Hi Guys, As they say, there ain't no rest for the wicked. I received the following over the weekend. Our city council is once again up to ... increasing housing density. There is a city council meeting this Tu. to discuss the issue. How would you like to have 35% more cars, more people and more need for expensive City services right here in San Ramon? That’s what our City Council and Planning Commission are going to be greenlighting on Tuesday night at 7pm at City Hall unless we can stop them. What’s on the agenda is allowing developers to build anything in San Ramon 35% bigger than the current zoning allows. That means: A 3 story apartment building could become a 4 story. A 6-story office building could become an 8-story. Both offices and apartments will be able to cover 35% more land. Existing buildings could be remodeled to make them 35% bigger. With every increase in allowed square footage will come more people, more cars and more need for police, fire, EMT, schools, street maintenance, etc. All of this will raise your taxes and you can guarantee you’ll see a new tax proposal on the next ballot. Here’s a real-life situation that will affect everyone who uses Bollinger Canyon east of Alcosta Blvd: In December the Planning Commission approved the land-use concept for a 60-room hotel to be built on So. Gale Ridge Rd in the middle of The Bridges development. This will have a 7,000 sq-ft event center capable of holding 750 people for wedding receptions. If this new plan is allowed, that hotel will become 80 rooms and the event center will hold 945 people. Events begin and end at defined times. That means all the cars will be on So Gale and Bollinger all at once. Imagine emergency vehicles trying to get through or residents trying to evacuate if there’s a fire in the surrounding hills! In a recent survey, over 90% of residents in The Bridges are against the 60-room hotel being built and have organized to fight this development. You can only imagine how we feel about increasing the size of it! Neighbors, there is a voter-approved General Plan and County-approved Specific Plans that lay out the ratio of building size to land size. In order to pull off this gift to developers, the City will have to amend these documents. They can’t do it if we don’t let them! As the staff report indicates, all zoning in the City will have to be revised, including land zoned Open Space and Parks. They sweeten the deal by allowing developers to provide a “benefit” to citizens in exchange for building bigger everywhere: they could build us a sculpture or give us a little park or maybe rehab an old building for senior/low income housing or rehab a store into a daycare center. None of these things would have to be anywhere near the residents that are being affected by the development. And who is going to staff and maintain the daycare center, the park, the senior housing? YOU! WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW Write an email to the Mayor and City Council members ...telling them we do not want more development. Maybe you even want less development. Maybe you won’t vote for anyone who approves amendments to the General Plan and Specific Plans that enable redefinition of our zoning ordinances. I’ve listed the email addresses below with a sample email. Attend the Planning Commission/City Council Meeting Tuesday night at 7pm in the City Hall Council room (ground floor). ...Let our elected officials and the commission they appointed know that citizens are watching and are willing to take action. You can fill out a comment card (on the table in the back of the room as you come through the door) with your name and address and speak for up to 3 minutes about this topic. Give it to the secretary sitting on the front right side of the room. Use your power and get them to understand how you feel! BY THE WAY The Planning Commission did everything they could to try to conceal the very fact of this meeting. When an agenda wasn’t posted by Friday morning, I contacted them and was told it wasn’t up yet. I kept pinging the site all day and finally the meeting showed up as “cancelled”on their website. No agenda was provided. Someone smart enough to look at the City Council’s site found out this meeting was happening. See links below. City Council email addresses Bill Clarkson (Mayor) , David Hudson (Vice Mayor) , Scott Perkins , Phil O’Loane , Harry Sachs , Chairman of Planning Commission Richard Marks ,