3B Public Hearing 2007 0904 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Planning Commission Meeting Minutes Agenda No. 07-13 July 12,2007 Page 70f8 developments, especially in the near term. While you do have an inclusionary zoning provision that creates some moderate income units, the majority will be affordable only to less than one-quarter of current households. With the new public and private investment in the downtown, you're likely going to see major increases in property values, which will drive rents up for existing tenants. The downtown is currently more income-diverse than the rest of the City, and is generally slightly lower income, so quite a few people in rental housing. In fact 61 % of the housing in the TOD area is rental. Those families are at risk of being displaced or having to seek overcrowded or substandard housing or even to move out of the City. And so that's going to have an adverse human health impact on those families. It also shifts the housing-jobs imbalance, which already is quite skewed. You have 1.76 jobs for every residential unit here (or space for housing) in San Leandro, and 30,000 people commuting into the City every day. By not creating sufficient housing to meet the needs of current and future residents and workers, you have potential of even worsening the housing-jobs imbalance. That, as we all know, has impacts in temlS of traffic, parking, air quality and the City's carbon footprint. We will submit all of our comments in detail in writing, but we are asking the City to analyze these impacts in the final EIR, particularly the City's ability to meet its local and regional housing goals, resident displacement, the housing-jobs imbalance, and the human and environmental consequences of that. We also offer some mitigation strategies, which we think are both feasible and practical. We offer our support and our partnership in making those happen. We draw from a large body of research and resources, both regionally and nationally, and are looking at what other cities are doing. We are happy to share that information with you. I will write my contact information down for you. Hendy Huang, 463 EstudiIlo Avenue, San Leandro I'm from the Chinese Community of San Leandro (CCSL) group, and would like to speak about a Chinese or Asian senior center. The reason I would like to ask for this is we have about 26% of the population in San Leandro is Asian. At our CCSL booth at the Cherry Festival in June, so many seniors, and their children, came and ask if we have a senior center for them. I say, "No." Many of these people have to take their elderly parents to Chinatown in Oakland and San Francisco first thing in the morning, and then pick them up after work. This is very inconvenient. If we had an Asian senior center in downtown San Leandro, it would be very nice for these people to just walk there. Looking 20 years down the road, when this plan is closer to completion, I also will be a senior, and I would like to use this center. With no additional speakers coming forward, Chair Reed requested a motion to close the public hearing. Motion to Close Public Hearing Ponder / Collier 5 Ayes, 0 Noes, 2 Absent (Dlugosh; Nardine) Chair Reed thanked the speakers for their participation and well thought-out input.