alto because we like its size, scale and character aren’t “immoral” if we want to keep it that way. And any moralizing to the contrary only serves to illustrate the lack of real substance in the arguments in favor of densifying our city toward an urban-ness that the majority of us do not want.

Similarly, Steve Levy attempts to equate those of us who want to tell ABAG to bug off with lawbreakers – as if the statutes directing compliance with ABAG housing quotas were some sort of criminal or civil law. This misleads to the point of dishonesty. The state requires cities have housing elements much as Levy describes. But the directives contained in the statues contain no clear penalty for not doing so. (The most commonly mentioned by the CHDC is loss of funding for BMR housing programs.) Whether Palo Alto should forgo BMR development funds in exchange for keeping control of its own zoning and development rules is the real question presented by the “laws”. Perhaps the financial inducements are enough for us to cede this power to ABAG. But either way, it’s a stretch to present it, as Levy does, as “obeying the law”. (The same questions are presented by Bush’s No Child Left Behind law. The only thing lost for violating this “law” are Federal Education funds. Usually this is enough to force compliance….but one would be hard pressed to term a state that said “no thanks, we’ll educate our kids as we think fit, not as Bush does” and refused Federal funds therefor, a “Lawbreaker”.)

We should say “no” to ABAG.

It is curious that those worried that a vote on ABAG quotas would be “in defiance of a state policy” do not mention that our council “defies” federal policy on Iraq, Iran and any other issue that they take a fancy to.

I doubt if they’ll have difficulty expressing some sort of “defiance” on ABAG if we have some sort of advisory vote, and the people express the kind of opinions we’re seeing here.

Let’s vote.

Alyssa: “following the California zeitgeist, seeks to turn this into an argument about morality, rather than policy. This is not about morality. It’s about policy and who makes it.”

How does policy making not have impact on the moral position, or stature, on the citizens responsible for making it. Please, argue that, if you can.

Cari: “let’s vote” (on ABAG)
you mean like we voted on 800 High St.? what a waste of community cohesion, time, and money – just to satisfy the minority position. Remember the hullabaloo over that development – and Hyatt-Rickey’s, Alma Plaza, etc.

Speaking of morality, the MASSIVE elephant in the room on this threadis the DEAFENING silence on the interrogative put to anti-ABAG proponents about how their position comes right up against, and contradicts, known environmental facts about sprawl, commuting, pollution, the health effects of pollution, projected water shortages, etc. etc.

The NIMBYISM displayed on this issue is shocking.

I think Palo Altans will be surprised at the blowback that comes from a vote that defies state policy. Our policy makers are aware of what the negative potential is – or will, once they look into this. YOu won’t see a vote on this issue; instead, we WILL see an update on the Housing Element, with many interested parties watching from the sidelines (for now) to see whether we make the “good faith” effort that is expected of us.

I’m betting we never see a vote on this issue, which is exactly why the issue was skipped over by most of the Council candidates this past election. Reality is a hard taskmaster.

Let’s vote.

Chloe,

Here is the link to the Weekly’s Council race coverage. I don’t know how many of the links are still active but you can see whether the candidates said anything specific about ABAG.

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=6324

Non-compliance with Housing Elements– recent postings about the consequences of non-compliance with Housing Elements are true up to the moment. However, back in the 2001-02 Legislative year, SB 910 was introduced to provide “teeth” to the enforcement of Housing Elements beyond the rather innocuous tools available to the State currently.

The following describes SB 910 (with a link to the Bill History on the Legislature’s web-site):

—
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=sb_910&sess=0102&house=B&author=dunn

BILL NUMBER: SB 910 INTRODUCED
BILL TEXT

INTRODUCED BY Senators Dunn, Burton, Haynes, and Monteith

FEBRUARY 23, 2001

This bill would declare the intent of the Legislature to withhold
unidentified state funding from any city, county, or city and county
that does not have a housing element in substantial compliance with
state law and to redistribute the money to those cities, counties, or
cities and counties whose housing elements are in compliance. The
bill would state that, for the purposes of this provision, an
authorized self-certification of a housing element shall be deemed to
have been approved by the department.
—-

It seems that someone has written a book about the general issue —

California’s Housing Element Law: The Issue of Local Noncompliance:

http://books.google.com/books?id=va8dIPg8GlQC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=%22sb+910%22+housing+element&source=web&ots=I4RNKSLrhw&sig=h-Sus7oJnmkyawfp0paaOZ7P0ZQ#PPA32,M1

This link points to a discussion of SB 910.
—

There is every reason to fear that this bill could be resurrected one of these days. Sadly, Joe Simitian has been rather non-committal on his views. The records shows that he voted “NO” on the bill, but he only did so after an initial ABSTAIN was recorded in the record.
—-

