The Brisbane City Council heard comments Monday night on Universal Paragon Corporation’ pending proposal with the City of Brisbane to create a mixed development of commercial, office, retail and housing at the Baylands site.
“It’s a no-brainer that the Baylands site should include housing, and lots of it, to meet the needs created by the seven million square feet of development with 15,000 permanent jobs,” wrote Peter Cohen for the Council of Community Housing Organizations (CCHO).
“Approving a plan with thousands of homes accessible to public transit would show the kind of local leadership we need if we are going to pull ourselves out of this housing crisis,” wrote San Francisco natives State Sen. Scott Wiener and state assemblymembers Phil Ting and David Chiu.
“The South Bay’s anti-housing policies have wreaked particular havoc on San Francisco’s Mission District tenants,” wrote Randy Shaw, Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic. “When the South Bay adds tens of thousands of jobs without building housing, a lot of those workers end up living in San Francisco. This drives up rents for San Francisco rental units and increases evictions.”
The Council ended up punting, saying they want to see what happens at the state level first.
Here are my favorite moments from the meeting:
“We work very hard to keep Brisbane Brisbane. I think we should continue to keep the character of Brisbane.”
Brisbane is 60.2% white and 29.6% Asian and Pacific Islander.
“We’re unique. There’s no other place like Brisbane.”
Right. You’re the only California town incorporated in the early 1960s to prevent “Urban Renewal.”
“There are better places to put low-cost housing. Let’s not put it in the Baylands.”
“We would like to exist as we have existed in our character and our community.”
Latinos make up 16.6% of the population and only 1.9% of Brisbane is Black.
Median household income is $80,233.
@SFyimby put it perfectly: “It’s amazing how every place we advocate for housing thinks we should be advocating for housing somewhere else.” (Here’s the thread.)
This is exactly why we need by-right housing (and honey badgers).
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.