An Open Letter to Mayor Gee

Under this picture I recently posted the following to my Facebook page.

What were they thinking dept:
Redwood City has an acute shortage of affordable housing, with median rents for two bedroom apartments approaching $3000 a month. So why did the City just just waste $25k to buy this well maintained and very affordable floating home and another estimated $20k to have it removed and destroyed? Many people were willing to buy or rent it, but the city wants to reduce the number of residents at Docktown and preferred to throw away the money and the house. Your tax dollars at work.

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Dear Mayor Gee:
Apparently Billy James forwarded this post to Mayor Gee or asked you about it. Here is his response, which was also posted to Facebook:

(Mayor Gee:)

“There is no question that there is a housing dilemma in the region, - not only in Redwood City, but throughout the entire peninsula. Our Council is working on a number of initiatives to encourage the production of housing in Redwood City at all ranges of affordability.

“By inference, I am going to assume that the matter you have raised is in regards to Docktown. Our City Manager will need to follow up with regards to the specific floating home that you are referring to. Nevertheless, the City is in a situation where we have been put on notice by the State Attorney General through the State Lands Commission (SLC) that residential uses in this area are inconsistent with state law. This has been discussed in meetings of the Inner Harbor Task Force (of which a staff member of the State Lands Commission was a part of), discussed at Council meetings, and in joint meetings with the Planning Commission. Those that live in Docktown are fully aware of the State’s position and are in procession of this notice from the State.“The Inner Harbor vision does make provisions for a floating home community, but not on SLC lands as state law prohibits residential uses.

“As mentioned, the Council is working on a number of initiatives to encourage housing production at all affordability levels. The details of these initiatives will be unveiled within the next few months. However, the issue of housing is a regional one, and we need our neighboring communities to do their part - we are.

My response to the Mayor

Mayor Gee

The issue here is more straighforward that that. The City, at taxpayer expense, just crushed a well-maintained, perfectly good affordable home at a time when there is a crying need for affordble housing. I think that is inexcusable.

The only affordable housing program the city is currently working on, that I am aware of, is a “community benefits” program (workshop at the municipal library Wed. January 14 at 7pm) that would give future developers incentives to provide public benefits - which might include some amount of affordable housing - in exchange for increased density. (Higher, more crowded buildings.) I look forward to hearing what else you are considering.

But since you raised other issues:

You must have been mislead. State Law does NOT prohibit residential uses, and the Attorney General has taken no position on Docktown. The State Lands Commisison staff, at the request of the city, issued an opinion that residential use is not consistent with the Public Trust, an opinion attorneys from Morrison Foerster) are now challenging with the State Lands staff. The full commission has yet to weigh in.

There are floating communities on State Land grants in Sausalito, San Francisco, and Alameda and numerous houseboats in Richmond and Berkeley that were grandfathered by BCDC with the support of State Lands. We are outside the jurisdiction of BCDC but have been here since 1960, which is longer than most of those communities. Obviously floating homes are NOT prohibited.

The Inner Harbor planners recommended two scenarios, one of which was for the City to work with the State to keep Docktown where it is. A number of the members of the Planning Commision are supportive of this, but the City has made no attempt to do so, relying instead on the opinon they solicited.

The State Lands representative also said there should be a transition period until there was an alternate floating community we might be able to move to.

But Bill Ekern, who had driven this project until his recent resignation as Assistant City Manager, instead made it his policy to reduce the number of floating residences at Docktown by removing as many as possible. One tactic has been to insist that we cannot transfer liveaboard rights to our homes, which as in this case, meant there are no buyers, and anyone who want to sell is at the mercy of whatever the city is willing to pay, after which the city will crush the homes rather than let anyone move there.

This is an outrageous. Please stop destroying affordable housing.

Best regards

Lee Callister