DID YOU KNOW That When Making Decisions A Narrow Lens Leads to Ethically Challenged Results

In 1962, psychologist, Stanley Milgram ran a series of tests at Yale. The tests measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience.

In 1971 Philip Zimbardo ran what has become known as the Stanford Prison Experiment right here in the San Francisco Bay Area. In it he randomly assigned the role of prisoners and guards to a total of 24 students. He wanted to see to what extent people would act in a certain way when given a certain role. “Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress.” (www.prisonexp.org)

Milgram aptly summarized the results of his experiment in this way: “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist.”

Why do I bring this up here and now? The way the building approval process works here in Redwood City and probably across the country there are a number of different committees and commissions that must review the application before it finally gets approved.This past week here in Redwood City, the Architectural Advisory Committee like the Historic Resources Advisory Committee before it was given a development project to review, in this case 601 Marshall St.The way the process works reviewing committee members are given very narrow guidelines and told to make decisions in a very particular manner. Then given those narrow guidelines they usually approve the plan. At the next level of approval the representatives are again told that among others because the prior committee in the process has approved they should approve. So the ball keeps rolling along with projects at every stage being approved through the application of a very narrow lens. Instead what committee members should be doing is making decisions within the context of a much larger picture and much bigger ethical concerns.

In the case of Redwood City, the facts are the city of Redwood City is already overwhelmed with new buildings, a number of them still in the process of construction, both office and residential. The more office the more residential needed and yet it is unclear that the necessary physical infrastructure to support new office workers or residents as in roads, water, schools and probably a whole slew of other things is or will be available and yet committee members are instructed to only look at one particular facet, this past week the facet being the architectural design of a building.

It is time to take a broader more comprehensive and ethical view of the decisions committee members are being asked to make. It is time for all city staff, council members, committee members and residents to hit the pause button and put in a place a temporary 12-24 month building moratorium. This past week, I strongly urged the Architectural Advisory committee members not to approve the project in question and certainly not any deviations from the required standards.

Did they do that? Not really after a lot of back and forth they allowed one deviation as they considered the current regulation for lack of a better word arbitrary.The second requested deviation they did not approve and asked the developer to further review and return with a better proposal.But what kind of an architectural change can factor in the lack of water, schools and other necessary infrastructure for a project to really be ethically approved?

If you agree and would like to support the petition for a building moratorium in Redwood City please go on line and sign it. It can be found at https://www.change.org/p/city-of-redwood-city-immediately-put-in-place-a-building-moratorium-2