Local construction, once brimming with activity, grinds to a halt

>"Freed said he is reluctant to criticize public health officers making decisions to safeguard the public during the global pandemic, but that he does feel there is room for contractors to abide by social distancing and other safety precautions. He also found it odd that projects with affordable housing can proceed, while projects that provide in-lieu fees for affordable housing elsewhere must shut down. "

@Mr. Freed,
I hope this pandemic is a chance for you to reflect on your impact on others in the world who are affected by your actions and desires.

Construction, safely conducted, uses PPE that overlaps with what healthcare workers need, such as N95 masks. It's one thing for construction sites to dump water like there's no tomorrow when community members are sacrificing to conserve in a drought. It's one thing for redevelopment to fill up our landfills with football fields' of construction waste. It's one thing for developers to push density on us willy nilly despite big risks like drought, fire, earthquake and pandemic causing much more loss of life and disruption because of density. (I could go on, but I don't feel like it thinking about what is happening in New York.)

But it's quite another thing when we have such shortages of PPE for our healthcare workers, grocery workers, and others who are truly essential right now. Sure, you could probably conduct the actual construction in a way that satisfied social distancing rules. But you can't without the PPE which is in short supply right now. Think about that the next time you might be tempted to vote for someone whose only qualifications to lead are taking $450 million from daddy and turning it into 6 bankruptcies despite not paying his construction workers, and creating chaos on TV for a living. Were you thinking of proceeding without protecting your construction workers' health?

Construction also comes with other risks and interpersonal interactions: injuries of workers (which emergency workers would have to respond to, at their own risk), and oversight by cities (inspections, permits, etc), utilities, etc etc. The reason a very few affordable sites are allowed to continue is that they are a small fraction of the total and will not affect the shortage of PPE like having all construction proceed right now, and there is a public need for housing for the lowest income right now (that's why the in lieu can't proceed). There is no public need for the tech whales to bring yet more highly-paid workers in to use up water in a drought year, jack up costs for everyone else and clog up the roads when the economy returns.

And yes, I am cranky to see how much more livable everything is temporarily, like maybe 10 years ago, and knowing it will evaporate as people like you continue to push to overdevelop when this is over. And cranky that the people would print your one-sided take on that decision and not the public health one.

I do appreciate that your workers are out of a job. Hopefully, they will think on the issue of the importance of competence in government, too [portion removed.]

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