Now readers can ask growth advocates to come clean in their arguments. On the one hand, Steve asserts that “ABAG does not expect cities to pay for BMR units,” on the other seems to suggest that this discussion centers on what he calls the “morality” of offering affordable housing. Notably, he fails to connect the dots to show the explosive market-rate housing growth needed to generate 1,875 affordable units (multiply by 5 or more) if public subsidies are not to be required.
Do the math. Between 9,375 and 12,500 new housing units would need to be built by 2014 to yield ABAG’s “allotment,” assuming Palo Alto’s BMR yield factor of either 20% or 15% BMR and if inclusionary zoning is the means by which these units are generated. So in our current fiscal environment, where massive public subsidies are simply not available, the call for affordable housing can be seen instead as a call for much greater market-rate growth generally.
As a related matter, inclusionary zoning has the net effect of driving up the price of market-rate units to the extent developers are building lower-profit affordable units within market-rate developments. Through this mechanism, inclusionary zoning actually reduces affordability.
If we’re being honest, arguments about housing allocation center instead on state vs. local funding and control; the fiscal, service, and infrastructure carrying capacity of our city and others; and the effects of the growth — in sheer numbers — the state would impose by 2014.
ABAG is merely our regional messenger for the state, and it is at the state level that growth decisions are made. Thus readers who wish to make their concerns known might email State Sen. Joe Simitian at senator.simitian@sen.ca.gov and Assemblymember Ira Ruskin at assemblymember.ruskin@assembly.ca.gov, as well as sharing their concerns with our City Council at city.council@cityofpaloalto.org.

> It would be interesting to do a correlative study
> (which would be exceedingly difficult to carry off,
> given the complex variables involved) about how
> much real capital has been lost by the delays in
> development (both housing and retail) by
> those in Ms. White’s camp.

So hard, in fact, that no one would fund such a study. For instance, how relevant is studying the “lost opportunity costs” for people in 1945 not building for the facilities/housing needed in 2000?

This is the kind of specious logic that one might characterize as a “Brain F**t”!

1) Anti-growth and anti-housing proponents (essentially the same group of residents) cost Palo Alto citizens real dollar value in quality of life – from cost of market rate housing, loss of retail opportunity, loss of tax dollar base, etc. etc.
***

Housing is the most expensive use of land for a city. And the greater the density, the greater the expense, especially with Prop 13 capping the increase in revenues from property taxes. Providing services to residents is expensive!

Few cities the size of a Palo Alto have a retail sales tax base the size of Stanford Shopping Center (never mind University Ave and small retail centers).

If the residents for the past 50 years have treated the city so abominably, how come it manages to remain such a desirable, vibrant community? Maybe the “no growthers” know something the people in Sacramento can’t even fathom.

Well, get your story straight, Mike. Have the members of the dark side (be they no growth, sensible growth, moderate growth, or anything but ABAG growth) impeded progress, as you said two posts ago, or has Palo Alto grown despite, or perhaps because of them?

Your last comment is very telling. Residents may not be “anti-housing” (we live in houses!) but that doesn’ mean that most support the kinds of growth advocated by ABAG. Most people who live here, moved here because they like the look & feel of the city. Not because they wanted to live in a city that looked and felt like Seoul. The real question is whether you plan for future in accordance with the needs of your residents, or whether you focus on the needs of people who don’t live here but would like to move here. That’s what the overstated ABAG numbers are about.

No matter how much rhetoric you use [portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff], anyone with any sense is going to look at the ABAG numbers and ask “who benefits?” The city may or may not, the residents may or may not, but the developers for sure will benefit, and they will bear none of the costs. The rest is just sales hype.

Last evening’s Council commentary on a letter of rejection (of housing requirements) to be sent to ABAG was enlightening – especially as it followed an earlier debate about whether to form an Environmental Commission in Palo Alto.

In an irony of major proportions, two of three main supporters of the Environmental Commission – Mayor Kishimoto and Vice-Mayor Klein both spoke to parochial interests and constraints, without once mentioning the environment – as they both supported a letter that is essentially a whining, excuse-laden document about why Palo Alto is not going to – and *can’t* (we’ll get back to this in a minute) meet the ABAG housing requirement, and do its share to make this an environmentally sustainable region. Kishimoto and Klein were joined by Council members Cordell, Morton, Drekmeier, Kleinberg, and Beecham – with only the latter three admitting that the Council position is contradictory to stated “green” policy.

On this issue, the only Council members showing real leadership, conviction, and courage last evening were Dena Mossar and John Barton, with Mossar (a “large E” Environmentalist) seriously calling the document (which should be characterized as “Palo Alto’s Big Whine”) into question.

Mossar showed true leadership in her questioning of the document’s whining tone, and thus its failure to offer any alternatives to the proposed ABAG requirement.

Barton called into question PAUSD conclusions (and others) that he labeled “disingenuous”.

