Tonight the City Council voted to grant the developer FE Forbes permission to tear down four contiguous 100 year old craftsman homes known as the 47th Street Homes Project, to built townhome replacements citing a new developer friendly California law that attempts to stop municipalities from saying NO to development that increases housing density. The decision, a reversal of an earlier vote against the project, was cast solely as a result of the new law (SB 330) the Council said. The vote promises to set a precedent for new ‘up zoned’ development in Emeryville’s last bastions of traditional single family detached residences in the Triangle Neighborhood and North Emeryville.
Council member John Bauters, citing provisions in the Housing Element of Emeryville’s General Plan, argued that the City could make the approval of the project conditional regardless of SB 330, providing at least one unit of the all rental project be deed restricted as affordable. The developer stated he would be willing to grant that as long as he would only be constrained to provide an affordable unit for 20 years and that a rental unit he owns on 48th Street be the constrained unit, not any of the new units on 47th Street.
The vote was unanimous.
The Tattler will follow with an expanded story on this in days to come.
This is a state power grab.
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