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The project wasn’t done well regarding modern urbanism; not many real housing advocates or urbanists will be mourning its sudden demise. Since the narrative told one story and the blueprints showed another, it became clear that most of the narrative was just false advertising. Just to name a few examples, the ‘narrative’ promised (but the blueprints delivered):
- Multi-modal connectivity for bikes and pedestrians ( but without multi-modal lanes )
- Equitable Transportation Access ( but only for people with cars )
- Improved critical downtown and neighborhood connections ( but not for people on bicycles )
- Planning for a future transit facility with improved access ( the exact location is still unclear )
- Sustainable, Transit Oriented Development (TOD) ( but without Transit and with all these cars, certainly not ‘sustainable’)
- Implements the El Camino Real Corridor Plan bike lanes and Safe Streets ( and then refused to do so )
- Support future Dumbarton Crossing connection ( but there is no future Dumbarton Railroad )
Ultimately, the project would have delivered little compared to all the promises made.
Q: “But what about all the ‘Affordable Housing’ this project was supposed to deliver?That surely would have made Dr. King really happy.”
A: Probably not!
Looking at the plan again, we find that all the Affordable Housing is basically in one building: Block D. Having exclusively lower-income units (234) in one location makes it very convenient to implement modern versions of redlining and geofencing. What is meant by that is best explained by history:
NRDC: “A majority of Americans currently live in suburbs, and as these communities have grown, they’ve also become more racially and socioeconomically diverse. That sits in tension with how much of American suburbia was created with segregation in mind. Throughout the 20th century, the Supreme Court upheld exclusionary zoning policies that banned apartments or required minimum lot sizes, allowing new suburbs to keep out lower-income residents. In the 1930s, the Federal Housing Administration introduced redlining, a policy that kept Black people from getting mortgages and buying homes in the suburbs.
While redlining was banned in 1968, its pervasive impacts on financial stagnancy for Black households and on the demographic composition of communities still persist. Suburban schools are frequently segregated by class and race. Meanwhile, roads and highways – the typical transportation infrastructure of suburbia – have often been used as tools to separate neighborhoods physically and are designed only for moving lots of cars, excluding anyone without the means or the physical ability to drive.“
Basically, the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) explains in this one paragraph several of the things that are central to how Redwood City is still operating today:
- Block D has only low-income residents, which makes “geofencing” or location-based discrimination much easier. Instead of looking at the neighborhood boundary or zip code, you can now discriminate based on house number or block letter.
- There are several differences between the two residential blocks, A and D. Which block has nicer architecture, swimming pool, roof garden, balconies, etc?
- Block D residents are supposed to have fewer cars as they also get fewer parking spots. And still, Block D is the only block surrounded by four streets, getting more air pollution and more noise pollution than any of the other 5 blocks. Their access to family-friendly Open Spaces and Safe Streets is restricted by heavy traffic. That is a weird understanding of Transportation Equity.
- SMCEL JPA – incl. council member Aguirre – did something similar to North Fair Oaks and Friendly Acres when they voted for the recent SR-101 highway widening. This was also advertised as an equity project, but decisions like this explain why so many RCSD students have asthma.
- Regarding Education, the good news is that Sequoia High School is within walking distance of this project, but that might change within just a few years.
- Sequoia Union High School District (SUHSD) – a district with a history of segregation- aims to rid itself of some of its inequitable practices. But they could also decide “having one of the schools maximize choice while the other schools continue with their current offerings” (hint: researchers, superintendents and trustees know this as the fastest way to segregate a school district).
- Not so coincidentally, having the “One-School-Enrichment-Model” is exactly how the RCSD leadership segregated their school district some 30 years ago. And it only took them 5 years.
- So, while the high school (9-12) is close by, RCSD’s self-inflicted segregation model is why the K-8 neighborhood school for low-income Block D is not within walkable distance across the street on Duane St, but almost in San Carlos. In fact, there would 5 public school campuses closer and more convenient for Block D, but RCSD chose to give those children a campus that is almost 3 miles away.
- And again, sitting in cars in traffic doesn’t help with reducing RWCTogether’s statistics in regard to childhood asthma.
- Will Mayor and SamTrans Board Member Jeff Gee step in and fix this ‘Segregation-Transportation‘ problem with a solid two-way bus connector route? Not likely. SamTrans generally doesn’t support schools very well, and apparently, they also don’t have money to spend on school bus shelters anytime soon. They have money for a vast new headquarters and can even afford the administrative overhead to keep and maintain the old one.
“Housing Advocates” spoke out in favor of this project without ever acknowledging all these well-known red flags. Some even made excuses for the “geofencing” by saying it’s easier to provide “services” if all low-income residents are in the same block. Now these units are about affordability, this is not Assisted Living. These family units were advertised as keeping nurses, firefighters, teachers, and lower-income jobs in town; what other kind of “services” would be needed?
Knowing some history might help to explain. By “geofencing” lower-income residents into one block, this block can change hands several times until enforcing the original agreement between Lowe and RWC becomes a legal nightmare (and RWC is still paying for the last big legal nightmare they started).
So now any of the new owners/management companies can do the usual: cheaper building material, non-union labor, low-quality appliances, reduced building maintenance, undeserved evictions, and all the other things future slumlords can come up with that usually lead to ‘ghettoization’ and ‘urban decay.’
Targeted urban decay was already happening at the current Sequoia Station to ensure people wouldn’t be too sentimental about losing it. The new developer, Hunter Properties, promises to revert the decay and spruce it up again. The damage is not too bad, and the foundations are still strong. And there is still hope that future plans look much better.
Another quote by Martin Luther King Jr.: “Segregation … not only harms one physically but injures one spiritually … It scars the soul … It is a system which forever stares the segregated in the face, saying ‘You are less than … You are not equal to …‘”
Despite employing an Equity and Inclusion Officer at city hall, despite SUSHD and RCSD hiring expensive consultant companies providing “equity workshops” and training, despite then-Mayor Howard giving the city an “equity-mural,” despite of all the Diversity and Inclusion promises – the Sequoia Station Development shows that Redwood City leaders are tenaciously holding on to the old patterns of housing and school segregation.
Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in all blog posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood City Pulse or its staff.
Redwood City defers adoption of rent stabilization and tenant protection initiativeJune 9, 2026 11:04 am