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A Commendation was presented to Jacquelyn Evans for winning second place at the American Legion National High School Oratorical Contest. Other Speakers Patricia Belding, 7703 Highland Oaks Drive, indicated she was the Pleasanton contact person for the Th-Valley Interfaith Poverty Forum. She thanked Councilmember Campbell for supporting affordable housing and for rescinding his motion regarding an initiative in order to simplify the decisions the voters must make in November. In an effort to clear up some confusion about the efforts to put affordable housing on the Bernal property, she said the housing will not fill up the remaining acres on the Bemal property. The proposal made to the Task Force was specifically for five acres of senior affordable housing and ten acres of family affordable housing. This is what the task force approved. The proposal was specific and limited. It is only five percent of the property which belongs to the City. She wholeheartedly supported the park concept and felt there could be a park and other uses on the property at the same time. It is not an either/or choice. She referred to Bruce Fiedler's comments that there can be a park and many of the community uses, such as cultural arts buildings, a YMCA, and a limited acreage of needed affordable housing scattered in the most sensible places on the property. She has heard people say they were in support of affordable housing, but not on the Bemal property. She asked, if not there, where? City-owned land is necessary for any affordable housing. Buying land elsewhere in Pleasanton could cost up to $1 million per acre. Pleasanton does not have this kind of money to buy land for affordable housing and to build it. This is the most feasible site available and the amount of acreage requested is limited. She has also heard some people say that affordable housing would create ghettos in Pleasanton. She said there is already attractive affordable housing in Pleasanton and it has not created ghettos. Ridge View Commons and The Promenade on Case Avenue are City affordable housing developments. Most people do not recognize this because they are so attractive. The combined acreage of these two developments is more than the acreage proposed for the Bernal property. The City has a policy of mixed-income for its family affordable housing so that half of the development like Promenade is market rate units suitable for moderate income people and half is for lower income families. No one knows which tenant pays the lower-income rent. There is no social stigma in these units. This mixed-income policy would apply to any affordable housing put on the Bemal property. Lastly, she referred to the figure of 600 units which is being discussed in the community. The planning staff suggested 150 senior units and 205 general units, for a total of 355 units to start discussions. The Bernal Task Force approved the affordable housing, but declined to set forth a density. She truly believed that is the situation at this point. She urged that people stop talking about 600 units. Terry Broderick, 4218 Fairlands Drive, said he attended the Bemal Avenue Task Force meeting last week. The Task Force is faced with the prospect of trying to get to the place it was headed until this ill-timed and ill-conceived initiative came about. He felt the Task Force was ill-served by the initiative. It has followed Council directions and has held many meetings and spent many hours receiving public input. Many groups have addressed the Task Force to make their desires known. The Task Force reviewed all this information many times and made recommendations to Council. Now it appears the Task Force is being dismissed by the actions of the initiative proponents. By not allowing the Task Force to complete its work, all the public input is negated and the public process is thwarted. All the groups who have followed Council Pleasanton City Council 8 05/07/02 Minutes