Redwood City Inner Harbor Draft: Common Sense Gone Missing

Everyone is in agreement, we are in the midst of a housing crisis. Weekly protests at Sequoia Station spilled over with a candlelight vigil before the last City Council Meeting. Children spoke in Public Comment about how their parents were suffering trying to pay the rent. The Council did review and approve several different agenda items that included creating an Airbnb tax that would fund affordable housing. But as one speaker noted none of the agenda items would help the people we had heard from earlier. By the time these plans get off the ground, those families will most likely be gone. (http://redwoodcity-ca.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=1930)

Shockingly earlier that very same day, the City published a proposed Inner Harbor Draft Plan that would make the housing problem worse. The plan includes over 1.2 million square feet of office space and about 500 homes of different types. But the area is already suffering from a jobs housing imbalance. In the last couple of years region wide, 120,000 jobs were created while only 8000 homes were. So now we are going to add another development area with the space for over 4000 workers (probably more as high tech sharing companies tend to have much lower per capita work-space requirements than older more established companies) while in fact only adding space for 500 homes some of which may be occupied by multiple workers but could actually be occupied by just one worker and his or her family.

In addition, just in case we were unsure about the goals of the City, while the Inner Harbor Task force goals clearly included “preserve” existing floating communities; Docktown, an affordable floating community, is gone. Instead we have maybe some high end floating homes being approved to move into the privately owned Ferrari property. Why maybe? Because that area is also under the jurisdiction of other agencies including the Army Core of Engineers. Necessary approvals may or may not be forthcoming and will certainly take time. More egregiously that decision will mean that only the larger, fancier homes will remain while in fact supporting the destruction of the smaller, more affordable homes.

Why is the City of Redwood City trying to make the problem worse?

A cursory look at the plan is a further insult to common sense. We are asking parents to plan on dropping children off for practice and play at fields located across from a jail. When I mention to people that this is being done; they think I am joking. When I show them the plan, the level of disbelief is unprecedented. How could anyone involved in producing this plan not notice? Did nobody in the Planning department, City staff, City Council notice? Did all the money being paid to the two consultant groups, MIG and ESA, allow them to just look past this major problem? The two consultant groups wrote over nine hundred pages between the draft plan and the Environmental Impact Report basically in support of the plan; but common sense didn’t get included. One has to conclude that they will write whatever they are paid to write.

Not to belabor the point but just imagine the first time you need to drop off your child at this new field. You don’t know where it is. You are told don’t worry just go down by the jail. You can drop your children off at the field across from the jail. Sure no problem. (By the way, if you are a parent and that is your response, maybe YOU should be put in jail.)

These aren’t the only problems with the plan for sure; but when basic common sense walks out the door, there is usually some vested interest that stands to gain at the detriment of some other group. Unfortunately in this case the reality is that it is the residents who will then pay the price. Increasing the jobs housing imbalance, eliminating more affordable housing and poor planning are not the way to solve this crisis.