Zoning Mutual Sense

Kate Kershaw Downing has posted a worthy letter of resignation from the Palo Alto Housing commission, that seems to last going viral.

Palo Alto is absurdly expensive. People who desire to come upward hither for jobs can't afford to alive anywhere nearby.  What to produce nearly it?

 I conduct hold repeatedly made recommendations to the Council to expand the housing render inward Palo Alto as well as then that together alongside our neighboring cities who are already adding housing, nosotros tin outset to brand a dent inward the jobs-housing imbalance that causes housing prices throughout the Bay Area to spiral out of control. Small steps similar allowing 2 floors of housing instead of 1 inward mixed role developments, enforcing minimum density requirements as well as then that developers build apartments instead of penthouses, legalizing duplexes, easing restrictions on granny units, leveraging the residential parking permit programme to experiment alongside housing for people who don’t desire or ask 2 cars, as well as allowing single-use areas similar the Stanford shopping oculus to add together housing on tiptop of shops (or offices), would become a long trend inward adding desperately needed housing units acre maintaining the graphic symbol of our neighborhoods as well as preserving historic structures throughout.

She too warns

 If things perish along going equally they are, yes, Palo Alto’s streets volition hold off simply equally they did decades ago, but its inhabitants, spirit, as well as feel of community volition last unrecognizable. H5N1 i time thriving metropolis volition plough into a hollowed out museum.  

I flora Ms. Downing's missive of the alphabet noteworthy inward that it did non include the common Bay Area nostrums -- the authorities must build "affordable housing," freeze rents, ban novel construction (yes, this is proposed) or otherwise conduct hold counterproductive actions. Those steps tin save about existing low-income people at high cost -- creating a dissimilar sort of museum, actually -- but brand matters fifty-fifty worse for people who desire to motion hither to work. Few local voices appreciate that expanding render tin produce a lot to lower prices, as well as heighten historic menstruum as well as economical diversity.

As the post service notes, the Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution on the same letter. Alex points out simply how much nosotros conduct hold all lost belongings rights.

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