Last week, Santa Clara County Supervisors voted to demolish a vacant building and build a surface parking lot rather than allow John Sobrato and Jim Salata to remodel it in order to shelter homeless individuals. However, out of this unfortunate result comes a potential victory, since verbal commitments were made to build low-income housing at this site in the future.

The site in question is directly across from light rail and is perfectly situated for access to both transit and social services. Not building at the highest density possible would be a travesty, since land is more scarce than money. The county has more than adequate funding for this project since voters approved a $950-million tax to pay for low-income housing.

It is time to finally utilize county land and make this project a showcase of what can be done with voter approved tax revenue.

Pierluigi Oliverio
Former San Jose City Councilman