HomeMy WebLinkAbout7/2/2024 Item 7a, Strong Towns
Strongtowns SLO <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:City Council Item 7a
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Dear City Councilmembers,
Strong Towns SLO is a hyper-local, community movement made of San Luis Obispo residents dedicated
to building a stronger, more resilient city.
We are writing today on Item 7a:
We celebrate and appreciate the simplification of fee structures across city services.
We condone and support your aim to make city fees reflective of the current costs to provide such
services.
We encourage using this opportunity to continue subsidizing and further incentivizing the types of
small infill and neighborhood development projects you want to see built in our city.
We encourage you to cut the Gordian Knot holding back small incremental development by
making such entitled by-right.
To that end we consider the proposal of Historic Property Listing being free and Delisting not, to be
strange. If the argument is that Historic Properly Listing is cost exempt due to it being a "substantial
community benefit" one may also consider other services in support of substantial community benefits,
such as the creation of housing, to be cost exempt as well.
Furthermore, we consider the fee structure of Table 3 to be heavily imbalanced in favor of keeping any
neighborhood change from happening. At Strong Towns we follow an ethos of no neighborhood being
exempt from change but no neighborhood being subject to radical change. There is an argument to be
made that such an imbalanced fee structure elevates the few voices of those who have the money to
oppose a project over those less wealthy, whom it would broadly benefit. The only developers who can
play in such a field are those with deep pockets, those whose large projects deeply distort the
surrounding market, drastically changing the neighborhood character and often leading to displacement
and/or gentrification.
Keep doing what you can to build a Strong Town!
- Strong Towns SLO
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