98: Dena Acosta-Beere, Concord City Council Candidate

Now the loaded question, the reverse of that, is where has the city of Concord City Council failed?

Yeah, I don't know why our district does feel like it's in a different world sometimes.

This is something I've just learned in my door knocking.

People think that our district, you know, so close to the freeway and all this commerce.

Some people don't even know that little neighborhoods are tucked away in these very busy areas.

I never

understood that either.

Like, do you have these little row of like four or five houses on a side street that And it's just like there's a busy street, and then you have some ADUs, and you've got just – and I'm totally sorry to interrupt you, but you just triggered something with me.

Whenever I drive through Concord, I'm like, why is there houses there? Why is there businesses there? Why is this – it's just like wherever there's land, they're going to build something.

It's just interesting.

I'm sort of a history nerd and so I love this question.

So we like Meadow Homes for example there are 10,000 square foot home lots and so when Concord developed around Market Street it's really the markets that came from Clayton and all the mining activity and they bring it to market and then our auto mall sprung up there.

So you had this development around large lots and probably subdivided farm land even.

So it's kind of interesting how that developed over time because you have these plots that then get subdivided.

And I don't know if it was a product of the 70s and 80s where I heard that planning and design had a lot different priorities then.

But it's not always cohesive, and it's not interlinked to the rest of the city.

Is there a way to fix that going forward, though? Because it's so interesting to just the mix.

Yeah, I think that's where the trails and transit access points really come into play.

and even just beautifying the landscape because we need the housing.

And so there's been a push for ADUs in the city as well.

So if we're going to have more people living in our areas, then we need to provide the resources for them to get to work, to get to school, and to get to access other parts of our city.

So I think trails, transit, that's going to go a long way and in connecting our city without reducing the amount of housing when we need more, actually.

We'll get into housing in a second, but I do want to just kind of go back to what you've said this now several times, that District 3 has kind of been overlooked.

And I know the vice mayor's representing it now, and he's not going to run again.

Why do you believe it's been overlooked, given that there's a vice mayor? And what are some of the things you want to do in your first year or two when you're elected that you would want to work on?