Fine isn't trying to solve our housing problems. He's making them worse.

He voted FOR eliminating the downtown cap on commercial growth. He voted FOR higher office growth citywide. He voted FOR reducing fees office developers pay so we can build subsidized housing for those with lower incomes.

If you care about housing, pray that this is his final year on the Council.

"Tech is King". You wouldn't know that trying to park in Palo Alto. Nothing high tech about driving or using public transport around here.

Agree with poster above, Fine isn’t pro housing or pro renter just pro developer !
He bemoans the loss of the President apartments as if he had no role to play in protecting those renters and 75
Units of housing.
Fine doesn’t vote pro housing or pro renter so vote him OUT?

Mayor Fine says he wants to alleviate traffic and housing - yet he has no proposals for building housing - he just accuses everyone of not having the will to do it. It takes money and policies - not will!

He can't keep saying yes to office growth and then complain that our housing issues are getting worse.

He also claims to support things like transit and grade separations that will help relieve traffic, but he isn't willing to raise enough money from big business to pay for it.

He is simply there to complain about things - he makes a big stink as if he's solving problems, but instead he works hard to diss all the other council members and then he's surprised nothing can get done.

He has such disdain for Palo Alto, Palo Altans and his colleagues on council - why did he even run? Let's hope he doesn't run again.

The sooner he is out of office - the better.

Why does Palo Alto residents have to solve the housing crisis while the other cities keep building and expanding their office square footage?

Why does Palo Alto residents have to live with lesser park space, open space, road/street space, community centers, retail shops, grocery stores, trees and nature...?

Why does Palo Alto have to be like other cities?

Palo Alto is Palo Alto. Keep it special and not a wanna be San Francisco or Manhattan.

Hmm. Bumper-to-bumper traffic at Page Mill and Hanover, plus increasing commercial vacancies in the Stanford Research Park, plus "the city has many opportunities to exercise its zoning powers to create housing". Did Mayor Fine make the obvious connection here, or did he continue to emphasize eliminating single-family housing in existing neighborhoods?

We are so fortunate to have Mayor Fine in Palo Alto. Retail is struggling because people who work here can’t afford to live here. We need both, commercial and high density residential to support smaller businesses unless we are happy shopping at just Stanford mall and fancy high end restaurants. Allow the city to make high rises near retail and transit and see our community thrive. We don’t want Palo Alto to be another sleepy town like Portola Valley or Atherton!! We want it to look and feel like a vibrant University town! Thank you Mayor Fine for your hard work. Pl don’t listen to the Boomers.

Fine is fine. There is no big way to intervene. His assignment this year is to rid Palo Alto of inclusionary zoning. This impedes the development of housing. Subsidized housing is best left to San Jose where the land is cheaper. The San Jose Property Rights Initiative is ready to march after their election results. The revolution in Mountain View is most worth watching as it is the love child of San Francisco's rent control. Prediction: 200 mile fast balls right down the middle as money and the educated have no respect for weakling ball players. There goes price fixed rentals in Mountain View. Meanwhile I have hide as I don't want my picture to go viral. California is burning books and social studies teachers because they don't fit the profile for the model citizen of the Soviet Union.

I applaud Mayor Fine's push to fix housing in the area. He is right, SB50 failed because cities argued in favor of local control. So now let's talk to the community and see the best way to use local control to increase housing. Not doing anything is not an option, so let's pick amongst numerous options that increase housing in a way that fits the community best.

Density is NOT a virtue.

The corona virus has served as a stark demonstration of yet another way that density degrades the quality of life of residents.

Density is just a way to transfer wealth from residents to real-estate developers and a way for politicians to fund their political ambitions. Developers are only paying for half of the cost of a multistory building. The cost of all of the infrastructure (parking garages, roads, traffic controls, utility capacity, health care costs, parks, schools, etc.) needed to support the building is all paid by residents.

The cost of the infrastructure needed to support a multistory building probably exceeds the cost of the building itself.

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The critics conveniently ignore Palo Alto’s EXTREME jobs-housing imbalance which existed even before Fine was born.

Unless PA quits dithering, the state will stick it to PA and the result will be much worse than if it had been proactive.

@Novelera...yeah that was very apparent!

Posted by Mike, a resident of University South

>> I applaud Mayor Fine's push to fix housing in the area.

The fastest way "to fix housing" is to reduce the number of jobs in the city. Do we "need" 500 units? Eliminate O(500) jobs.

>> He is right, SB50 failed because cities argued in favor of local control.

SB50 failed because it was a bad bill. The result of SB50 would be more traffic congestion and higher rental prices. Proponents have been unable, or, more likely, unwilling, to do the simple arithmetic.

>> So now let's talk to the community and see the best way to use local control to increase housing. Not doing anything is not an option, so let's pick amongst numerous options that increase housing in a way that fits the community best.

What will work will be to create jobs in other locations. That worked before, and, it will work again. There is no possible way for all software development and developers in the world to work and live in Palo Alto. It is absurd.

HP figured it out 55 years ago. Opened new plants in CO and ID. Others can do the same now.

<<He has such disdain for Palo Alto, Palo Altans and his colleagues on council - why did he even run? Let's hope he doesn't run again. >.>

He serves as an agent for commercial real estate developers on the city council, that's why. He is actually housing's worse enemy. His mentor, Lis Kniss willl be termed out soon, and she needed someone to take her place, so she groomed him and a few others. If he has his way, traffic in Palo Alto will resemble that of Hong Kong in a few years, and Hong Kong as the best public transit in the world.

Anyone who still thinks density is good should observe the Coronavirus pandemic and valise that such a virus in a dense urban environment is the potential to wipe out entire communities. Living in a sardine can can be extremely deadly.

What we discovered in this election is that there are specific political groups funding specific people. The SB50 group - assume that they are all funded by the same people. I am not interested in having those people manage this state for their own benefit. We are already heading in the wrong direction and speeding downhill. We have to put the brakes on and make sure that we retain some semblance of balance in our cities - both big and small. There is no reason why the peninsula has to be turned on it's head - the big companies will move away and our cities will be horrible places to live in.

Fine took a less on from his mentor, Liz Knizz, and called up various of his supporters for a speech at the microphone. That's Liz' trademark, acknowledging her supporters from her seat on the dias. It's pretty obvious pandering by now.

Fine added his own wrinkle by praising a reporter he likes. The President would be proud of him. What's next? Call it Fake News when he doesn't like something?

Oh hey, Su Hong site at 4256 El Camino is a Housing Inventory site.

Maybe the City shouldn't be blowing it by developing it into yet another hotel.

YIMBYs are just yuppies hiding behind a smokescreen of social justice rhetoric.

"Fine added his own wrinkle by praising a reporter he likes. "

Who is the pet reporter? That should be humiliating for any reputable journalist, to be praised by an unabashedly partisan politician. Badge of dishonor.