BY EMILY MIBACH
Daily Post Staff Writer
Steph and Ayesha Curry are the latest Athertonians to object to a controversial housing project that the town wants to include in its plan for 348 homes in town, which happens to be on the town’s border with Redwood City.
“We hesitate to add to the ‘not in our backyard’ (literally) rhetoric, but we wanted to send a note before today’s meeting. Safety and privacy for us and our kids continues to be our top priority and one of the biggest reasons we chose Atherton as home. With the density being proposed for 23 Oakwood, there are major concerns in terms of both privacy and safety with three-story townhomes looming directly behind us,” the Currys wrote in their email to Mayor Bill Widmer and Town Manager George Rodericks.
It was uncovered earlier this year that the Currys swapped homes in Atherton. They sold one home for $31.2 million and purchased another near 23 Oakwood and Selby Lane for $30 million. The sales occurred off-market, so the transactions were not immediately made public.
The Currys are not the first prominent Atherton couple to make headlines over the town’s Housing Element. In August, Marc Andreessen, who has helped fund Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and helped create Netscape, and his wife, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, daughter of the late billionaire developer John Arrillaga, wrote an email to the Atherton City Council objecting to plans to allow nine properties around town to build a combined total of 137 townhouses.
The final sentence of their letter says: “They (townhouses) will MASSIVELY decrease our home values, the quality of life of ourselves and our neighbors and IMMENSELY increase the noise pollution and traffic.”
The council ultimately dropped the idea that the Andreessen household was objecting to.
Atherton, just like all other cities in the area, is wrestling with its Housing Element, a document submitted to the state’s housing department that estimates where new housing developments will go and proposes policies to promote more housing, especially low-income housing.
Atherton’s City Council is meeting Tuesday to vote whether to send its Housing Element to the state. Every step of the way residents have objected to some part of the town’s plans. But the proposal for 23 Oakwood Boulevard is one that’s caught the ire of many residents, including one of basketball’s greatest current players.
The Currys live near 23 Oakwood, saying they have been following the town’s Housing Element process with “special interest” in that property. They said they were pleased in December when the council removed the project, noting that it likely will not add to the low or very low-income units the state requires as part of the Housing Element.
If the council goes forward with including 23 Oakwood, the Currys ask that the town commit “to investing in considerably taller fencing and landscaping to block sight lines onto our family’s property.”
The home at 23 Oakwood owned by David Arata, is on the border of Atherton and Redwood City and has been criticized by neighbors of both towns for adding density in a street that leads directly into Redwood City.
Others have pointed out that the property owner does not plan to make the entire project for low-income earners, but instead just as many units as he is required. Arata has told the city he plans to redevelop the home regardless of its inclusion in the town’s Housing Element.
Other Athertonians have called for the council to look at building homes on town-owned land, but the town’s largest swath of land is at Holbrook-Palmer Park, which was donated to the town explicitly for park use, and could end up being controlled by Stanford if it is developed.
Meanwhile, as Atherton struggles with its Housing Element, in Redwood City, the town has received a letter from the state’s housing department saying its plan is in “substantial” compliance with state housing laws.
Redwood City is required by the state to plan for 4,588 homes. But the city is able to plan for 7,023 homes without rezoning and is targeting to get that many homes built to improve its chances of meeting the state’s housing numbers “and promote additional opportunities for housing during this housing crisis,” Senior Planner Apollo Rojas wrote in a staff report the city’s Planning Commission will review Tuesday.
Redwood City and Atherton are just two cities looking to finalize their Housing Elements on Tuesday. Menlo Park and Woodside councils are slated to do the same on Tuesday and Belmont’s council will be voting Monday.
Arguably the wokest of the woke Warriors, not counting the head coach, taking positions on issues he knows little about. Exclusionary zoning was used in the past to keep out black and mixed race people like Steph and Ayesha Curry. Now the shoe is on the other foot and the Curries want to block the undesirables from coming in.
And this from the article: “If the council goes forward with including 23 Oakwood, the Currys ask that the town commit ‘to investing in considerably taller fencing and landscaping to block sight lines onto our family’s property.’”
Ever heard of making a legal agreement like a covenant with your neighbors? There is nothing stopping the Currys from paying for the landscaping themselves. I’m sure the developer won’t mind.
I’m a neighbor in Redwood City adjacent to the property about which Steph Curry is concerned. This is not about Steph Curry being ‘woke’ (which is just an idodic term). Atherton has failed to meet its obligations to meet the State mandates to include more housing, including ‘affordable’ housing, in its plans. Atherton has done virtually nothing to meet its obligations and has taken this one piece of property on the edge of its Town and immediately next to a redwood city neighborhood without any concern what so ever of how that increased density would impact that adjoining redwood city neighbor. Further, increasing the density of this one lot is a band-aid on a knife wound, in that the Town’s plan still miserably fails its obligations. Atherton has many options to meet its mandate but has dismissed those because those options will impact other more affluent lots more toward the middle of their Town not the periphery. So Steph Curry may be ‘woke’, what ever that means, but he has a legitimate gripe that the Town’s elected officials have failed miserably in their duty to make an equitable zoning plan to meet the State’s mandates; they simply behave as though the State’s laws and mandates should not apply to their Town.
