"Housing Advocates" Please Go Away

I am thoroughly sick and tired of the so-called housing advocates trying to pressure every City decision to add more housing.  In yesterday's Daily Journal we get two more examples.  First, the piece on redeveloping a piece of Bayfront land that is sitting mostly idle is on the docket for a meeting tonight with the State Lands Commission and the city and residents

State officials received an application from H&Q Asia Pacific in 2016 to develop a new hotel and park at the site, prompting a neighbor of the property to offer an alternative proposal to preserve the land as open space.

SPHERE Institute, a public policy research firm headquartered in the area east of Highway 101 along the city’s Bayfront, expressed an interest in leading the financing campaign to preserve the wetlands which exist on the property.

Housing advocates have also called for the site to be built into a residential development.

Really?  These clowns have no idea what it would take in city time, energy and expense to support ANY housing on the Bayfront.  There is no school, no police patrol to speak of (I know, I've done a drive-along with BPD), fire/ambulance coverage takes a lot of effort and will never be great without a new station that will never happen, and the weather sucks for the most part.  Just stop already!  Then this little gem of an idea pops up in the Rec Center article in the same edition

Under the direction from councilmembers, the architect will craft new designs and bring the issue back for further consideration in June.

While design revisions were considered, housing advocates suggested developing some residential units on top of the facility as a means of combating the city’s affordability crisis.

Stop already.  It's a Rec Center, not public housing.  The whole community is wondering where the heck the parking is going to come from for the recreation part and these clowns want to add housing?  Unbelievable.  We have a huge amount of housing already "in the dirt".  That's enough until all the other support services figure out how to handle the influx that has already been approved.   Oh, and just for good measure, we are back in a drought situation regardless of how much rain we get this week. 

Comments

[resident]

Maybe they will figure out that their little rent control game has caused a bunch of landlords to keep right up with market pricing in case they come back. Or not.

[Becca]

Well said Joe!

[Bobby]

These housing advocates and our governor won't stop until the entire Bay Area looks like Manhattan. We've got to vote in those that truly want to preserve the right balance in the quality of life.

This has completely been forgotten with more high paying jobs pushing out middle class, high density and traffic.

[Bruce Dickinson]

Guys, seriously, if these housing advocates are proposing building stuff on the 2nd story of a Rec Center or in the middle of a hotel and industrial area, inasmuch they apparently have "no cares" as far as where the housing is located then maybe Bay Area cities should help fund the purchase of houseboats!

Plenty of room, can beat the traffic, complete mobility and of course numerous water recreation opportunities abound!

The preposterousness of these ideas is directly proportional to the size of the inflated economic bubble we find ourselves in.

Enjoy it while it lasts!

[resident]

It is also time to put a stop to building on the two public parking lots south of Howard Ave. Have you ever heard of anything so STUPID??

[Meeeee]

They don't want us to drive anymore therefore they offer no parking......... remember?

[Mike Mitchell]

There is no doubt that rents have risen dramatically due to the work that the likes of Cindy Cornell and her crew have done here in Burlingame with the assistance of Faith in Action, CLSEPA, and Tenants Together.

[Joe]

I only have the occasional anecdotal conversation with people who have rental property (all of them small-time landlords with one or two properties) but that is their reaction even though the last gambit lost by 20 percent.

[Joe]

Oh my Gawd....even when they finally do Go Away, they still can't shut up!!!! From today's DJ:

Editor,

Mr. Espinoza’s flowery endorsement of Burlingame Councilwoman Emily Beach for Congress lacked facts voters need (“There is some hope yet” in the Dec. 3 edition of the Daily Journal). We demonstrably need diversity in leadership but voting for a woman because she is a woman is the same as not voting for a woman because she is a woman. We need a representative who has actually worked toward preserving and increasing economic and racial diversity. That is not Emily Beach.

Burlingame renters make up 52% of the city. As founder of Housing for All Burlingame, my interactions with Councilwoman Beach have proven fruitless. In 2015, she stated that renters moving frequently was a good thing for the city. Like her cohorts, she never campaigned directly to the majority — renters.

At an August 2016 council meeting, she espoused the undemocratic idea that only elected officials were qualified to run petition drives and evaluate legislation — not voters. For years, buildings full of low-income renters, single moms and people of color in Burlingame have been emptied without a word from Beach who took no action to stop the wholesale purging of racially and economically diverse populations.

In 2019, Beach was presented with specific ways to help renters remain in their homes. She ignored them: eliminating Measure T, which prevents the city from requiring developers to include affordable units; halting the influx of jobs to address the devastating jobs/housing imbalance; establishing eviction protections and creating a public database on rental prices.

Burlingame and Beach tout the city as successful at creating affordable housing; however, the few affordable units included in new construction is aimed at people in higher income categories; no low-income people need apply.

The district deserves a representative like Jackie Speier — proven, uncompromising, with bold ideas, and committed to all regardless of income or status. Vote for the best person to fill that bill.

Cynthia Cornell

Everett, Wash.

The letter writer is the founder and member Housing for All Burlingame.
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By the way, I probably had more people at Thanksgiving dinner than have ever belonged to "Housing for All Burlingame". What a crock.

[Paloma Ave]

Cornell was Burlingame's biggest whiner and complainer for many, many years. After not getting anyone to subsidize her housing she finally left.

Apparently her unsuccessful attempts are still gnawing away as she keeps an ever watchful eye on the goings on here in Burlingame.

I am wondering if she is annoying the people of Everett, Washington as much as she annoyed the residents of Burlingame?