Brisbane development: Browbeaten, badgered and bullied

It’s getting hot in Brisbane. And we’re not talking about the weather. Political pressure to approve a massive development in that North County village is rapidly increasing.

For years, planning by the Universal Paragon Corp. has been underway to build housing and commercial facilities (roughly 7 million square feet) on the east side of the town, which sits just south of the border with San Francisco. Much of the 660 acres in question was formerly occupied by a huge railroad freight yard and repair shops as well as a landfill.

Now, Paragon and Brisbane authorities are close to a final decision on development details for the sprawling Baylands site located west of Highway 101. But the size and scope of the project — which would include as many as 4,400 homes — have generated an intense debate.

Those 4,400 residences would more than triple the existing housing stock in today’s Brisbane, essentially creating a sort of bloated Brisbane East, with easily twice the pop- ulation of today’s hamlet in quiet Visitacion Valley.

Such a prospect worries the town’s current residents. Many of them are opposed to the project, at least in its present form. They argue it would destroy the little town’s character.

On the other side, the project’s proponents, including local politicians from San Francisco and San Mateo County, argue that the region needs more housing and the Baylands development would be an appropriate place for some of it.

One San Francisco newspaper recently produced an editorial stating that Brisbane officials must approve Paragon’s plans ... not should. Must. One might get the impression that, somehow, Brisbane has caused the area’s housing crunch and owes the rest of us some relief.

Not true, of course. Brisbane, like other communities along the Peninsula, happens to be part of the region’s booming biotech/ high tech gold mine. The stunning success of outfits such as Genentech, Facebook, Google, Apple and the rest is the primary reason for a shortage of housing, especially “affordable” housing.

Blame our robust local economy, in large measure, for the lack of dwellings. But there’s another factor at work here too. San Mateo County has vast swaths of acreage available for development. It’s called open space. And it’s sacrosanct.

The same politicians who want Brisbane to triple in size want no part of seeing any extensive housing constructed in the pristine hills and dells of the woodsy territory west of Interstate 280. That’s entirely off-limits. The environmental lobby is adamantly opposed. So that’s off the table.

But Brisbane, a small burg that was incorporated just more than 55 years ago, is another story. It’s not a political heavyweight by any means ... for some, it amounts to little more than a San Francisco neighborhood; so it’s vulnerable and fair game. As the weeks roll by, Brisbane’s policy-makers are being badgered and, lately, bullied. In a way, it’s becoming a shaming exercise.

The argument seems to be: Brisbane has some sort of moral obligation to make a significant contribution toward rectifying a regional problem, regardless of what that would do to the town itself. The big guns are being unlimbered. It’s not subtle.

Elected officials in Sacramento are preparing what could be draconian legislation which would, by all accounts, coerce a community such as Brisbane to OK a housing project that is deemed necessary by people who don’t live there.

At some point, the citizen pushback is going to commence in earnest. Brisbane might just be the start. Time will tell.