Dear Mayor Nash and Council members,
Now that reality has smacked you in the face through Meta’s earthshattering announcement it is not only laying off 8,000 employees, but also shelving its Willow Village project that you’ve been counting on, it’s time to take some long overdue action: that of instructing your staff to inform HCD of the city’s need to revise our Housing Element.
This is emphatically NOT the time to triple down on your radioactive plan to cripple our small businesses and devastate our community by filling our essential downtown parking lots with subsidized 7-to-9-story high-density housing projects—especially since that contentious plan is facing both a ballot initiative and a lawsuit.
Instead, it’s time to consider some judicious housing plans for parts of the Civic Center, the Corporation Yard, the empty lot on Willow at Ivy, and especially sites in District 1 now that they’ve lost 1700 planned housing units, as well as other potential sites.
The bottom line: District 1 must now be in play!
No more stalling, Council. Start the conversation with HCD,
And if you’re smart, you’ll also lobby them for a downward adjustment in our numbers of mandated housing units in the current HE cycle, since our projected jobs numbers have plummeted along with a segment of our planned housing.
Sincerely,
Cherie Zaslawsky
