Doria Summa wants to preserve existing affordable housing

BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer

Palo Alto City Council candidate Doria Summa says she wants to focus on preserving affordable housing that already exists in Palo Alto rather than trying to build a bunch of market rate condos and apartments.

Summa is still bothered about the conversion of the President Hotel at 488 University Ave., where 75 tenants were evicted from studio apartments in November 2018 so a developer could convert the old building back into a hotel.

Summa said the city could’ve stopped the conversion because downtown has a limit on density that wasn’t enforced.

“It should have been simple to do. I don’t understand what happened behind closed doors,” said Summa, one of nine candidates running for four open seats on council.

On the Planning and Transportation Commission, Summa took issue with a developer’s plans to tear down eight apartments and build 12 three-story condos at 739 Sutter Ave.

The apartments that are getting torn down are relatively modest one-story homes behind the Midtown Safeway, Summa said in an interview.

“It doesn’t seem like a horrible, horrible project, but I know those people aren’t going to be able to return,” Summa said. “I don’t know that they’ll find something else affordable in Palo Alto, and I just don’t want this to become a place where only rich people can live.”

The city shouldn’t aggravate the housing situation by tearing down modest homes so that new residents can move in, Summa said.

“We should also care about the people that already live here,” Summa said. Summa is generally opposed to the state’s Housing Element process, which required Palo Alto to plan for 6,086 homes to get built by 2031.

Summa said the state’s numbers were overinflated and unrealistic, setting cities up to fail.

Market rate housing will get built, but cities are getting further and further away from their affordable housing goals, Summa said.

At the same time, the state is threatening to withhold funding for affordable housing in cities that don’t meet the state’s quotas.

“It’s a very chaotic way to govern … I don’t know why more cities didn’t sue the state over some of these things,” Summa said.

But Summa said she’s not running for council to fight state housing mandates. “Even as commissioners we take an oath. We have to uphold the laws of not just the city, but the state and the United States,” Summa said. “I would hope to affect making things better through legislation when I can.”

Summa, 66, is running for council for a second time after finishing in fifth in 2022. She has lived in the College Terrace neighborhood since 1986.