Residents Challenge Danville's 2030 General Plan; What Do You Think?

Planning Commission meetings usually come and go without much fanfare, but that was definitely not the case Tuesday night, the Contra Costa Times reported.

About 200 residents came to the meeting at the Danville Community Center to express their objections to the proposed 2030 Danville General Plan.

(You can read the plan here.)

Though the meeting was to hear from the public on the environment impact of the general plan update, many took the opportunity to express their concerns about the content of the plan.

Specifically, the Times reported, residents were concerned about increases in the number of low-income housing units in town. Danville's updated general plan proposes at least 9.6 acres around town for higher density, low-income housing.

All cities have to have a certain amount of low-income housing to comply with state law. But that didn't stop residents from passionately objecting.

"You're starting down a slippery slope," Elon Ornsby, a longtime Fremont resident before moving to Danville, said.

Ornsby noted that he saw Fremont transform from a rural community to "a festering cluster of humanity."

The Times reported that much of the discontent was aimed at the Association of Bay Area Governments, that calculates housing needs for 101 jurisdictions in the Bay Area.

Danville resident Heather Gass was quoted by the Times as saying:

(ABAG) is an unelected body that is creating a nine-county general plan that is a cookie cutter solution that creates high-density, low-income housing in all nine Bay Area counties...This is not about the environment. I've been going to these hearings for two years and they've been telling us that in order to save the planet we need to get out of our single-family residential homes, out of our cars, and we need to create high-density stack-and-pack housing everywhere in all communities.

The next meeting on the general plan update is Dec. 11.

What do you think about having some more low-income housing in Danville? What do you want Danville to be like in the year 2030? Let us know in the comments section.

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