Oppose involuntary historic district in Baywood

Please sign the petition if you care about protecting your property rights and demand fair representation by our elected officials.

A small group of unelected individuals are attempting to unilaterally limit your property rights in the Baywood neighborhood of San Mateo, State of California. If successful, they will expand this strategy to other neighborhoods in the City.  See if you are on the list of designated homes.

A blanket historic designation in Baywood causes more harm than benefit. It dramatically limits your right to improve your home by adding burdensome restrictions and costly red tape. We need urgent intervention by our elected leaders and City Council to oppose the Baywood historic district application, which is baseless, divisive, and exclusionary.

We call on San Mateo elected officials, including Deputy Mayor Nash, and other relevant representatives to represent their constituents who are opposed to historic designation. Submit a letter of opposition to the California State Historical Resources Commission - silence is unacceptable!

 

Petition to San Mateo City Council

We, the undersigned residents of San Mateo, oppose designating the District 1 Baywood neighborhood a historic district.

Historic designation will significantly impact the rights of property owners by increasing red tape, limiting design choices, increasing costs to maintain and update homes, and making it more difficult to sell properties. Historic districts are a permanent designation, without exemption or exception, that will cast a shadow over the Baywood neighborhood.

We cannot allow a small group of unelected individuals from the Baywood Neighborhood Association and San Mateo Heritage Alliance to usurp our property rights without the approval of the Baywood property owners, City staff or the City Council.

The District 1 representative, Deputy Mayor Diaz Nash, has recused herself from any discussion related to a Baywood historic district due to her husband’s involvement in the San Mateo Heritage Alliance, which is organizing the historic designation effort, and their positions as President and Vice President of the Baywood Neighborhood Association, which is supporting the effort.

We call on San Mateo elected officials, including Deputy Mayor Nash, to represent their constituents who are opposed to historic designation. District 1 needs a voice on the dais. Stop the attack on our property rights. Submit a letter of opposition to the California State Historical Resources Commission - silence is unacceptable!

(By signing the petition, your address will be used to determine your neighborhood district and will not be made public.)

Go to www.lessredtape.com to learn more!

News on Historic District Efforts

List of designated homes

305 signed so far. Help us get to 300!

Will you sign?

30 people have signed the petition

Recent responses

  • Against this 100%
  • My home is not a historic building, and giving Baywood a blanket historic designation will harm the value of it.
  • This absurd historical designation process is un-American
  • We recently lived in New England for nine years and purchased two homes during that time. Based on our personal observations and experience, buyers avoided historic homes like the plague. The New England City regulations were clear and were implemented with an an appeals process and were not an issue. The local historic commission approval was arduous and difficult because their regulations were lengthy and vague. The biased inexperienced nonelected commission members were free to make up the requirements based on their individual opinions on what needed preservation. Structural changes required to improve the stability, efficiency, and safety of the home were often not approved. If the new owner wanted to increase the size ( living space) by increasing the foot print or add a second story, this was never acceptable. It was not uncommon for a naive new home owner of a historic designated house to begin the process and soon discover that they were out of time and grossly over budget, often before construction could begin. The new owner would put the home back on the market at a loss. This was caused by vague, lengthy, regulations applied by anyone’s idea of what was historic and what was required. There was no precise approved regulations and no due process. If you did not agree, there was no timely appeal, and your construction was not approved to begin until you “knuckled under”. If you were wealthy enough to begin construction, your site was repeatedly visited by members of “self appointed” historical groups making changes to what was required. Construction would stop until you could change approved plans to continue. I never meet a contractor in New England that would quote a fixed price on the renovation of an historic house, even after initial plans were approved. The completion date was a moving target.

    Without clear precise elected local government public approved regulations concerning “historic” renovations in Baywood by the City planning department and the due process by elected local government to contest the application of the regulations, I predict a repeat of what I witnessed in New England.

    What is taking shape with this new historic district in Baywood is not the way to welcome your new neighbors. This historic issue has already caused divisive problems in our community. No further need to pull the rug out from under a new neighbor after they have purchased their home.
  • My husband, Jeffrey Jacobs, who co-owns this property in trust, is also in agreement with this petition.