Randy Tsuda, CEO and president of the nonprofit Palo Alto Housing, builder of affordable housing, talks about the recently approved 59-apartment Wilton Court project in Palo Alto and the challenges and opportunities for solving the Bay Area's housing crisis. Palo Alto Weekly journalists Jocelyn Dong and Gennady Sheyner join Tsuda for the conversation.
Topics discussed:
To jump to a specific topic, open the description box below the video in YouTube and click on the time stamp.
• Wilton Court project (0:58)
• Challenges of finding land to build housing (9:04).
• Regional efforts to invest in housing (10:35).
• Companies contributing to the region's housing stock (17:10).
• Compiling the North Bayshore Plan in Mountain View (18:55).
• Palo Alto Housing's outlook for 2019 (20:53).
• Addressing the Bay Area's housing crisis (23:40).
Watch the webcast here or listen to the podcast version of the episode here.
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Comments
Professorville
on Jan 25, 2019 at 9:10 pm
on Jan 25, 2019 at 9:10 pm
I tune out as soon as I see the propaganda phrase "housing crisis." This time it appeared right at the top, which saved me from wasting time on the video.
Registered user
Community Center
on Jan 26, 2019 at 10:24 am
Registered user
on Jan 26, 2019 at 10:24 am
I agree. We may have a housing shortage, but it's not a crisis.
another community
on Jan 26, 2019 at 11:07 am
on Jan 26, 2019 at 11:07 am
Fill in the Wetlands or Building in the open space. Heck we could level the eastbay foothills and use that to fill in the bay. That would be a solution. Or we could just deport the illegals who are overpopulating the state and clogging up our roadways tax free.
Embarcadero Oaks/Leland
on Jan 26, 2019 at 12:17 pm
on Jan 26, 2019 at 12:17 pm
Or just tell the huge tech companies to stop adding tense of thousands of new jobs here at least for a while and/or until the traffic congestion's reduced.
Registered user
Downtown North
on Jan 26, 2019 at 1:03 pm
Registered user
on Jan 26, 2019 at 1:03 pm
I am weary of so many words being spoken and written. Let's move from the formal jockeying via ordinances, proclamations and political correctness. February is the time for Council to have a straight-forward public discussion and set their goals.
I want to see seven councilpersons have a sensible discussion and reasonable agreement on what type of housing, for whom, when, where and at what cost for the next 5 years?
We have enough ordinances, state mandates and new threats. For a practical point of view, what do the city's seven stewards see in the immediate future?
Professorville
on Jan 28, 2019 at 11:01 am
on Jan 28, 2019 at 11:01 am
Economics. The number one reality about "affordable housing" in highly sought out locations like Silicon Valley, west Los Angelas, Seattle, etc. is that "affordable housing" is unaffordable. At around 600K per unit you can't build for the lottery winners now. The tendency is for these funds to go to the truly needy, the old the sick, etc. Boston's present experience. Build in San Jose, the end of rent control should bust thousands of acres into high density housing. Even the electorate, especially in Silicon Valley will understand. The politicians will resist, too many votes involved. California.
George Drysdale land economist
Registered user
Mayfield
on Jan 29, 2019 at 1:39 am
Registered user
on Jan 29, 2019 at 1:39 am
Like in affordable health care cost (with her sickness funds = Krankenkasse) Germany shows the way in affordable housing: non-profits.
To make it easier for (for-profit) developers to build affordable housing will not work in the long run. Greed and lobbying and organizations like Palo Alto Forward will see to it.
So let Palo Alto Housing do it. Give them the money and the authority.
It just takes a little time.
The guild's (you know, there were 45 shoemakers in my mother's hometown of 4000 in 1750) sickness funds were started around 1750, made mandatory for coal and iron miners in Prussia 1849, and membership in one of the about 30,000 local mutual non-profit sickness funds were made obligatory in the New German Reich in 1882 (All for one, one for all the Kaiser declared in Parliament when he asked for parliamentary approval).
The local Housing Authority (Arbeiter Bauverein) in my Hometown Darmstadt was founded 1864. In a town of 140,000 inhabitants they now own 12,000 rresidential apapartments, of which 60% are for low-income. Building by building, even so the town was destroyed to 85% by Anglo-American Terror Bombing.