Answers to DeAnza Mobile Home Park Residents Questionaire 

1. What are your priorities for the development of vacant land along Delaware Avenue--affordable housing or industrial or commercial uses? What constraints would be faced to achieve your development preferences?

The guiding principle with this site must be that any proposed use must have a strong community consensus developed around it early on. This is one of the single most important sites in the city or county, and what we choose to do with this site will ultimately affect far more people than just its immediate neighbors - whatever use the site is ultimately put to will forclose other options; we need to carefully consider the implications of any decision. As well, the site needs to be viewed in the context of the surrounding area - the departure of numerous large employers has left a number of sites vacant that will need to be put back into use to preserve the city's economic base. We need to develop a larger vision for the city as a whole that extends beyond Downtown, and this site is a very important part of that.

That all said, my personal bias is towards mixed use commercial/residential/light industrial developments. This town needs jobs, and housing that is affordable and accessible to the employees filling those jobs. Given its location, this site is ideal for a project of this sort.

We should also explore interm uses that can address some critical needs - homeless people are car camping all over the city; why not explore the idea of temporarily turning a portion of this area into a regulated, supervised and policed car camping/residential RV facility? Make it a safe and legal place for people to stabilize their housing situation and work towards returning to conventional housing. Why not explore the idea of creating an urban organic garden in other parts? Why not install minimal improvements and convert it for park space? Leaving this land vacant and completely unused for another decade does not seem to be the highest and best use of our resources. Anything that is done would of course require extensive community input, but I firmly believe that as a community we can develop a plan for this property that we can all agree on.

2. The homeless frequent the streets around Delaware Aveneue. What plans do you have to mitigate the increasing problem of homelessness for the recently unemployed and the working poor? What instruments can be devised to provide housing for these families?

We need to fix the bottom rungs of the housing ladder so that people don't need $3,000 cash in pocket to move into safe and legal housing. We need to reform the city's regulatory structure to allow more housing at the low end of the scale to be built: Accessory Dwelling Units, SRO projects, and market-rate rental apartments. We need a legal campground, and a legal car park so that homeless people can have a safe and legal place to sleep that doesn't impact neighborhoods. We also need to fully fund emergency housing assistance programs (such as those operated by CAB): the best solution to homelessness is to prevent it in the first place.

3. What are your views of the recently passed regulations regarding conduct of peopel who work the streets of Pacific Avenue? What specifically would you do to improve the safety of pedestrians?

I am opposed to them. Even City Councilmembers who voted in favor of these ordinances acknowledge that they don't address the major problems: drug dealing, increased violence, sexual harassment and general obnoxiousness. We need an ongoing dialogue about our downtown that empowers and engages all sectors of the community and focuses on non-authoritarian, non-legalistic solutions such as mediation, support for public space downtown (such as a pedestrian plaza) to minimize conflicts between uses, and alternative recreational venues for youth. The only real solution to many of these issues is to convince people that polite behavior is in everyone's best interest - if a youth is being obnoxious, he won't listen to a cop tell him to knock it off... but he is very likely to listen to three or four of his peers when they walk over and say, "Knock it off dude, that isn't cool. You're causing trouble for all of us." This is the same technique that has worked for twenty years with the musicians downtown: mediation, informal peer pressure and education about how to get along with everyone else and not cause problems.

4. We are very grateful for the support of the City Council in our efforts to protect rent control. In view of the long history of attempts by Mobile Home Park owners to remove rent control, what would you do to curtail further litigations? Would you maintain rent control?

I would continue the city's fight to support rent control for mobile home parks until all legal avenues have been exhausted; however I think the best solution is to acquire the land via an institution such as the Community Housing Land Trust and ultimately put it in the hands of the park residents as a collective. This would permanently secure it from legislative fiats, policy changes by future City Councils and reverses in the courts. The City has already spent $200,000 defending this ordinance - that money could have gone a substantial way towards purchasing the land and permanently assuring the affordability of the units upon it, especially in combination with the cash flow from existing rentals.