Our position on the Serramonte Del Ray apartment complex

We strongly oppose Jefferson Union High School District’s plan to destroy Daly City’s only community garden and a historic seasonal wetland. The public garden, trees and wetland serve as a wildlife refuge for birds, frogs, snakes and butterflies. Bulldozing plants and trees used for food and medicine is unhealthy, short-sighted, damaging, exclusionary, and discriminatory.

For over 21 years the garden located at Serramonte Del Rey provided healthy nutrition and opportunities for active and passive recreation for families, students and people of all ages and backgrounds. This is critically important because of a disproportionate lack of community gardens in Daly City.

The land where the garden is located once belonged to the Ramaytush Ohlone, the original peoples of the San Francisco Peninsula; they lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering. Native plants from the garden are an essential part of traditional Native healing. Traditional Native American healing ceremonies are held in the garden to promote wellness by reflecting Native conceptions of Spirit, Creator, and the Universe. Because physical and spiritual health are intimately connected, body and spirit must heal together.

Preserve the Public Garden on Public Land

We request that JUHSD redesign the proposed Serramonte Del Rey apartment complex to accommodate the garden, orchard and seasonal wetland at their existing perfect micro-climate and wind protected location near Shasta Summit high school and the Serramonte Ridge apartment complex. Here’s why.

  • The proposed development site is over 20 acres. There is no good reason to demolish the 1 acre community garden and food forest.

  • The current site for the garden is ideal because the ridgeline above the garden protects a fruit orchard, vegetable plots and native plants from coastal fog and wind.

  • Daly City is the 9th most densely populated city in the United States. A shortage of community gardens in Daly City negatively impacts citizens; this hardship became particularly difficult during the COVID-19 pandemic when team sports, gyms and group exercise classes were prohibited by state and local health orders.

  • The need for increased community garden access is particularly relevant in Daly City, given its high percentage of minority families with backgrounds in active tending of gardens, orchards and farms for reasons related to food security and cultural practice. The garden serves as a valuable community resource and much needed greenspace.

  • Community gardens are examples of green infrastructure that provide climate-resilient adaptation. As global warming intensifies food costs will continue to increase and food scarcity will need to be addressed through community gardening.

  • Community gardens can reduce urban heat islands, provide various ecosystem services, and increase storm water retention.

  • From a socioeconomic perspective, community gardens build trust, facilitate participation, improve responses to natural disasters and food security — all vital components of effective adaptation and resilience to climate change. Unlike rain gardens, bioswales, and green roofs, community gardens respond to stressors like economic, social, and political instability.

  • Decades of tree removal, often to make way for both front yard and backyard paving, has increased impervious surfaces citywide. Now the highly urbanized population faces a new climate reality dominated by drought, rising temperatures, and limited but more intense storm events.

  • In an era of devastating climate disasters, it’s extremely reckless of the school district to destroy sequestered carbon to build a concrete jungle. We encourage JUHSD to become good stewards of the environment.

  • Our elected representatives have an obligation to address nature-deficit disorder resulting from a chronic lack of community gardens, green space and parks in Daly City. Nature-deficit disorder contributes to higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses, attention difficulties, depression, substance abuse, a diminished use of the senses and health conditions related to poor diet, lack of physical exercise and acute asthma episodes caused by unhealthy air quality. Research suggests that the nature-deficit weakens ecological literacy and stewardship of the natural world, resulting in apathy in the face of climate change disasters such as wildfires, sea level rise, and extreme heat which Daly City needs to counter.

  • The garden, trees and wetland must be preserved for current and future generations.

Low-Income Housing

We support quality low-income housing that’s stable, energy-efficient, free of toxic hazards, located near easy-to-use public transit and includes community gardening.

  • We agree with the Sierra Club’s Feb 17, 2022 letter requesting 59% affordable housing including very low-income and low-income and moderate housing as allocated by the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA).

  • At the Daily City Council and Planning Commission meetings, JUHSD Trustees said they intend to build 10% bellow market rate housing on public land. Sadly, the development of a 90% unaffordable apartment complex will do almost nothing to assist Daly City residents with their housing needs.

  • Only when public lands are returned in restitution to Indigenous peoples should they be transferred to private ownership or long-term private lease.

  • In the case of Bruce’s Beach we support the return of Charles and Willa Bruce’s acesterial land that was unfairly seized by the City of Manhattan Beach. For years, the land was owned by the county of Los Angeles — until November 2021, when California passed a law that allowed the property to be transferred back to the couple's descendants. The historic Bruce's Beach case is inspiring social justice leaders and reparations activists to fight for other Black families whose ancestors were also victims of land theft in the United States.

Residential Segregation of Low-Income Families

We oppose the residential segregation of low-income families. JUHSD’s proposed segregation of low-income renters is completely unacceptable.

  • We strongly oppose JUHSD’s proposal to segregate below market rate (BMR) apartment units in one building. Excluding BMR units from market-rate apartment buildings in the proposed Serramonte Del Rey multi-building apartment complex is Jim Crow era racial discrimination. Quality low-income units should be included in every market rate building throughout the development and the mix of BMR and market rate should be equitable in each building.

  • We strongly agree with concerns raised by Councilmember Glenn Sylvester at the Jan 10, 2022 City Council meeting regarding the residential segregation of low-income families. 

  • JUHSD Trustee Kalimah Salahuddin completely misses Councilmember Glenn Sylvester point in her response.

Bulldozing Daly City's only community garden and killing trees to develop market-rate housing on public land that once belonged to the Ramaytush Ohlone is unacceptable.

Please visit the community garden!