Woodside Says Entire City Is A Mountain Lion Sanctuary To Avoid Poor People

Woodside, California, a wealthy Silicon Valley suburb in San Mateo County recently tried to block housing being built by saying the entire fucking city, is a wildlife sanctuary for mountain lions.  Which is really fucking stupid.

the California Attorney General shut them the fuck down with the threat of legal consequence if they continue to stall.

And luckily, according SF Gate, the California Attorney General shut them the fuck down with the threat of legal consequence if they continue to stall. “Habitat is land that has the capacity to support that species, including providing food and shelter. Land that is already developed with, for example a single-family home is not, by definition, habitat. That mountain lions appear in Woodside from time to time does not make any of its individual parcels mountain lion habitat.”

Wealthy homeowners will go to great, and in this case, outright absurd lengths to obstruct the construction of homes in their area. 

Not long after the letter was published, Woodside finally conceded after they “received guidance from the Department of Fish and Wildlife on how to identify habitat.”

The thing is, they knew the city or “town” of Woodside isn’t fucking mountain lion habitat. Wealthy homeowners will go to great, and in this case, outright absurd lengths to obstruct the construction of homes in their area.

The thing is, I don’t understand what they have to gain at this point. Real estate values will continue to rise in the Bay Area as homes aren’t only being purchased to live in, but to add assets to portfolios for investment firms around the world.

And this case of investor-fueled scarcity isn’t limited to the Bay Area, but has its tentacles spread all over the state.

Home buyers in far-flung cities like Eureka on the northern edge of California or even cities in the Central Valley considered “undesirable” like Fresno or Stockton aren’t safe from escalating home prices as a result of foreign money.

I’m not saying everyone should live in a mansion, but if you work full-time, you shouldn’t be poor and California already has the lowest quality of life in the United States. 

People who own homes in California, especially those who were fortunate enough to buy their homes before tech boom are often sitting on hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in equity.

And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with building wealth. Home ownership is an essential pillar of financial stability, but the situation we have in California is grotesque. Nearly every overpass doubles as a homeless encampment. People who once were prime candidates for homeownership are find that the job is being closed in their face before they even have a chance to buy.

I’m not saying everyone should live in a mansion, but if you work full-time, you shouldn’t be poor and California already has the lowest quality of life in the United States.

Everyone has different opinions on how to solve the issues of inequality and housing insecurity, but I know what the solution isn’t…

Claiming that your city… with housing and public infrastructure is a wildlife refuge.

Silicon Valley is silly as fuck.

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