'Ghetto Housing' Or Affordable Apartments Near BART?

The city will hold a second public hearing Wednesday evening on a plan to put a new high-tech building and 200 units of low income housing on the vacant lot west of the San Leandro BART station.

The high-tech building would expand the campus of OSIsoft, the home-grown technical software firm whose founder, Patrick Kennedy, is also spending $3 million to create a .

The residential aspect of the project calls for the construction of 200 rental units, with 100 units for very low income and 100 units for low income households.

A city web site describs this so-called San Leandro Crossings project in detail. An attached PDF document is a presentation summarizing the project.

Wednesday night's hearing will be held in the Titan Auditorium of the Marina Community Center at 15301 Wicks Boulevard. It will also start at 6:30 pm.

San Leandro resident Rob Rich, a supporter of the project, attended the first hearing that were held Tuesday night at the Main San Leandro Library.

He said developers and the city "are working together on a $130 million development right here in San Leandro bringing a new, 100,000 square foot, state of the art headquarters for OSIsoft, 200 units of affordable housing, and one-for-one replacement parking for the BART lot. Nice job."

When Mayor Stephen Cassidy previewing the project, it  drew more than 150 comments.

There were no objections to the new OSIsoft campus.

But some regular Patch commenters have objected to making the 200 rental units "affordable" in order to qualify for a $24 million state grant that is part of the project's $130 million mix of public and private financing.

"The $24 million is California tax dollars, and you're giving a private developer $9.1 million of (city) tax dollars to build this ghetto housing project," wrote David Nierengarten. "What tech hub with high income people and high paying jobs purposely establishes a very low-income poverty hub? What happens when these tech workers with high paying jobs get mugged at San Leandro BART?"

Join in the discussion below or attend Wednesday night's hearing.

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