282: "Would you like a San Francisco Bay View or a College Education for Billy?" The otherworldly economics of housing in 1987 El Cerrito, CA

282.

Published news story for El Cerrito Journal by Lurene Kathleen Helzer, April 16, 1987, “Houses to rise on Madera despite concerned view loss”. This was a routine story about residential development, but points to what is a recurring issue in San Francisco East Bay development and redevelopment: views.

All one needs to do is pick up any month’s issue of Architectural Digest to see how dramatically views add or subtract to the price and status of a home or commercial building. The price of a home with a sweeping view of Malibu, California’s coast is going to fetch a very high price in 2008 or any other year. That same building, but instead facing a home across a suburban street in, say, Stockton, California, will be advertised for far, far less. In this 1987 case, you had a view of the San Francisco Bay to protect, probably, so the discussion of the proposed height of new developments was an slightly serious one. City council members are voted in and out of power because of issues just like this one.