Honorable City Council,
While I am a resident of Palo Alto, I am feet from the Meno Park border and visit your businesses and recreational facilities almost daily since I can easily bike or walk there.
I urge you to strengthen your housing goals for the same reason I urge my city to do so! More housing units in the right places means stronger businesses, schools, and an improved tax base. Please consider:
* allowing more housing in and near the service-rich, walkable, transit-accessible downtown, which currently allows much less housing than the area near Belle Haven and Facebook
* enabling more commercial sites to be redeveloped with housing and a mix of uses. With the post-pandemic office vacancy rate, there is an unprecedented opportunity to improve the balance of homes and jobs and enable more people to live closer to work
* Enabling sites for affordable housing across the city, to enable people of a variety of income levels to live in high opportunity areas
Consistent with the Planning Commissions recommendations, please also consider significantly increasing allowed density (or remove density requirements altogether since they are a poor regulator of building size/shape) that will make 100% affordable housing possible; and increase heights allowed at the Sharon Heights Safeway site. We need more housing everywhere - for our kids and our seniors!
Thank you,
Amie Ashton
236 Middlefield Road