Not in their backyard? not in ANY Californians backyard. Not OK to invade OUR privacy while the rich are exempt. We live in the suburbs because we want space and privacy. If we wanted to live in a city, we would move to San Francisco or San Jose. Let’s start by tearing down the mansions in San Francisco, including Feinstein’s and Pelosi’s, both democrats, and build high-rises in their lots. From San Carlos.
Low-income housing in Atherton aside, neighbors are like co-workers. They’re a long-term deal, and you really don’t have any say as to who shows up. I agree that Curry is over the top woke, and it’s off-putting.
So typical of the self absorbed liberal elites. Lecture everyone else about how they should live their lives, but do anything which they perceive negatively impacts them and you’ll have hell to pay.
I’m sure somehow this entire endeavor is racist.
Has Steph Curry become a Republican? Probably has been a closet one the whole time. Poor rich people.
Most people who are critical of the Curry’s stance are complete hypocrites. They would be just as opposed to a large multi-story development if it was planned for the lot next to their home. It’s all virtual signaling now but when something impacts their comfy life, they’ll throw a fit. It’s easy to talk the talk on the Internet but much harder to walk the walk in real life.
It’s have to have integrity. It’s easy to say all the right things and be PC. That’s the point. Shut up.
*easy
LOL Typo. I meant “virtue signaling” not “virtual signaling”. That’s a whole different thing!
“In August, Marc Andreessen, who has helped fund Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and helped create Netscape, and his wife, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, daughter of the late billionaire developer John Arrillaga, wrote an email..”
They also actively funded the Yimby movement which makes their Nimby stance even more hypocritical.
It’s no coincidence that the “Build, Baby, Build” candidates keep getting the biggest campaign contributions from big tech and deep-pockted developers. Shame on the state for blindly rejecting every challenge to its mandates like the tanking economy and risks of fires, floods, drought etc etc. and refusing to adjust the housing targets in view of new realities.
How did his people ever allow him to send that? Not a good look…
I am not an NBA star or recognized chef, I won’t even open the debate over the word woke, and I agree with the Curry’s 100%. Those of you looking down your nose at the Curry’s objection are not facing the possibility of having townhouses suddenly looming over your back fence or adding 50 or more cars and delivery vans per day to a surface street without sidewalks that runs in front of your house. I too live within spitting distance of 23 Oakwood although I live in Redwood City, not Atherton, in a house worth considerably less than an even modest Atherton house. If it is developed to the maximum allowed my quiet suburban street with become a one-block long freeway. Six units maybe. Twenty????
I am not an NBA superstar or a recognized chef. I live in a house worth a fraction of the Curry’s, and I agree with them 100%. I live on the stretch of Oakwood Blvd. being discussed. Those criticizing the Currys are not faced with the possibilities of multistory town houses looming over their back fence or of adding 50 or more cars and trucks daily to a suburban street without sidewalks that runs in front of their houses. The Currys are standing up for me and my neighbors who are completely at the mercy of the Atherton Town Council even though we live in Redwood City and cannot even vote for those deciding our fate. If the proposed development is built the one block long stretch of Oakwood in front of my house will become a virtual freeway,.
Everyone defending Curry is missing the point. He projects his unreasonable ideals on those he politically disagrees with and mocks them when they don’t relent. Now the spotlights on him for a stance that he would more than likely attack someone else for having.
He’s not wrong for his stance. It’s just hypocritical.
This has never made sense. The movement to intersperse low income with all classes. I had to live in a low income dump. I worked my ass off, saved, and lived a responsible financial lifestyle to be able to get a mortgage on a home for just over 1 mil. It’s a little 1600sf home but in a nicer area. And the woke want to devalue my home to less than what I paid and put me back to the environment I worked so hard to move from.
There is a reason people are low income. Drugs, convicted child molesters, etc. it’s just nonsense to think it’s fair to degrade SFH neighborhoods.
Some SFH Neighborhoods aren’t even transit oriented. High density miles out from transit??? How much fossil fuels would that burn?
This has nothing to do with being an NBA superstar, it can happen to ANY resident having a massive invasive property being built on the other side of their fences.
We live in Palo Alto where “affordable” ADUs were approved.
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All this is a LIE. Bait and switch. It shows small units as pictures to get people to approve the ordinance.
There is a MASSIVE tall structure being built next to our property overlooking into our yard and bedrooms. This mini mansion that looks NOTHING like the “small affordable ADUs” shown in all the pictures or ordinances. We complained several times to the City but they do not acknowledge anything wrong. We have ADUs in our properties in the neighborhood, they were called Granny Units, very small units. The new ordinance is NOT for affordable housing, but to increase house density at the expense of privacy of neighboring properties. We are not against ADUs or the new ordinances, but we are against the invasion of privacy and complete lack of empathy towards neighbors with these tall structures. Apparently anybody can fall victim to this invasion of privacy, even Steph Curry. We feel for him, as we are going through the same.