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8.A. - Page 254 June 17, 2012 Re Pro ased Fin er Avenu Develo ment-Abraham Famil Letter re FE1R CH#20081122()O 1'repared by:Ciey of R�dttio��d Ci�y,Ju��e 2U12 Dear Commissioner Bogens, and Fellaw P�anning Commissioners, Our famiiy maved to Redwood City, and specifically to Finger Avenue, in August of 2009, because of the quality of life sa very evident there.We're a hausehold with two working parents. We rely heavily on affardable hor�sing and were renting various small apartments on the Peninsula far the last ten years - not easy with young chilc�ren. We're not anti-develapmenY, or'NIMBYs', and clearly see tl�e need far in-fill and efforts to graw the cammunity and help struggling families and provide work. With this in mind,we were over-the-moon to find 29 Finger Avenue as a place to put down roots. Despite the state of our tumb�e-down cattage,we felt we'd landed in ciover. Finger Avenue has warmth and eclectic charm in abun�ance,with a s'tdewalk on bath sides of the street where we can walk with our children and greet our r�eighbors. It's an uncommonly open, friendly and supportive neighborhaod.We celebrate birthdays and Oktober Fest together.And as if that weren't luck enough, it is - above all -a street whose horr�es are sheltered and made discreet by a generous and unusual abundance af trees and vegetation. It's an ideal spot to bring in new homes and new famities. Having said that, I trust that no one wauld believe in an overarching need to degrade the neighborhoad in the process. We specifically moved to Redwoad City ta avaid locations ori the Peninsula where homes, built in wise praportion ta th�ir lots, were being razed and replaced with goliaths, bardered by minimal strips of land which would never see t�e sun. This process was turning neighborhoods into parking lots. If yau have ever been at a socia� event, and had twa or three people standing tao close to you for comfort,you'li understand perfectly the neighbarhood equivalent: excessive mass and scale wedged on hummingbird-sizec�lots -like too many people in an elevator. It means we all end up with comically ugly scenarios, and we all lose. It's the same as �nagling a few of those big red hotels on Vermont Avenue-if you recal�the modest blue Monopaly board property. The McGowan nine-lot development is a particular�y egregious exampie. It's bearing down like a Mack truck on our neighborhood -- a discreet riparian haven. The project prom'rses to cram nine dispropartionately huge homes with high roof�ines on lots barely wide enaugh to accommodate them, bulge intrusively where�er it needs into the community's protected creek setback, and to convert land th.at should be a walking path into roadway marginally wide enough for a �re Cruck to pass - as long as the developer and city ignore f re codes that the rest of us have to abide by.Writing in layers of exemptians doesn't make :t right or sane.