Recent Comments

For me, the aesthetics of this project are terrible. I think that's what needs to change. However, if you add more low income units to this project it would never get built. Construction is just too expensive. Even the current incentives to build are not enough in many cases. Take the old Jiffy Lube site on Carrillo/De La Vina. The owners got a big apartment approved. Would have been great, another community of people living and shopping downtown. But it got sold. So now a Valvoline Oil franchise will go it and for decades it will be there - until cars don't run on oil. Great fit? Good use? Nice look? Not so much. Take your pick: No development at all or more market rate apartments. I do agree 100% we need a balanced community. Having a bunch of spoiled trust funders or only elite income types isn't what SB is about. Adding in 15% of lower or moderate income units helps a bit at least. Let's not see the glass as always 85% empty. The Housing Authority has been hundreds of units in town over the last 10 years for low income workers. It's wonderful. We need more and so let's set aside land for them. The City, BTW, has tons of sites which are not needed or else underutilized, like downtown parking lots. Build apartments over these surface lots which maintaining much of the parking for the public. There are 6 ways to Sunday to fix things and yet we are stuck here on Monday morning. Keep in mind also that the more units are built, the more prices will stabilize eventually. Supply-demand, micro economics basics do hold true over time. Lastly, if we don't get more people downtown, how is State street, the retail scene ever going to bounce back? How it will downtown ever be vibrant again? It's not a fertile land with a few dead zone. Quite the opposite. It is a desert with a little oasis of people and activity here and there. I'm pretty sure nobody wants this. Let's not keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Most