HomeMy WebLinkAbout7/16/2019 Item 14, Jeffries
From:Krista Jeffries <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Housing Development - Broad and Tank Farm
Hello Honorable Council Members,
I'm an artist, wife and mother of three living in the Five Cities area. I'm a 6-
year resident of SLO County - two in Paso Robles, four in Grover Beach -
originally from the East Coast. I've traveled a lot of places and lived overseas
in my 30 years, but the Central Coast has quickly become my favorite place in all
areas but one: affordability.
I will not spend an inordinate amount of time and words describing the housing
crisis to you. Open any major publication across the state and you will find
plenty of ink spilled on the subject already, both for its explanation and its
paths to correction. For brevity's sake, I will summarize it succinctly: the
demand for homes has outpaced the supply, and therefore part of the answer lies
in the simple (at least in theory) increase of available housing stock. At the
Building, Design and Construction Cluster for the Economic Vitality Corporation,
a woman from the county showed us how SLO holds 44% of the county's jobs, but
only 21% of our housing. Increasing, and particularly densifying, our available
housing units is paramount to prevent our lovely stretch of California from
making the same mistakes as the Bay Area and Los Angeles, who also suffer from
this housing/job imbalance.
Why am I writing to the city council for a city I don't live in? Because it will
take a regional approach, and regional cooperation, to solve the affordability
issues that affect everyone from Paso Robles to Oceano. When workers in SLO city
can't find homes close to their offices, they find homes and apartments in Arroyo
Grande, Grover Beach, Atascadero, and beyond. They increase traffic and carbon
emissions, and spend less time being productive or with their families as more
hours are lost to commuting.
Its for this reason that I strongly support the development proposals at Tank
Farm and Broad. They're in great locations to reduce car dependency for their
prospective residents, and they're in the city with the deepest need for more
homes at various income levels. Please do all that you can to meet the future
head-on in the face of a loud but minority opposition, especially in regards to
housing.
All The Best,
--
Krista Jeffries
Creator. Opinionator. Mostly Professional.
Click here to see my latest art things
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