Dear City Council members,I fully support improving the housing situation so that affordable housing can be made available and
used by those individuals and families that work in the immediate area. I support the BMR requirements for Rental properties as
are currently imposed on new construction.
I am interested in what else might be done to increase the number of units that can be made available. I notice that non-profits
often provide incentives and provide outreach campaigns to encourage corporate and estate donations. It seems that the concept of
creating such a campaign and having people donate property and portions of their estate wealth could generate millions of dollars
in value. Are open space districts seem to be successful with something similar. It might be that the city, county, and state
could provide substantial incentives for such property donations, in way of benefits to the estate, honorary recognition to the
persons/families making the donations, and with property tax deductions for entities managing the properties.
I just don’t think that a 15% BMR here and 20% BMR there, is addressing the huge housing hole we have. It helps and is absolutely
needed. We just should not stop there. We need to think outside the box to create immediate opportunities to make available
housing. These opportunities need be developed so that affordable housing is also achieved in the West Menlo Park, Portola Valley
and other such westside neighborhoods. We should not be pushing low income housing only in East of 101 neighborhoods.
Part of this out of box thinking includes the concept of developing a formal policy/plan for current west side properties to be
encouraged to build rentable ’studio’ housing (little housing units) on their current properties, provided such units are
guaranteed affordable. I did not research if this is currently being done in the City, but with such huge lots in much of the
Menlo, Atherton, Portola Valley, and Ladera neighborhoods, it seems that would be an incentive that could yield initial units
quickly.
Sincerely,Ron
\_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_ \_Ron SnowSantaCruz/Alameda For Everyone (SAFE)
ronsnow@univpark.org [ronsnow@univpark.org]199 Stanford AveMenlo Park, CA 94025-6325 USA
Direct: 650-949-6658
