YIMBY Action

Did you know: the League of Cities is assuring city council members that they can still base fees on the "Level of Service" rather than the more environmental measure "Vehicle Miles Traveled." This is what climate change denial looks like y'all.

First speaker from @Evan_Low's office begs the City Council to just make a decision for something viable because this has gone on waaaay too long, and the community "needs housing, especially Affordable Housing."

"We have regional traffic issues, we have a regional housing shortage." LPT: allow more housing near jobs.

"Please don't feel that this is your *sole* responsibility. ...No snowflake in the avalanche ever feels responsible. ..let's do this together, with all of our communities.

"We love our children... But we don't love them so much we want them to live in our home forever."

Local "longtime resident" is mad that SB35 offers a less ideal project in her mind than the Specific Plan. Conveniently forgets that without SB35 this Hail Mary Pass by Cupertino would not even be on the table. The Vallco Mall would remain a dead mall.

School district talking about the benefits they're getting, mention "sometimes we get nothing at all, other than develoment fees." "We fight, we work for more funding for our schools." ::COUGH:: Prop 13 and exclusionary zoning keep California schools segregated. ::COUGH::

"I'm kinda a Zillow-watcher, because new property taxes help our school district." "And they've gone up?" (Giggles) "Yes, they've gone up."

Discussion about how people report that they want to leave, but population doesn't go down. That's what happens when you attract people with jobs and amenities and then make them miserable with artificially high housing costs.

"..So many of us moved here for the excellent public schools, and frankly many of us are homeowners..." Councilmember makes (somewhat circuitous) point that astronomical housing costs make it hard for teachers and workers to live in the city, reducing everyone's quality of life.

So many people are here to fight for their piece of the community benefits. But it feeds a nasty cycle that housing is a negative that needs to be "offset." This kind of process is not going to get us the housing we need.

"I hope that we're at the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning..." - @MattRegan10 of @BayAreaCouncil

Talks about the cost of develoment weighed against the cost of NOT developing, that cost of displacement, the cost of people commuting in from Manteca.

City Councilmember who isn't proposing upzoning Cupertino for housing asks folks to comment on jobs/housing balance of the project. Seems not to recognize his direct oversight of the current disaster is maybe a factor...

"Market conditions changed, permitting took too long, or municipalities moved the goalposts and now they don't pencil. So many of those projects will remain in the 'pipeline' and never get built." This is how housing dies.

Cupertino is ahead of the pack when it comes to making their housing goal RHNA numbers. But also everyone sucks. Every snowflake in the avalanche points at the snowflake behind them and says, "Well, they're worse than me!"

Guy talks about how Better Cupertino has been fighting to try to bring back the shopping mall. He is hilarious. "Just Google dead mall."

Woman is upset that "nonresidents" came to meetings. One might even call them "outside agitators."

Public comment has entirely been comment and then a bunch if questions. There is no way they're getting through public comment before 11pm.

"They're all too dense." Man who started his testimony by saying "we all know there's a housing crisis and we should all do our part," ends by calling for heights to come down for a "human scale" project.

"I have two children, UC graduates, great jobs, and they're struggling to find housing too. ...so, we're gonna have to go vertical at some point."