Pro: Values support housing
Brisbane became a city in 1961 to stop San Mateo County’s plan to build housing on San Bruno Mountain and take charge of its own future. For the next 25 years, there were several more fights to save this natural resource from housing development, and save Brisbane from change.
Today, the mountain has been saved but Brisbane continues to fight a housing developer. This time a developer wants to clean up the remains of both a garbage dump and a rail yard, and build some housing on the rail yard. Brisbane is threatened by this change, but Brisbane’s environmental values support housing on the rail yard and there is little evidence rail yard housing will change our smalltown character.
One reason Brisbane’s 1994 general plan specifies “prohibit housing on the Baylands” is existing contamination from former site uses as a rail yard. Scientific knowledge, however, has progressed since 1994. Petroleum bioremediation first became useful in the 1990s, and bioremediation for chlorinated compounds has become widespread since the early years of this century.
By planning for housing on the old rail yard, we can learn of remediation solutions that did not exist when we wrote our general plan in 1994. This also fulfills our promise to ourselves that we “Establish that it is of the highest priority that contaminated lands in Brisbane be remediated,” as stated in General Plan Policy 172.
By building housing on the old rail yard, we can provide a housing solution to our biggest greenhouse gas source — transportation. Brisbane’s concern for the environment is evident through our conservation and recycling commitments, but because we have almost no services, we drive our cars out of town to work and shop. Thus, while 57 percent of San Mateo County’s carbon emissions come from transportation, in Brisbane, this percentage may be higher.
Also, Brisbane already has twice as many jobs as residents, meaning Brisbane workers already drive in from across the Bay Area. If Brisbane develops the Baylands without housing, then we will be responsible for more vehicle miles traveled, increasing our largest contribution to climate change. That betrays our environmental values.
The 1994 general plan policy to “prohibit housing on the Baylands” also captured the concern that new housing would destroy our smalltown character. Yet, if housing is built on the Baylands, our new neighbors would fight to retain the town’s character. It’s happened before.
The compromise that established San Bruno Mountain State and County Park also eventually led to Brisbane’s newest housing development, the Northeast Ridge. This change to Brisbane was seen by many as a threat to our small-town character, but the Northeast Ridge have joined the cause and are just as loudly opposed to new housing in Brisbane as our oldest neighbors.
Let’s clean up the mess left by the previous generation in the Baylands, and do the right thing for our kids: build housing where they can safely live without a car.