Letters: North Gate Road Development Segregates Low-Income Families

Subject: Urgent — 1125 North Gate Road Development Segregates Low-Income Families Before Monday’s Vote

To the Editor,

I’m writing with urgency because the Board votes Monday on the proposed 19-lot development at 1125 North Gate Road, and there’s a detail in this plan that deserves scrutiny before that vote happens: the developer’s site plan places all 3 required low-income units outside the gated perimeter that encloses the other 16 market-rate homes.

This isn’t a minor site-planning choice. It’s a physical, visible line drawn between who gets to live behind the gate and who doesn’t — and it maps directly onto income. Inclusionary housing requirements exist so that new development doesn’t simply wall off affordability as an afterthought tacked onto the edge of a project. Segregating the affordable units outside the community’s amenities and security isn’t compliance with the spirit of those requirements; it’s a workaround that satisfies a number on paper while building the same old divide on the ground.

If this community is going to grow, it should grow as one community — not as sixteen homes behind a gate and three homes left outside it. I’m asking the Board, and I’m asking your readers, to look closely at this site plan before Monday’s vote and ask why “inclusionary” housing was designed to be excluded.

Time is short. I hope your paper can help get this in front of the public before the vote.

Ryan Waters/Walnut Creek