Good morning friends and neighbors,
As we approach a landmark vote on Tuesday, November 5th on Measure L, I wanted to give you some recent housing numbers. Mr. Elliott of Summerset has called the No on Measure L supporters Nimbys – we’ve got ours so we are squelching housing opportunities. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

So, let’s think examine this. Brentwood has a General Plan through 2035. This GP plans for the eventual building of 2,700 single family homes, and 5,300 multi-unit housing types. We currently have 28 housing projects in various stages of planning or construction. Then, there are the houses for sale in town – 197, with 26% in the over 55 housing category, 52 – and these numbers are as we approach the holidays which we know is not the most opportune time to list your home.

The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) dictates to City’s what housing they are required to build, assuring housing opportunities keep up with demand in the Bay Area. They base their numbers on various factors, especially as it relates to available nearby jobs and transit. East Contra Costa County has a dismal jobs opportunity number, offering only 4 jobs for every 10 residents in the workforce. Therefore, ABAG’s number required for Brentwood was 760 housing units of various types for the years 2014-2022; and yet, Brentwood has already built 1,845. Brentwood has built only 7 of the low to very low income housing, and overbuilt in the moderate category, 1,436. Don’t you believe A) this is plenty of opportunity; and B) this is what has gotten us into the mess of dire fire/emergency service levels, no attention to economic growth to carry Brentwood into the funding future, more traffic and congestion, over-crowded schools – you name it?

Brentwood already has great opportunities for our active adults, with 3,113 over 55 housing units in Brentwood, with another 299 in the queue. Antioch is ready to break ground on not 1, but 2 over 55 active adult communities.

Don’t let the constant bombardment of flyers, e-mails, calls and doorknockers from the proponents of Measure L sway you. We all know we MUST concentrate on projects, both residential and commercial, inside our City limits before we even consider busting through your Urban Limit Line and for what, more housing and construction for upwards of 20 years. How do we yet know the effects of the current projects? Exactly, so why would we expand outward now? All the other plans in our City are over the same 15-20 year period. How about we concentrate our efforts on PA-1 below Home Depot and on both sides of the Bypass for commercial, retail and jobs development? I might mention, the PA-1 plan also contains around 2,041 housing units.

GBN Partners has poured $1.2 million dollars into Measure L, and that’s only through 10/24/19. Wow. The Brentwood Alliance Against Measure L; major funding from the Northern California Carpenters Regional Council (NCCRC) has spent $17,732. Yes, the NCCRC contributed a generous $20,000 to our campaign. When they met with us, they told us their reasoning for contributing to our No on Measure L campaign was when people in the Bay Area pay for transportation and infrastructure taxes, like Measure J, these same taxpayers take offense to cities who continue to add to traffic and congestion while adding no viable jobs, that’s right – by irresponsible development and expansion. Ya think? Thank you NCCRC! Check out all the campaign finance reports on the City of Brentwood website

This sickening effort trying to convince us to lower our quality of life to increase their quality of life is selfish and self-serving. Sure we all bought houses here – we wanted a nicer house, but we also wanted a nicer community, a robust, inviting and top-notch place to live and raise our families. The land barons who in years past sold their land so we could live here are now creating the miserable City we moved here to escape. Everyone is saying we need more restaurants, we need more shopping, we need JOBS in this City, so why would we vote to approve yet another massive housing project in the most inappropriate location?

We need to get back to the table with a City-run process to guide the Community Buildout Plan that was in progress earlier this year before GBN partners leap-frogged it with this ballot Measure. It’s a process where ALL stakeholders – landowners, business owners, and residents – get a chair at the table to help plan how our City can and will flourish in the future.

Vote NO on Measure L for a better plan for SPA2, if and when we need it. Let’s keep Brentwood the jewel of East Contra Costa County.

Kathy