Tech titan wants more housing, not just in the neighborhood – Palo Alto Daily Post

by Emily Mibach
Daily Post staff writer

One of Silicon Valley’s kingmakers wants to see housing built for “regular people” — but not in his hometown of Atherton.

Marc Andreessen, who helped fund Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and helped create Netscape, wrote in a blog post in 2020 titled “It’s Time to Build.” But The Atlantic reports that Andresen and his wife, Laura Arrillaga-Andresen, wrote an email to the Atherton City Council opposing plans by the son of the late billionaire developer John Arrillaga to build nine properties around town, totaling 137. Town houses.

The last sentence of the letter reads: “They (townhouses) will greatly reduce our home values, our own and our neighbors’ quality of life, and greatly increase noise pollution and traffic.”

The couple lives in 164 Elena Avenue, which they purchased in January 2007 for $16.6 million. The website Redfin estimates that the five-bedroom home is now worth more than $38 million.

Arrillaga-Andresen also said the couple owns four properties on Tuscaloosa Avenue.

Atherton, like other cities in the state, is on the hook for adding housing and planning how those new homes will be built. The state wants a portion of those new homes to be offered at below-market rents. Townhouses were considered to be built for low-income housing in Atherton, but the idea was dropped from the plan due to complaints from residents. The city has recently entered the region. Instead, Atherton is relying entirely on additional dwelling units called ADUs, or granny units, and homes built by the city’s schools to meet its 348-home requirement. If the state does not accept the plan, the city will have to find other ways to increase housing.

Andreessen’s 2020 blog about housing seems to advocate building homes in cities but makes no mention of building in tony towns like Atherton.

“We can’t build enough affordable housing in nearly all of our cities — which has driven up housing prices in places like San Francisco, making it impossible for regular people to move in and get the jobs of the future. And we can’t build the cities anymore. When the producers of HBO’s ‘Westworld’ wanted to portray a futuristic American city, they didn’t film in Seattle or Los Angeles or Austin — they went to Singapore. We need to step up from where we are now and have glittering skyscrapers and stunning residential areas in all our best cities. where are they?”

Andresen did not tweet about the article. He did not respond to requests for comment from the Post.