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From: - <br />To: GRP -City Council <br />Subject: Comments on Transit District Project <br />Date: Monday, January 25, 2021 10:52:39 PM <br />CAUTION: This email originated from outside your organization. Exercise caution when <br />opening attachments or clicking links, especially from unknown senders. <br />Dear Council Members, <br />I wanted to share the full text of my comments on the Transit District Project, so I am sharing <br />it below. Thank you for your consideration. <br />Best Wishes, <br />Kate Hiester <br />HHCC <br />Good evening Council Members, City Staff, and members of the public. Thank you for this <br />opportunity to speak. My name is Kate Hiester and I am a resident of the Central <br />neighborhood as well as the Vice Chair of Redwood City's Housing and Human Concerns <br />Committee. I want to note that I am here as an individual and am not speaking on behalf of <br />the Committee. <br />Broadly speaking, I am excited about the transit district project and the direction it is starting <br />to take with these new revisions to the Sequoia Center plan. I encourage the Council to <br />continue to forefront high-quality, affordable housing as a central consideration in this <br />project. Along those lines, I hope to point out a few questions and comments that I hope the <br />Council will seek to address: <br />2. <br />It appears that at least some of the public materials have mislabeled units in the <br />Block A as including some "Missing Middle / Moderate" units. These units are <br />identified as for residents with 120-200% of the area mean income. Moderate income <br />is defined by HUD as up to 120% of AMI. This means that none of the units in Block <br />A, developed by Lowe, would serve our moderate and lower income households, <br />regardless of the subsidies mentioned. <br />I appreciate that the affordable housing in Block D has been incorporated into this <br />plan. I know this Council has worked hard to advance affordable housing projects <br />throughout the city and this change reflects that priority. However, I want to raise a <br />concern that all affordable units will be within one building and all market -rate units <br />will be in another. While it is certainly better for our community to have mixed -income <br />neighborhoods than segregated ones, it is similarly better to have mixed income <br />buildings rather than segregated ones. I understand there may be real challenges <br />around financing, but I encourage the Council and developers to grapple with how we <br />