I agree with John's position on working towards a better balance of higher & lower density housing in Dublin, particularly on the east side since that's where most of the new development is occurring. When I think about the wonderful family-oriented neighborhoods in which we raised our daughters in Mission San Jose & Pleasanton, I see very little of that in Dublin. When we bought in Pleasanton in 1999, we first looked in Dublin because new homes were quite a bit less expensive here. We considered buying in The Ridge on Hansen Hill on the west side. The homes were beautiful and the views were awesome, but the yards were small & not well-suited for kids because of the steep hills. We ultimately chose to buy in Pleasanton because of those reasons and because the schools were much better in Pleasanton.

Forgive me while I go off on a tangent for a moment. I think it's great that Dublin is investing so much in its schools. I think education is our most important enterprise. From my experience, however, it's not how much you spend on the facility that makes a great school. By far the best way to improve your schools is to convince highly-educated parents who believe strongly in education to move to your district. Unfortunately, you can't do that by building mostly high-density.

I'm now retired and live in the Sorrento development on the east side. Quite a few professional parents with small children (or planning to have children soon) have moved into condos in Sorrento and the Dublin Ranch Villages. I foresee many of these families moving to a neighboring city before their children reach middle school age because of the lack of single family homes with playable yards and/or safe streets. This will result in an unfortunate loss of citizenry as well as a serious brain drain from Dublin's schools.

There is still a lot of undeveloped land on the east side. Let's encourage our city officials to put more emphasis on “executive” homes in Dublin instead of continuing to watch higher-end buyers settle in Pleasanton, San Ramon & Danville.

Tim Hall
Dublin, CA
tiger650@comcast.net

I agree with John's position on working towards a better balance of higher & lower density housing in Dublin, particularly on the east side since that's where most of the new development is occurring. When I think about the wonderful family-oriented neighborhoods in which we raised our daughters in Mission San Jose & Pleasanton, I see very little of that in Dublin. When we bought in Pleasanton in 1999, we first looked in Dublin because new homes were quite a bit less expensive here. We considered buying in The Ridge on Hansen Hill on the west side. The homes were beautiful and the views were awesome, but the yards were small & not well-suited for kids because of the steep hills. We ultimately chose to buy in Pleasanton because of those reasons and because the schools were much better in Pleasanton.

Forgive me while I go off on a tangent for a moment. I think it's great that Dublin is investing so much in its schools. I think education is our most important enterprise. From my experience, however, it's not how much you spend on the facility that makes a great school. By far the best way to improve your schools is to convince highly-educated parents who believe strongly in education to move to your district. Unfortunately, you can't do that by building mostly high-density.

I'm now retired and live in the Sorrento development on the east side. Quite a few professional parents with small children (or planning to have children soon) have moved into condos in Sorrento and the Dublin Ranch Villages. I foresee many of these families moving to a neighboring city before their children reach middle school age because of the lack of single family homes with playable yards and/or safe streets. This will result in an unfortunate loss of citizenry as well as a serious brain drain from Dublin's schools.

There is still a lot of undeveloped land on the east side. Let's encourage our city officials to put more emphasis on “executive” homes in Dublin instead of continuing to watch higher-end buyers settle in Pleasanton, San Ramon & Danville.

Tim Hall
Dublin, CA
tiger650@comcast.net