A Palo Alto city councilmember is introducing some unusual new legislation today that is aimed squarely at the billionaires in the city — ahem, Zuckerberg — who have spent years gobbling up formerly middle-class homes and assembling compounds that undergo years of endless construction.
Spurred on by a New York Times investigative piece in August that looked into the eight years of constant construction and questionable legality of the multi-property compound owned by Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan, Palo Alto City Councilmember Greer Stone is introducing legislation Thursday aimed at improving the quality of life for the neighbors of the city's multiple billionaires.
As Stone tells the Times this week, "To see other people take housing out of the housing stock in such a flippant way is frustrating. The growing discrepancy between the top 1 percent and the rest of us has never been more clear."
Stone, who along with his wife is a school teacher who rents a one-bedroom apartment in Palo Alto, does not ever foresee being able to own a home himself in Palo Alto. But he's hoping that his legislation will help improve life for the middle-class neighbors of the Zuckerberg-Chans and others, and perhaps add some more affordable housing stock to the city.
The proposed legislation would outlaw the buying of property in order to leave it empty, and it would seek detailed schedules for any construction projects lasting more than six months. The law would also prevent new construction from beginning less than three years after any major project was complete.
The legislation is unusual in that will only apply to residents who have purchased three or more properties with 500 feet of each other — essentially aimed at just these billionaire compounds. And it would further limit the use of unmarked private security vehicles.
As UC Davis law professor Christopher Elmendorf tells the times, the law may be unusual, but, "the problem of having many people worth more than $10 billion in your city is also unusual, right?"
But the legislation may not have any teeth, because as the Times points out, it leaves enforcement responsibility up to neighbors who live within 500 feet of any construction project.
As Michael Kieschnick, one Zuckerberg neighbor who spoke to the Times for the August article, puts it, "Who would sue Mark Zuckerberg?"
But it's a step in the right direction for neighbors like him, who say that the City of Palo Alto has essentially let themselves be bulldozed over by the billionaires. Case in point: After the Zuckerberg-Chans were told by the city back in 2016 that they couldn't just demolish four homes and redraw property lines to create a compound, guess what they ended up doing anyway?
And from the sound of it, it's no picnic being Larry Page's or Marissa Mayer's neighbor either. So perhaps a little heat from the city council will at least encourage some more politeness around construction schedules, or something.
