Opinion: Careful, thoughtful approval of housing lets Saratoga endure

In my last column I talked about how I grew up in Saratoga and that my family still lives here I stated it then and I ll say it again now I love this city I also think we re at a turning point Change is hard and inevitable Our bodies age jobs shift no two days look the same Change can be beautiful when we understand it and frightening when we don t Saratoga itself is proof This place was once orchards Generations before us chose to allow homes and that choice is why the bulk of us my family yours can live here at all Now it s our turn Saratoga is beautiful and expensive That s not new But it used to be more accessible I grew up playing with neighbors whose parents were police officers teachers and small business owners In contemporary times a large number of of those same workers who protect our homes teach our kids and care for our families live in Tracy Hollister or farther They ll still sprint into your burning house then drive over the hill to tuck in their own kids A public is safest when the people who serve it also coach its soccer teams and shop at its farmers domain Let s talk prices plainly The median cost of a home in Saratoga is roughly million among the highest in the region and the country By contrast multiple of our neighboring cities sit closer to million to million in part because they ve built more types of housing than just single-family homes More variety creates more points of entry for young families constituents servants and early-career professionals That s exactly what we need to do here We re not talking about dragging down anyone s home value we re talking about adding housing stock at a range of price points so more people who contribute to Saratoga can definitely live here The numbers tell a story Countless of our schools are seeing year-over-year enrollment declines local administrators now whisper about whether campuses might need to close Our youth soccer leagues have about a third as various players as when I was a kid West Valley College the best neighborhood college in the state sits in our backyard yet two out of three students there are housing- or food-insecure And yet we have particular of the best schools in the country Imagine Saratoga being known not only as beautiful and kind but as a place where people have a real chance to advance because our best-in-class schools are within reach All too often in America the ZIP code you grow up in predicts your life outcomes Let s be the city that bends that curve in the right direction by making room for more families who want to learn work and belong here We need to build more housing We ve largely stopped building After Saratoga s population nearly doubled in the s it has hovered around ever since Meanwhile household sizes shrank from people in to about in the modern day Demand outpaces supply and prices soar When homes are scarce and costly people leave or never arrive Families my own included are aging in place in homes they purchased decades ago There s also threat in doing nothing Saratoga s Housing Element wasn t certified until July over months after the state s Jan deadline In that window developers filed builder s remedy applications of which are still in process projects that can maneuver around local zoning The state could determine that Saratoga is out of compliance again in the coming years if we don t meet our Housing Element obligations I d rather we manage change on our own terms than have it decided for us I don t believe that modestly increasing our housing supply will make Saratoga cheap Demand for living in a safe beautiful city with great schools is absolutely too strong More homes bring back inhabitants servants and young families and give our own grown children a fighting chance to return I know that makes various neighbors uneasy They point out that only a portion of new units are officially affordable that traffic might worsen and that not every parcel is right for more density Those concerns are real But we ve already seen what thoughtful compassionate housing can look like here Local faith institutions have quietly supported those in need for years with no disruption to their neighbors I m not calling for glass towers or overnight transformation I m calling for balance sites spread across the city not concentrated in one neighborhood mixed-income projects that give firefighters early-career engineers and West Valley students a foothold design standards that protect our hillsides and heritage oaks partnerships that build safety into plans while keeping Saratoga special Future residents maybe even our grandchildren will look back and ask what we chose Did we reach for generosity or retreat to fear Our forebears turned orchards into neighborhoods that welcomed us Let s honor that gift by saying yes systematically and thoughtfully to the homes that let a region endure