Cupertino DailyCupertino housing element focus group to meet thurs.
Following, but not too closely, on the heels of the North Vallco area focus group, a new focus group for future housing will take place, Thurs. 9/25/2008 at 6:30 p.m. in room 100 of City Hall, Torre & Rodriguez Ave. This meeting is to help plan for future housing in Cupertino based upon a formula conjured up by ABAG (Association of Bay Area Cities) mandated by
the State of Calif.
I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Cupertino’s Planning Director, Steve Pieseki who when faced with a huge amount of housing ABAG felt should be added in Cupertino, managed to negotiate our share down to around 250 over the next few years, rather than over a thousand.
As I understand it, this housing doesn’t actually have to be built out during the next 10 years or so, we just have to identify where it should be placed. While I am not as opposed to public input into planning rather than building piecemeal as has been done–I don’t feel that just one area of town should be burdened by new housing, and that the many, many, many condos being added on Stevens Creek from DeAnza to Tantau should be factored into the mix.
What I do take issue with is how members of focus groups in Cupertino are chosen by the city.
Rather than hand pick members and organizations, I feel the city should advertise the formation of the groups and ask for volunteers from every neighborhood.
While “stakeholders” in the groups that the city chooses include large corporations and business’, the real and genuine “stakeholders” are the residents of Cupertino who are directing impacted every day, and their children who attend crowded schools. We are fortunate to live in a city of some of the most intelligent people on the planet. We don’t hear from most of them. City Hall needs to cast a wider net to include as many folks as possible in the dialogue as well as the solutions.
We watched the last meeting of the Housing Element and noticed glaring neighborhood omissions. This is ludicrous. In order to at least give the appearance of NOT staking the deck in order to make things happen in one particular way, or expanding upon the good old boy network, voluntary membership is the only way to go. Nor do I understand why so many outside agencies were included in the mix, and if they are to be included–it should be the choice of the residents who live here, and should include a wider variety of organizations especially in the area of religion
When it comes to housing involving jobs, living where one works sounds good, but in reality, how many people in the tech industry have been in one job, in one place for many many years? Personally, I know just one. While there may be folks out there who uproot their children from their schools and neighborhoods every few years to avoid commuting, I doubt the numbers are huge. If large corporations
want employees to live within walking and biking distance, perhaps some of their office space should be given over to employee housing and the
infrastructure that goes with it like schools, and additional police, and fire fighters.
Tags: Cupertino Housing, House planning Committe
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