Litter is Worse Than Low Income Housing, Says One Lafayette Resident

A town hall meeting regarding Plan Bay Area, scheduled for Sept. 17 at the Veteran's Memorial Building in Lafayette, has found at least one critic who wants organizers to stop littering his neighborhood with flyers announcing the meeting. 

Apparently, flyers announcing the meeting have been showing up at homes in Lamorinda in various ways, including in at least one Lafayette neighborhood taped to mailboxes. 

A letter from M. Erwin of Lafayette to the organizers of the meeting pointed out that it was illegal to tape flyers or any other non-postal service material to mailboxes.

But what really got under his skin was the fact that many of the flyers flew off the mailboxes and onto the street. 

"I've been picking them up off my street," he wrote. "If you want to canvass the neighborhood there are better ways to do it. I am less concerned about more affordable /high density housing being built than I am about your littering my neighborhood."

Plan Bay Area, approved by the Association of Bay Area Government and the Metropolitan Transit Agency, attempts to address the issue of future growth throughout the Bay Area by making sure each city identifies land zoned for housing to meet various income levels, including low and very low income housing. 

Opponents of the plan say it takes away local control over local zoning and provides developers of so-called "stack and pack" housing with a green light to build low and very low income housing against the wishes of a particular community.

Proponents say that it is merely a planning tool to comply with state law, which requires every community in the state to plan for housing at all income levels. Local control remains in place, they say. 

"We have been walking the streets of Lafayette placing flyers on people's front doors," wrote Anouschka Wardy, one of the town hall organizers, in an email. "We have arranged for some very knowledgable speakers to inform the people of Lafayette on a subject still unknown or barely known to many."  

"I do not support NIMBY efforts to keep anyone who isn't of a certain income level out of Lafayette," Erwin wrote. "We need more affordable housing. We're in "jeopardy" of what? Having people live in our communities that don't make $200,000 or more a year? Really?" 

He argued that low income or high density housing near BART "isn't going to ruin our excellent quality of life. The "officials" you disdain have been tasked with finding a way to plan for the future and that is what we elected them to do. Would you rather they stuck their heads in the sand and leave it to every other community in the region to deal with it? Because that is not a solution."

He added that he would probably not be able to make the meeting on Sept. 17.