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By Steve Levy
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About this blog: I grew up in Los Angeles and moved to the area in 1963 when I started graduate school at Stanford. Nancy and I were married in 1977 and we lived for nearly 30 years in the Duveneck school area. Our children went to Paly. We moved ...
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About this blog: I grew up in Los Angeles and moved to the area in 1963 when I started graduate school at Stanford. Nancy and I were married in 1977 and we lived for nearly 30 years in the Duveneck school area. Our children went to Paly. We moved downtown in 2006 and enjoy being able to walk to activities. I do not drive and being downtown where I work and close to the CalTrain station and downtown amenities makes my life more independent. I have worked all my life as an economist focusing on the California economy. My work centers around two main activities. The first is helping regional planning agencies such as ABAG understand their long-term growth outlook. I do this for several regional planning agencies in northern, southern and central coast California. My other main activity is studying workforce trends and policy implications both as a professional and as a volunteer member of the NOVA (Silicon Valley) and state workforce boards. The title of the blog is Invest and Innovate and that is what I believe is the imperative for our local area, region, state and nation. That includes investing in people, in infrastructure and in making our communities great places to live and work. I served on the recent Palo Alto Infrastructure Commission. I also believe that our local and state economy benefits from being a welcoming community, which mostly we are a leader in, for people of all religions, sexual preferences and places of birth.
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I support conversion of office space to housing on West Bayshore
Uploaded: Jun 19, 2022
Dear Mayor Burt and Councilmembers,
I write in support of Summerhill Homes’ development proposal at 2850 West Bayshore Road. Both the staff and PTC have brought this housing proposal to you with their support.
The construction of 48 townhouses on this site is consistent with the Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan, Zoning Ordinance and the current work of the Housing Element Update.
In addition, the development proposal meets two important city objectives with respect to new housing projects:
The planned townhomes will be three and four bedrooms, so the seven BMR units will provide affordable housing alternatives for larger families.
The proposed project replaces office uses with housing . Rejection of this project will raise doubts about the viability of the many commercial sites planned for housing in the site inventory.
The proposal is now one year old and has gone through numerous reviews and public hearings. The City has a goal to expedite and simplify the review project. A good first step would be approving this project tonight.
Stephen Levy
Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy
50+ year resident of Palo Alto
Local Journalism.
What is it worth to you?
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