Dear Piedmont Senior Planner Macdonald,

     The requirement for Piedmont to add 587 new housing units to its current inventory of nearly 4,000 is huge and controversial.  Obviously, creating a few high density housing sites would be very disruptive to the “look and feel” of Piedmont, even in its few commercial zones.

     Is the City considering a gentler approach of slightly increasing the allowable number of units on existing properties?  Allowing more floor area and more impervious coverage of lots could be calculated to enable more ADUs or similar multi-family residences without drastically changing Piedmont’s primarily single-family look.  Is this being considered as an alternative to high density development?

     If incremental increase in housing density was offered as the solution, the next question would be how to implement actual construction.  While some individual homeowners might take advantage of incentives like tax breaks (primarily because they already desire an ADU on their property), that may not fulfill the entire 587 requirement.

Another implementation strategy might be to engage developers to design and build on the lots of willing property owners.  The developers would collect the rents and associated subsidies from those units until their investment and a negotiated profit margin were repaid.  Thereafter, the units would become the sole property of the lot owner, thereby increasing the value of the property for either its current owner or a subsequent owner.  The property owner would not be burdened with managing, financing, nor implementing the construction, but would have design veto over the project.  Again, the property tax that would accrue from the additional units’ value to the existing property could be waived for a number of years as part of the subsidy program.  Does this look like a feasible solution?

     Thank you for taking the time to consider these ideas.  I would appreciate your response when convenient for you.

I am a 44-year-long resident of Piedmont.  While retired now, I have a Masters degree in Urban and Regional Planning and worked as a GIS Consultant for many local cities and counties.

Sincerely,

Bruce Joffe, Piedmont Resident