The last City Council meeting revolved largely around two issues:
The first issue was that of issuing bonds to fund the $50M library we are building in Lafayette. With credit markets seized up this will be costly and will still fall $2M or $3M dollars short. The library will have to borrow the money from the city’s funds for the city offices and parking. Sadly, only $250,000 of the library’s $50M price tag is dedicated to books. Twice that amount is dedicated to public art.
The second issue was the re-zoning of a parcel of land from R-15 (single-family homes, with 15,000 sq. ft. lots or more) to allow the building of a condominium complex that would have 18 units, compared to the 12 unit maximum put in place by the general plan. Local homeowners’ associations had actually fought to reduce the number of units from 54 down to 18.
Our council has planned our city to conform to Association of Bay Area Government demands that we put in a great deal of high-density, low-value housing. This would transform Lafayette for the worse. Councilmember Federighi claims that they only do this so as to stave off ABAG. The council’s vote to deviate from this general plan in order to put in higher-density housing seems to indicate otherwise.
Filed under: Updates
