Dear Editor,
Culver City Crossroads published a letter from Daniel Kammen to the Culver City Council. The letter was in support of the Council agenda to replace R-1 zoning with 4 unit housing on each lot.
Mr. Kammen’s focus is on:
. Affordable housing
. Reducing per capita emissions
. Diversity and sustainability
. Incremental housing infill in every neighborhood
. Accessible below-market rates for housing
. Skyrocketing home prices excluding low income and working class families
. The need for a comprehensive citywide strategy
Curiosity lead me to wonder what life style Mr. Kammen had chosen for himself. Was he living in the urban infill he advocates for us?
Internet research indicates Mr. Kammmen lives on a hill above Oakland, CA, with a view of the San Francisco Bay. His R-1 lot of 8,800 square feet accommodates a 3,275 square foot home. The home has 5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths and a value of $2.5 million. This home abuts to a 500 Acre park.
It is my view, as well as some expressed in previous editions of Culver City Crossroads, that the preservation of R-1 zones in our city allows for more affordable housing, keeps vegetation in place and that infill will not reduce per capita emissions. Our present infrastructure will not support thousands of new residents. We have little water, sewers are at capacity and we are asked to conserve limited electricity. Perhaps a comprehensive citywide strategy for housing is needed, but this takes years to develop. I urge the City Council to celebrate our ethnically diverse neighborhoods and carefully plan for the future.
Peter Stern
It seems that Mr Kammen already has his own castle in the sky and I think he would probably fight tooth-and-nail to keep it that way.
We now find ourselves in an age-old quandary, here in Culver City (and most everywhere else in California) which is between the older, more-established generations of the Haves and the up-and-coming generations of Have-Nots.
Renters still want something to pass on to their families; but, they find themselves priced out by current market forces and they are wanting change.
With 46% of our residents now renting in CC and with just 52% of residents owning their own homes; the local balance of power is teetering to whoever can get out the most supporters to vote on an issue.
Looking for change, the Have-Nots have turned out in greater numbers in the last few elections, than the Haves. They have built a progressive-leaning majority on the current council. This majority is now calling for government to interfere in the housing market on their behalf, to help give them what they think they deserve: To become Haves.
Brilliant Peter exposing what a fraud is attempting to be perpetrated on our City. I have noticed that there is a circular group of academics who are used to support the YIMBY agenda, who don’t use data and who reinforce each other in their echo chamber. Of course sometimes Fisch, Lee and McMorrin use these letters as support and don’t expect us to read them. Daniel Kammen talks about density around transportation centers, and does not mention total elimination of R-1 housing like the YIMBYs and Fisch, Lee and McMorrin want. Let’s not forget that Meghan Sahli-Wells sought and Culver City received a higher RHNA allocation that other cities would have appealed. We have been sold out by these council people, both present and former. Never again.
https://www.berkeleyside.org/search/zoning
Berkeley has been considering the same changes that Culver City has been considering. I can’t tell what the final decision was.