Lawyer quits Palo Alto planning board over housing costs; monthly rent in shared house was $6,200
A California lawyer is airing her reasons for quitting a Palo Alto government board: She can’t afford to live there.
In a letter posted online, lawyer Kate Downing says the home she rents with her husband—and another couple—is $6,200 a month, report the Recorder (sub. req.) and the San Jose Mercury News.
Downing is a lawyer with ServiceNow Inc. and her husband is a software engineer. She resigned from the Palo Alto Planning and Transportation commission in an Aug. 10 letter. “After many years of trying to make it work in Palo Alto, my husband and I cannot see a way to stay in Palo Alto and raise a family here,” she wrote. She is planning to move to Santa Cruz.
The median cost of a home in Palo Alto is $2.36 million, according to Corporate Counsel. The publication spoke with several in-house lawyers in the area who said they have household income of $250,000 to $500,000 but it’s not always enough to buy a home there.
Downing told the Mercury News that the letter “is not supposed to be a sad story about me. I’m going to land on my feet. I’m extraordinarily lucky and privileged.” Instead, she said the letter is intended as a warning about failed policies that are hurting the region.
“If professionals like me cannot raise a family here, then all of our teachers, first responders and service workers are in dire straits,” she wrote in her resignation letter. She advocated zoning changes to expand the housing supply such as legalizing duplexes; allowing housing on top of shops; and easing restrictions on “granny units.”
