Housing summit at Cal Poly explores balance between housing development and agriculture preservation
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (KEYT) - A first-ever housing summit at Cal Poly Monday afternoon explored the issue of finding the appropriate balance between housing development and preserving agricultural land.
The inaugural "Real Estate Day," was held in partnership between the Orfalea College of Business and the College of Architecture and Environmental Design.
Held in the university's on campus Swanson Center of Effort Conference Hall on campus, the event was themed "Agricultural Land and Community Growth: Balancing Housing Needs, Agricultural Value and Open Space."
"Real Estate Day is trying to become a platform for our community to get together and discuss topics that matters for our community and hearing from different stakeholders," said Hamed Ghoddusi, Cal Poly Real Estate Initiative Director. "We think Cal Poly can be a neutral platform to host topics, which are based on facts, data, research, and then invite people from the community, from local government, from developers, from planners, consultants, citizens, agriculture community who sit around the table and discuss and offer their insights and help us understand the problems better and think about better solutions for the problems that our community is facing."
Over the course of four hours, those who attended heard from a panel of speakers from a wide variety of pertinent industries connected to either planning, housing development and the agriculture business, who each brought their unique perspectives on different approaches to housing, including rezoning farmland for residential development.
"We can see arguments on both sides," said Ghoddusi. "People see a lot of value in agricultural production and the need for food. People also see value of open space for all the ecosystem benefits that all the green space is bringing to us. People also see the issue with housing affordability and the need for our region to grow, and to cut the commuting time of the members of the community, so we want to sit together and discuss and the trade offs between all these desirable goals and see what's the optimum point."
Ghoddusi added he is already planning on next year's second annual Real Estate Day, which he said will be focused on development and technology.
"It would be about data centers, battery storage technologies, distribution centers," said Ghoddusi. "That is one of the other hottest topics in real estate and is one our area is also dealing with."
