Aragon Coffee
Please contact me if you’d like to hold a coffee for your neighbors to share their
thoughts with me. Our November and December Neighborhood Coffee slot are open!
In September, Mike Etheridge and Stacie Goeddel kindly invites their Aragon neighbors
over to share with me what was on their minds. Measure T and the Baywood Historic
District were topics of great interest. What to do about gas leaf blowers, controlling
short-term rentals and streamlining building permit processes also were hot topics.
While most of the attendees were very supportive of Measure T to enable more
affordable housing and help our small businesses, there was some concern over the
impact Measure T would have on traffic and single-family neighborhoods.
To make the discussion about historic resources a citywide one, and to give residents
many opportunities to share their opinions, City Council decided to approve the
development of a San Mateo historic resources program. The goal of the program
would be to develop a consensus across San Mateo as to what should be considered
“historic” and how historic resources should be managed. From that consensus, City
staff would develop clear, objective regulations that reflected community sentiment while
following state and federal guidelines. This would be a year-long process and involve
many opportunities for community discussion. The group sponsoring the Baywood
Historic District application has agreed to pause the application and participate in the
City’s program. It is hoped that all individuals and groups participate to ensure the best
possible outcome.
City Council debated what to do about gas leaf blowers in 2023. The ultimate decision
was to launch a pilot program to incent conversion from gas to electric leaf blowers.
The incentives are available to both landscape businesses and homeowners. Check
out https://cityofsanmateo.org/4544/Electric-Leaf-Blower-Rebate to learn more and sign
up. The program has been successful to date. Council is scheduled to review the
program’s impact in early 2025 and discuss whether incentives should continue, or
whether some type of ban should be adopted now that there is a California law banning
the sale of new gas leaf blowers.
The City of San Mateo adopted short-term rental regulations (Chapter 5.66) on
February 1, 2021 to regulate short-term rentals and mitigate their impacts on
surrounding neighborhoods. The program set up a detailed set of short-term regulations
and a registry to monitor the impact of short-term rentals on housing stock,
neighborhoods etc. There has been a substantial decrease in complaints about short-term rentals since then, but issues remain on ongoing enforcement is required. You
can read about the program at https://cityofsanmateo.org/4530/Short-Term-Rental-
Registration-Requireme . Questions or comments about the program or specific
properties should be directed to sanmateoTOT@hdlgov.com or 650.443.9056.
We need our neighbors to be our eyes and ears…thank you!
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