BOGO: Solving the Bay Area housing crisis
Many workers who work in the Bay Area live in areas where homes are affordable like Solano county, Tracy and Watsonville. These workers don’t want to live in an apartment or condo in San Francisco or on the Peninsula - their American dream is a single family home.
Step 1: Kill the mismanaged Hi-Speed Rail to nowhere and instead extend BART and CalTrain to affordable communities
California spends $2 billion in Cap & Trade taxes annually on High-Speed Rail from Merced to Bakersfield — instead, use these funds to extend BART to Solano County (with Capitol Corridor), BART to Tracy and for CalTrain to Salinas or Merced to reduce highway congestion and gas emissions. The High Speed Rail Authority has spent $18 billion without laying a single mile of track yet!
Step 2: Build Moffett City instead of forcing higher density on the Peninsula
It costs $1 million per unit to build affordable housing in the Bay Area, due to expensive land acquisition cost. Moffett Field is over 2200 acres of land unused for decades. The Federal government can donate Moffett Field to be used for workforce and affordable housing at 30 units/acre density or 66,000 units.
Source: NASA Ames Research Center
Step 3: Release Peninsula/South Bay Cities from RHNA
In turn, Peninsula/South Bay cities would be released from Regional Housing Needs Allocations for the foreseeable future. Silicon Valley “Magnificent 7” tech companies would fund infrastructure in a public-private partnership to encourage employees to live in Moffett City.
BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) is an existing Federal process to reuse former military bases for civilian use. If the Federal government donates Moffett Field and large employers fund infrastructure, the cost per unit drops substantially and pencils out at affordability.
Northern California former military bases now utilized for housing:
Concord Naval Weapons Station - 12,000 homes planned
Hunters Point Shipyard (SF) - 12,000 homes planned
Treasure Island - thousands of apartments
Fort Ord - Cal State Monterey student housing
Mather Air Force Base (Sacramento) - housing for homeless
