Members of the Council and Planning Commission:
My comments are based on the map and article in today's Daily Post.
while I applaud Facebook for working to get the long overdue Dumbarton commuter rail line going, their design for a 35,000 worker
site is a disaster. The plan is classic 1950s, with an orientation towards cars and having each part of the land with a different
use. Instead, the site should be designed for multi use, transit oriented, and smart growth. It needs to be designed for people,
not cars.
Smart growth means multi story buildings built to encourage use of transit- with ground floor retail, and jobs/housing above.
Simply put, transit cannot pay for itself unless the land nearby provides riders. People will only use the Dumbarton rail if it is
convenient for them. That means multi use buildings near the transit stop.
As big as the site appears to be, I suspect Facebook will run shuttle buses connecting transit riders with its various sites. That
is a start, but not a substitute for a good transit oriented plan.
If Facebook wants to limit housing on its site to its own employees, Stanford does that and it seems to work well.
CEQA requires evaluation of alternatives. The City should consider some modern concepts that achieve Facebook's goals, as well as
the proposal in today's paper.
I hope Facebook and the Council will adopt a plan that works to make life more livable for both employees and the community.
Terry A. Trumbull
Lecturer, Environmental Studies
San Jose State and Santa Clara Universities
