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July 20, 2018 <br />Redwood City Council <br />1017 Middlefield Rd <br />Redwood City, CA 94063 <br />Dear Redwood City Council, <br />Re: City Council Meeting, July 23, 2018 <br />PLEASE READ ALOUD DURING PUBLIC COMMENTS PERIOD AT THE MEETING <br />CONCERNING PROPOSED DESIGNATION OF MOUNT CARMEL AS A HISTORIC <br />NEIGHBORHOOD. PLEASE ALSO ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OF THIS LETTER. <br />I wrote to you in February about the small but vocal minority attempting to <br />undermine the rule of law, hijack our property rights and prevent progress to <br />improve the neighborhoods of this city. <br />On February 20, 2018, I attended a planning commission meeting where a permit <br />was denied to the owner of -• based on two points, which 1 summarize <br />very briefly as follows; <br />(1) A handful of neighbors objected to the placement of the garage. <br />(2) The same neighbors objected to the design of the house. <br />A capable designer had completed a full set of plans to established architectural <br />standards, and the commission chose to overrule the design, the property owner's <br />rights and the city staff s in favor of a small group of well-connected, vociferous <br />neighbors. <br />On July 18 2018, we had a repeat run. An application for . was denied, <br />even though it meets code, based on these same objections from the same <br />vociferous group. <br />What went up between the wars and since in Mount Carmel was a collection of <br />wooden bungalows and small homes of widely varying quality with no 'historic' <br />value. The attempt at a "Historic District" designation is, in my view, related not to <br />architectural merit but to a desire on the part of a small group of people to impose <br />their tastes on others. <br />