About a year ago, I heard from some folks on the other side of town about Plan Bay Area, which would try to re-organize Bay Area housing so that people can live closer to mass transit. The San Carlos Transit Village is an example of this trend. The thinking goes that anyone living closer to mass transit would be more likely to use it. In an article written yesterday for the Palo Alto Daily Post by Jeramy Gordon, the headline reads "169,000 houses in jeopardy". Could it be true that this information I heard about the "Plan Bay Area", which will aim to take 1 of every 9 single family homes in the Bay Area, might end up taking my home? You see, I live in the 65 year-old neighborhood of Greater East San Carlos and really enjoy my 5,000 square foot and quaint single family home. I'm all in financially, absolutely love San Carlos, enjoy walking to Laurel Street, and would love to retire here. But across the street, a plan is afoot to build the first of these massive "Plan Bay Area" apartment structures: 8-buildings scheduled for 55-feet, that will kickoff the "Plan Bay Area" Ground Zero structure for the entire Bay Area, right here in San Carlos. The San Carlos Transit Village is brainchild of a big player in "Plan Bay Area", SamTrans, who plans to make money off their public land we gifted them purportedly as a rail yard, so they can pay the exploding pension demands of the SamTrans management team. How "Plan Bay Area" aims to demolish our homes is unclear in the article, but if what I've learned in trying to get a more reasonable Transit Village built is any indication of what I'll experience in the future, I have seen that no amount of effort seems to have any impact. We have been fighting San Carlos Transit Village for 6 years and the apartments actually grew from 48 feet to 54 feet (It turns out that the information about height was misstated at first - I wonder how that happened that they managed to not accurately measure their buildings and missed by 6 feet?). They agreed after all this time to lop off 8% of the building, which leaves the buildings still larger than the initial buildings we were shown 6 years ago. On a side note, we believe that these buildings need to be reduced by at least 35-40% to fit into San Carlos. The argument being made by the "Plan Bay Area" group is flimsy at best. They cite demand as the reason that the stock of single family homes will go down from 56% to 39% and they claim that "Hispanics and Asians have a preference for multi-generational housing instead of single family homes." Is this true that Asians and Hispanics prefer apartments? Is it true that all of us will want to move into apartments? I sure don't. Do you? Finally, what determines which neighborhoods are slated for eminent domain and which ones get to survive? Well, my guess is that the neighborhoods without enough financial or political power to resist these unmovable, very-well paid unelected bureaucrats are most likely to suffer. But please know that if these people come after my home, I will do everything till my last dying breath to save my home and those of my neighbors. Enough is enough. I have attached the article for everyone to read. Enjoy!
