Palo Alto is only affordable to 'Joe Millionaires' warns commissioner resigning over high rent prices
In her resignation letter, the former Palo Alto Planning commissioner described how the city known for being an epicenter of the tech boom continues to do nothing to stop the bombastic rise in rent prices. Prices that have creeped so high that Downing warns not even a software engineer can afford them now:
Part of that is due to the rise of the tech industry in a city that has incubated the early life of companies like Google and Facebook and is now covered in Palantir offices. In the last five years alone, the median home value of the town has doubled from $1.2 million to over $2.5 million, according to Zillow.
In her open letter, Downing in part blames the city council for not listening to the planning commissions recommendations. Small steps, including adding two floors of housing instead of one in mixed use developments, legalizing duplexes, and allowing areas like the shopping center to build housing on top of the shops and offices, could have help curb the meteoric rise. Rather, Downing says City Council "ignored the majority of residents" who listed housing as their number one concern.
As a result, professionals like Downing are being forced out of their homes when they can no longer afford it. If the city doesn't reverse course, she cautions that those people who once made Palo Alto famous wouldn't be able to live there today.
You can read the entire letter over on Medium.