A further irony is that Mayor Kishimoto – who made “Innovation in Government” one of her clarion calls, has failed to approach this ABAG requirement – with all its implications for environmental responsibility – with even one iota of innovative solution. All we’ve heard from the Mayor on this issue is “no”.

Perhaps the Mayor (and the rest) should give a listen to Al Gore’s Nobel acceptance speech (ironically, given yesterday), where he again calls our environmental problems an “Inconvenient Truth” – implying that we WILL be inconvenienced by some of the solutions to the environmental problem, and that we will require LEADERS who can take us to the next level of innovative action.

Where was the leadership and innovation last evening? With the exception of Mossar and Barton, it was MIA.

Council members Kishimoto and Klein – both self-proclaimed “environmentalists” (spelled with a small “e” for good reason, in this instance) showed their true colors last evening – with the color “green” not being among them; in addition to five of their fellow City Council members, they were followed by one School Board member (Barb Mitchell) and Lee Lippert, the Chair of Palo Alto’s Planning Commission, the latter (on this issue) having been altogether berift of any overt concern for the large environmental and sustainability picture that the ABAG requirement is meant to address.

It’s been revealing to read the Planning Commission’s commentary about ABAG, with members like Arthur Keller and Pat Burt (recently elected to City Council) openly opposing ABAG (including Keller’s often mocking and derisive comments re: the ABAG request. I’m sure the latter will play well in Sacramento with those who are going to be passing judgment on Palo Alto’s whiny little note, full of reason why we can’t meet ABAG’s requirements *without even ONE alternative suggested”.

Clearly, Palo Alto policy makers, for the most part, showed their true colors last evening. As well, other members of other policy bodies clearly showed that Palo Alto is looking more and more – like so many other private sector entities, just another greenwashing entity, looking for the easy sound bites and photo ops that paint a pretty picture of environmental leadership, but failing to act significantly when the rubber meets the road toward action and real solution-making.

Dena Mossar pointed out last evening (to paraphrase) that we either are (environmentalists and innovators) or we’re not; it was a stark point that revealed the truth about what lies inside all the *convenient* talk and action about the *inconvenient* truths we’re having to face.

With respect, my advice to Council members Kishimoto, Klein, Drekmeier, Kleinberg, Beecham, Morton and Cordell (especially Drekmeier (who sent a bulk main about Gore’s speech to his supporters)) is that they read the full text of Al Gore’s Nobel acceptance speech, and think hard about the real difficulties of making policy in this time. Then, consider how courage, leadership, and conviction – qualities that all the aforementioned have shown at other times – can be called upon again to meet our most serious challenges to the environment, and come up with innovative solutions to our jobs/housing imbalance in a way that maintains the essential integrity of our community, and at the same time takes Palo Alto and our region forward to a time when we can HONESTLY call ourselves a “green” community, because we ACT like one.

If the goal is truly to make the city green, then let’s talk about environmental measures. Note that Menlo Park just had a green task force that suggested a whole list of possible strategies for the city to pursue.

Relentlessly insisting that dense housing is the only way to help the environment (and disregarding the fact that adding thousands more residents can only have a negative impact on the environment) seems at best ingenuous and at worst manipulative and deceptive.

[Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

The vote last night reflects the fact that the council has heard from its constituents. This ABAG mandate is slowly waking up otherwise sleepy PA voters. It will no longer be the elephant in the room that no politician will talk about.

This ABAG mandate should go to a vote of PA citizens. Let us express our views via the ballot box. I am willing to bet that it would increase voter turnout significantly. It would also tell our council that there is no wiggle room on this matter. Just say “NO”!

Mike always threatens Palo Alto with state power. That’s what socialists do. Sacramento can threaten all it wants, but if there is no compliance on housing elements (or anything else, except taxes, for that matter), it will back down. This a great opportunity for Palo Alto to actually lead the charge against state power.

As I have said before, we need efficient electric trains to transport workers to PA, if the damand exists for those workers. BART should be completed around the bay, then extend to Salinas. Workers deserve the oppotunity to live in the single family homes that they desire, and not be forced into sardine cans in already infilled cities.

CO2 footprint reductions can be easily achieved by switching to nuclear energy.

Put ABAG on the ballot. Let us PA citizens decide!

“John is right”? We’ll see about that. 🙂

Here we have someone who is angling for nuclear power, in the Bay Area!! 🙂 I’m taking $10K bets on that one. Anyone up for it?

btw, there are no threats being made, just placing on notice that certain things can be made to happen at the state level that will create a lot of discomfort for cities that are unwilling to put forth their best “good faith” effort to fulfill their obligations re: the consequences of growth. It isn’t going to be a free ride any longer; that’s another “inconvenient truth”.

