Report: Affordable housing money needed in San Mateo County

I have to agree 100% with Coralin. Tech and special interests win. Residents lose. How long will we stand for it?

Social engineering has never solved the core issue which is that the high-tech companies are not paying the support personnel sufficiently to make a living here. The tax-and-spend legislators immediately revert to taxation which burdens those of us who had little input on the ravenous desire by cities to bring in the ridiculous square footage of laboratories, office spaces, etc without considering the housing and infrastructure requirements for these new employees. Their answer as usual is to tax those of us who saw this coming but were never asked about our concerns. Throw these bums out of office at the next election and start anew with responsible and responsive representatives.

So basically we are OK taking money away from the schools? That is what redevelopment agencies did. I do not think the reform went far enough as Cities still have housing departments those should have been gutted as well (cities keep properties, but operations go to housing authority). In SM county there are 21 cities assuming each one averages $200k in salaries and benefits that would be $4.2 million a year extra for housing. There is a housing authority at the county level all housing issues should go through it, so redundancy and waste are eliminated.

So now we are going to be taxed to create more housing for people who are moving in our area. That does not make any sense - or maybe it makes $$ sense for those that are profiting from all of this future housing construction.

Pretty soon our Prop 13 protection will disappear and we'll all be moving out of this area. Watch out for that to happen in 2020 election. Actually that is what the DEM CA legislators want.

If 'Silicon Valley wants more housing they should create it on their own land or buy already built apartments for their workers. Don't tax us instead.

Also as a former Democrat now declined to state, it is the CA elected State Democrats who are pushing for all this housing.
I wonder why?!

First off, don't we need to figure out the number of renters who need affordable housing? Our cities are not asking that question because it is just so horrifying. My guess, considering there is zero rent control, is 80 percent of current renters need it, unless we want our entire workforce to be highly paid tech workers who will pay 4-5k for an apartment.

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) as of early 2018 had more than $13.5 billion in assets under management, making it the largest community foundation in the country as measured by assets.

What’s happening with the Bay Area nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the Ford Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation, and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) who supposedly have a large fund dedicated to developing and preserving affordable housing? Good news….. but where and when is the next question?

Facebook’s 1.3-million-square-foot expansion in Menlo Park will cause more headaches among locals who have criticized the company for gentrification and driving up prices in the local rental market.

The company announced it would develop 1,500 residential units in Menlo Park. Of those, 225 units will be rented at below-market rates. [Bloomberg] . So 1500 units for 6550 new jobs and only 225 units are affordable. Facebook will actually make money on the market rate units.

Side note……Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg paid a price approaching $200 million for 750 acres of secluded land on the North Shore of Kauai. Zuckerberg spent almost $60 million on 2 waterfront estates in Tahoe last winter….. Done deals!

Sounds great, tax us more so that you can pack more people in our communities.

Let me sure I understand this correctly. Cities allow the FANGs to develop huge swatches of land up and down the Peninsula which results in an inordinate number of jobs being created relative to housing. So, we now have a housing crisis and the solution is to raise our taxes to provide affordable funds for affordable housing?

Perhaps we should revisit the idea of a head tax and put the financial responsibility for solving this crisis where it belongs, on the FANGs.

Not going to solve the housing shortage by continuing to welcome thousands of hi-paying jobs to the area.