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Health & Fitness

Is Plan Bay Area Equal Justice?

ABAG calls it social justice.

The regional, non-elected government in Oakland mandates that cities large and small permanently rezone for low income housing. It does not matter that your town has no jobs to offer. And your previous building height limits, setbacks and density regulations no longer apply. 

Next, ABAG requires that cities provide incentives to developers to construct the discounted properties. The cost, in part, will mean lower property values to those who have paid market rate. But it will also mean impacted parking and traffic and larger class room sizes. Added to that, the stack-and-pack projects will place increasing demands on local tax payers to support the heavily subsidized housing. Meanwhile, the city which has now grown substantially in size and possibly crime, does not realize another dollar for its stretched library, fire department, police department or public schools. Meanwhile, the Orinda/Moraga Fire Department is already facing service reductions:

http://www.contracostatimes.com/orinda/ci_23406853/moraga-orinda-fire-board-works-avoid-service-redu...

Does that sound like social justice? And the Plan strictly requires that the buildings must be 20-units per acre minimally to qualify for developer discounts. This means a high rise or two in your downtown with questionable architectural design.

Plan Bay Area ultimately disenfranchizes a lower income group from ever pulling equity from their home because they remain renters at a fixed cost. This prevents citizens from ever enjoying the ladder of economic success and home ownership appreciation.

ABAG is spending billions and billions of our gasoline tax dollars to make this reality. If only a fraction of those funds (our funds) went toward college grants, professional training programs and tax credits to companies that encouraged telecommuting to work, we would all be far better off and have fewer CO2 emissions also.

Hear what one resident has to say.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGNt48seCoQ

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