The wishful thinking about driving potential residents to Fresno, Idaho, etc. etc. merits submission to a fantasy series on population migration. In case you haven’t noticed, California is a population *magnet*, and our (and some of our municipal neighbor’s preferences) are a drop in the bucket of political leverage when “decision time” arrives.

What person in her right mind would predict a population drop, or a relatively sudden arrival at population homeostasis, in California, today? This is the result of fantastical and wishful thinking.

Palo Alto has a choice; we can find an innovative middle way that includes our neighbors in building a new development paradigm in this region; or, we can attempt a policy-making coup d’etat that will lead us right into the courts, with various state agencies and powers that be (including commercial powers) working to penalize this city and this region for its unwillingness to play ball.

Palo Alto and the region have been spoiled; there has been little constraint in the growth path we’ve experienced for the last 50-60 years. We’ve pretty much had our way.

I was talking to a game theorist the other day; his notion was that there are many win-wins possible through cooperation with ABAG, but that if we fail in our “good faith” efforts, showing real effort to change our current behaviors, we will most likely find ourselves in a worse mandatory conundrum than the one most anti-ABAG opponents are whining about.

I don’t think that this city, or our region, are going to find much – if any – sympathy with the powers-that-be in Sacramento, and other power centers. We’ve been taking for a long time; now we have to grow up and learn to clean up after ourselves. Habits are hard to change; it’s pretty normal to see all this anti-ABAG thrashing about, but we’ll come around, just like the unruly toddler who learns that there is someone in the house who has the power to withhold, and set limits.

btw, the state has all kinds of power re: construction licensing, rights-of-way, etc. etc.

Another thing: there are several *principal* cities that are anxious to see a re-ordering of housing priorities. Start with LA, where there is already a chronic shortage of even mid-range affordable housing. I wonder how our numbers here would match up with S. California in a referendum – i.e. be careful what you wish for [portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

Remember, “fair housing” in this marketplace is beginning to take on an entirely new definition. Again, be careful what you wish for.

If anything, our city – and the region – may find itself the defendant in a fair housing lawsuit brought by the state AND by fair housing proponents. I wonder what will happen after we lose that lawsuit (which we surely would, especially if the demeanor of our defense in any way resembles the weak and selfishly parochial anti-ABAG thinking represented in this thread?

“State politicians will drop this thing like a hot potato.”

Really? Perhaps you might travel outside this little bubble of a burg and sample sentiment toward more effective housing and mass transit solutions in the very LARGE urban environments in California – like LA and San Francisco (San Diego is beginning to climb on board).

Go ahead, put it to a statewide vote. I would love to see this happen, and so would most politicians, who would love to place the phrases “affordable housing”, and effective mass transportations” on their resumes.

The parochialism of most of the anti-ABAG blather here is stunning in its ignorance of what’s happening outside of Palo Alto. In that respect, as with other issues, it’s nothing new.

Mike, the way to get it on a state wide ballot is to put it on local ballots as advisary votes. Let’s start with Palo Alto. Still interested?

Sure, but it won’t happen. Why? Because our City Council (and Planning and Transportation Commission, and PAUSD) know what a fine line they’re *already* walking with the demeanor that they appear to be putting front and center.

In other words, just how far are we willing to push the state? I wonder if Joe Simitian would support a local vote, especially in that he has to negotiate on a daily basis with politicians from large urban regions that are already clamoring for more affordable housing and vastly improved mass transport.

Pragmatically, knowing how wheels turn in this city, I think you might win that vote if it was put to the people – at least the people who turn out to vote here, which is only 33% of those who are eligible.

Now, think about the additional, adverse impact that that vote (of you won) would have on state officials as they go forward with plans (supported by any governor in his/her right mind, because it involves the economic and environmental well-being of the *entire* state – including the rational management of growth that we *know* is coming).

Do you still want that vote, and the rain of pain that would result from Sacramento – whether it passed, or not?

I don’t think Palo Alto policy makers want to go there. They have more important, more immediate fish to fry.

Essentially, we have been backed into a corner quietly, subtley, by the very things that have made this region a success.

We will grow, and we will adapt nicely to that growth – in spite of multifarious strategies and tactics put out there to stall the inevitable.

“the rain of pain that would result from Sacramento “

Personally, I’m not afraid of the big bad bear. I doubt that most PA citizens are, either. In fact, I think the bear is afraid of the people.

You keep conflating efficient mass transiet with infill density. BART is efficient mass transit. I take it every time I have a chance, in order to get to downtown SF or to an A’s game. I take CalTrain on a regular basis to SF, becasue I can walk to my job from the train station. Such mass transit to Salinas, Tracy, Modesto, etc. will provide sufficient workers for Bay Area jobs, and those workers will be able to live in the kinds of houses that they want. BMRs in PA will not accomplish that, and you know it.

[Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]