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https://n2v.almanacnews.com/square/print/2007/11/18/the-affordable-housing-equation

Town Square

the affordable housing equation

Original post made by just a thought, Menlo Park: Central Menlo Park, on Nov 18, 2007

A lot of discussion in this town often references the need for "affordable housing", but it seems that this discussion is generally only focused on one side of the equation. What makes housing "affordable" is not just the cost of the housing itself, but also the income of the person(s) who are doing the buying or renting. Creating high density housing is not the only way (and maybe not the best way) to enable key community service providers such as teachers, firefighters, police, etc. to actually live in our community. High density housing is not very attractive to families with children, so key service providers will choose to live elsehwere anyway if they want to raise a family. And high density housing creates many other costs to our community terms of traffic, congestion, lack of open space, etc. It seems like a better way to achieve the real objective would be better to provide direct financial incentives to key service providers to live in our community rather than to create more high density housing or otherwise build out whatever remaining open space still exists.

Comments

Posted by Mary
a resident of Menlo Park: Downtown
on Nov 19, 2007 at 10:04 am

I'm not sure who a high density project like Derry is going to be attractive to, whether the units are affordable or not. A high-rise condo over a former drycleaner's, sandwiched in between the train tracks and El Camino Real?

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Posted by Martin Engel
a resident of Menlo Park: Park Forest
on Nov 19, 2007 at 2:50 pm

For a more informed and intelligent conversation about this topic, check this out:
Web Link

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Posted by Name hidden
a resident of Menlo Park: Suburban Park/Lorelei Manor/Flood Park Triangle

on Jun 5, 2017 at 12:16 am

Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?