Housing affordability, supply, and security are among the top concerns of my community. While Palo Alto has always been expensive and tried to balance neighborhood stability with civic dynamism, the housing crisis has truly gotten out of hand. Our community is no longer affordable to seniors on fixed incomes, long-time renters, young families hoping to put down roots, or even double-income, professional households.

Adrian Fine 

I was born and raised in Palo Alto, and I’m the youngest of six kids. But I’m the only one who still lives here. I have always loved my city and the Bay Area, and my wife and I want to start our family here. But without a radical change in our housing regulations, my town, the Bay Area, and California at large will rapidly lose young families, hardworking innovators, dedicated civil servants, and many more.

The lifeblood of our state — our people — is bleeding out because of the housing crisis.

As mayor, the most important thing to me about Palo Alto is our diversity and vitality — of people, ideas, landscapes, politics, and cultures. But the failure of our city government to approve enough housing has led us to the edge of catastrophe.

In order to maintain our diversity, indeed, our viability as a city, we simply need more homes. SB 50  is one of the most important pieces of housing legislation working its way through Sacramento. The bill is a sophisticated tool that cities across our state can use to develop secure, abundant, and affordable housing for people of all generations, incomes, and backgrounds. I strongly support this vital, urgently-needed housing legislation.

I completed my master’s degree in city planning because I wanted to help solve problems like this, and worked as a city and transportation planner for many years. Since then, I’ve served on Palo Alto’s City Council for four years, and on the city’s planning and transportation commissions for three years before that. At 33 years old, I’m often the youngest person in the room when we discuss housing and how we’re going to solve the affordability crisis. Voices like mine are rapidly disappearing, and that’s sad.

My experience has led me to conclude that local municipalities like Palo Alto are incapable of solving the housing crisis. We have too many rules, too much process, and too little progress.

When local governments cannot, or will not, solve a problem of regional or state concern, then that is precisely when the state government should step in. I understand that the politics around housing are complex — but the solutions are not: We simply need to build more homes of all types.

If Palo Alto and other cities across the state want to ensure that California fosters a diverse, inclusive, multi-generational society, then we must build more homes. Telling people to “go somewhere else” is not an option. Super-commuting adds to climate pollution (and also impacts human health), ruining our sustainability goals.

So if we want to build more housing, then the best place to do it is near jobs and transit. It makes economic sense, environmental sense, and equity sense.

That’s why I support SB 50. I care more about the people in my community than I do about zoning limits. I care more about making sure young and old families can afford to live in our neighborhoods than I care about parking. I care more about providing immigrants and newcomers access to multi-generational homes and to great schools than I care about height limits. I care more about solving the climate crisis than I do about local control.

As a lifelong resident and now the mayor of Palo Alto, as a young family man and working professional, as a trained city planner, as an environmentalist, and as someone committed to the future of this great state, I urge the state legislature to pass SB 50. We’re counting on you to help us. The time to show leadership in solving our housing crisis is now.

Adrian Fine is mayor of Palo Alto.