Issues at Housing & Community Development Agency Meeting

At the meeting on February 22, of the Housing and Community Development Agency three items were discussed. They are considering making landlords register their rental properties and include information on where they are located, how many rooms etc. and on top of that, pay a yearly fee! All properties are already listed at the city hall. This is delving into personal lives and giving the county more money while doing it. They are also considering landlords, by law, not being permitted to do background checks on future tenets. Background checks are a safety for the landlord and tenants living there and potential tenets. California right now has the strictest rental laws in the nation.

To add insult to injury, they are trying to use up every available space to build affordable housing. More houses will mean traffic congestion, crowded schools, pollution and more need for water-just but a few problems we will encounter. There are other affordable places to live. Not everyone can live where they want to live. I’d like to live in San Diego but I can’t afford it. One “brilliant” idea proposed was to use Bart parking lot as a place to build housing since there are “open spaces”. Covid stopped many from using Bart. However, as was told by a Bart spokesman last week, people are coming back. And more population means more uses of our facilities. Where are they going to park if there is no parking defeating getting cars off the streets?

Our roads are a disgrace! Pot holes everywhere, many streets in the unincorporated areas have no sidewalks! Board, do the right thing, please take care of your current residents first!?

–Lydia Anderson, Castro Valley