Towers not
for families
Editor,
Five sound reasons
say residential towers are wrong for Redwood Cityıs Bay shore:
1. We are critically
short of housing for working families with children. They arenıt
the market for highrise Marina Shores Village. Of its 1930 units,
under 300 would be affordable to most such families.
2. Tall towers
raise safety concerns for school kids in unattended elevators;
make parenting tougher kids playing outdoors arenıt easily eyeballed
from upper floors and add to firefightingıs difficulties, dangers,
and cost.
3. Marina Shores
(Measure Q) would not stem sprawl. Largely for singles, childless
couples, and retirees, it would further push young families into
our urban outback and long commutes to meet their housing needs.
We need families like them with guts to sacrifice for their
kids when developers pursue other housing priorities.
4. Ground zero
for Marina Shores is home to birds and boaters beside a nature
preserve. A worse fit is hard to conceive than paving marshland
for bird-blocking, shadow-breeding, wind-shearing towers, plus
thousands of pollutive, traffic-clogging, accident-prone cars.
How about something more in tune with nature and who needs housing
most?
5. Years back,
large American cities were sold on housing the urban poor in highrise
style. The towers became vertical slums. Most are mercifully gone.
As housing, highrises have a mixed history.
Think hard before
buying into this sales pitch. I have Redwood City roots. Its future
matters. Among the cityıs poorer decisions, Marina Shores could
be the worst. Vote no Q.
James W.
Kelly
