Hills should lower cost to build ADUs
The town of Los Altos Hills should take some time to reflect on what a complete disaster their entire housing plan has turned out to be.
The town was told repeatedly both by town residents and the state of California that their proposed plan would fail because it was based upon building housing on property they neither owned nor had authority to build on.
Tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of town man hours were used to create this plan. I predict that rather than start over with a new plan, the town will double down and try to make the current plan work. More money and more time wasted. No one will admit a mistake was made.
There is a simple and cost-effective way to comply with the state housing requirements. Simply lower the cost to build an accessory dwelling unit. It currently costs more than $30,000 in fees payable to the town to just get an ADU approved. Lower that cost to $500 and let the landowners build ADUs. Based upon current projections, the town will have enough ADU units to meet the state’s housing goals.
The money spent on the failed housing plan should be paid back by the consultants and help cover the cost of the ADU building permits.
Storm damage, vegetarianism linked
Kudos to Mohan Gurunathan (“Going vegetarian good for health, planet, Morning Forum expert says,” March 15), who spoke about going vegetarian to save the planet. Even if we stopped using all fossil fuels, we would not solve the climate crises, due to the massive amounts of methane, CO2 and nitrous oxide emitted by animals raised for food. By the same token, if we stopped eating animals and their by-products (eggs/dairy), we would still have a huge problem from fossil fuel emissions. So, we need to address both issues.
The article about Gurunathan’s talk appears on page 11, and the storm damage appears on page 1, but they are connected. Raising animals for food, burning fuel, is what’s causing climate change. This unusual weather is part of that.
I found it ironic that the article was published next to an ad for corned beef on one side and ribs on the opposite page. Was this meant to be a cruel joke by the newspaper? It didn’t have to be that way.
(1) comment
@Nicole Baker: do we have evidence that lowering ADU fees from $30K to $500 would materially increase the number of ADUs? If it would, this might be an interesting plan to meet our housing mandates.
I presume those fees pay for staff time to meet with architects, review plans, and inspect the construction.
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