Redwood City's plan for 1.2mil sq. ft. for tech offices, but only a few hundreds homes

[Marcus Ismael]

Check out the article here.

The gist: "The highly anticipated documents — a proposed “specific plan” and environmental impact report — outlines the growth trajectory for the 100-acre area that’s currently mostly industrial uses, recreational facilities and parking lots. The vision? Up to 1.2 million square feet of office space, 40,000 square feet of retail, 550 residential units and more than 40 acres of open space."

...

"In addition, Watt Communities has turned in plans for a roughly 200-unit condo project on a large parking lot along the plan area’s eastern boundary...The bulk of the remaining land would be developed as recreation fields and open space."

It's a tad bit irresponsible for Redwood City - like many other Peninsula towns (looking at you, Mountain View) - to welcome new tech workers by opening up space but do nothing to house them. I think this can open up a discussion about spreading BARF's efforts throughout the Peninsula at their city halls and planning entities. We've got Palo Alto Forward and a group in Sunnyvale I believe, but there's hardly anything else from there to the City. The issue is that many Peninsula politicians from city halls to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors do support denser, transit-oriented housing development - after all, South San Francisco just approved it's new Downtown Plan which includes denser, taller housing, and mixed use plus plans for a refurbished Caltrain station - but cannot actively express those pro-development sentiments because the voters are just as vehemently NIMBY as those in SF. I know quite a few of us in this group either live or work in San Mateo County and I was wondering what you'd think about ramping efforts to make sure municipalities don't approve office expansion without making the necessary requirements for housing and transit improvements.

[Kyle Huey]

There is a Redwood City YIMBY group. It's nascent, but it exists. I
don't know if they're on the list but Kate from PAF has contact with
them, I believe.

This is disappointing because Redwood City has actually been the
bright spot on the peninsula for housing for the last few years.

- Kyle

> --
> This list too heavy for you? Join the ANNOUNCEMENTS ONLY list:
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/sfbarentersfed-announce and
> unsubscribe from this list. Instructions immediately below \/ \/ \/
> ---
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "SFBA Renters Federation" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to SFBArentersfe...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SFBArentersfed/5d4395f2-c8e9-48dc-ab33-23c537e7d84e%40googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Kyle Huey]

Anyways we (the collective YIMBY groups of the bay area) should
comment on the EIR. If the Redwood City group is extant enough to
handle that great, otherwise someone else can.

- Kyle

[Noveed Safipour]

Redwood City residents should go to the meeting where they discuss the EIR and say they want the commutes of tech workers calculated in it as a result of them not building housing.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SFBArentersfed/CAP045AoWSAPaew6Fga%3DZ0DDVW20cc%2BDgFPZwvbKBC1EErMMcVw%40mail.gmail.com.