Piedmont Housing Element

Residents questioning the safety of the Moraga Canyon Specific Plan by posting “Is it Safe” signs around town were accused of using public safety as a “boogeyman” to conceal their dislike of “poor people” coming to Piedmont. That’s a cheap shot given how poorly the question of how the project could impact emergency evacuation is…

Most people complaining about how adding less than 200 housing units is somehow going to make us all die in a fire are completely disingenuous. Just say you don’t want poor people in Piedmont. We all know you’re thinking it. And by the way, the “IS THIS SAFE?” Yard signs are overly busy and poorly…

The push for a massive development in Moraga Canyon is not just misguided; it is being orchestrated by a City Administrator whose tactics prioritize expediency over public safety. The proposal for 197 units in a high-fire-risk zone, dependent on a narrow, two-lane evacuation route, is a recipe for disaster. This flawed process mirrors the Linda…

I am opposed to the sheer scale of 197 units being installed in our steep-sided high fire zone Moraga Canyon. Moraga is a 2 lane road and always will be no matter how you doctor up the diagrams. It is a very heavily travelled roadway (11,000+ cars daily) which begins and ends in Oakland and…

Having worked for 50 years in the East Bay as an architect and planner I am sure that very few of you understand very much at all of the technical analysis in the Specific Plan; I know that I still do not. To get a more intuitive, even visceral understanding of what is being proposed…

Article 34 of the State Constitution requires a public vote for a state or federally funded low income housing project. While city staff knows this they are spending probably a million dollars on the continuing dog and pony shows they’ve been putting on since 2023 for the MCSP. I think that there’s a better than…

Jonathan Lansner, real estate columnist in the EB Times yesterday reported that as housing became more plentiful while the state’s population declined, the opposite of what the developer/Yimby narrative said would happen, happened. Prices went up. More housing availability didn’t help at all. Maybe the wise people in Sacramento don’t actually know what they are…

Good article on today’s WSJ (10/23/2024) on how payments to contractors consulting on the housing element are helping Portola Valley go broke. Can anyone tell how much Piedmont has spent on the housing element including contractors . Publicity and staff time? Was it much more than necessary to meet the A BAG criteria ?