Hello council members,
My wife and I are homeowners on College Avenue with kids at Oak Knoll and Hillview, and we wanted to register our full throated support of the proposal to build apartments on the downtown parking lots.
The parking lots are a decrepit, unattractive waste of space, and can be easily replaced with parking structures like in Palo Alto and Redwood City. Bringing more young people and families downtown will bring vibrancy and support more retail and restaurants downtown. And our kids will live in a more diverse and energetic community.
Furthermore, building downtown is simply the right thing to do. We are in a historic housing crisis, largely caused by an imbalance between jobs and housing. If you weren’t born here or very wealthy, living in many towns on the peninsula is simply unimaginable. The people who teach and care for our kids, police our streets and fight our fires, serve our food and work our stores, too often live an hour away or more. We have a moral responsibility to do our part to make our community stronger and more accessible for everyone.
We have been disappointed to see so many of our neighbors repeating the same tired NIMBY tropes from Measure M and Measure V. Yes there are other lots we can build on—let’s build there too! But downtown is the *perfect* place for apartment buildings to house workers and families. We urge you to do the right thing, move forward with the surplus land designation and the RFQ for all three lots.
Michael Levinson and Amanda Muñoz
