history DEVELOPMENT MUST MOVE FORWARD

IN 1918, CHINESE IMMIGRANT

Thomas Foon Chew built the Bayside Canning Company in what used to be the town of Mayfield. Within a few years, he turned the company into the third-largest cannery in the world at a time when Chinese immigrants were denied legal entry into the U.S., according to the Los Altos Town Crier.

Chew hired workers of all ethnicities and built housing for Chinese workers whose ethnicity prevented them from renting elsewhere. His story of progress and inclusivity should be remembered, especially because the issues Chew confronted have not gone away.

Almost a century after his death, a development company called Sobrato and the Palo Alto Historic Resources Board are now in conflict over Sobrato’s proposal to build 74 market-rate townhomes on the site of the old cannery at 340 Portage Ave. Con- has made. It has been over three years since Fry’s closed its doors, but the empty building still sits in the lot, untouched.

According to Palo Alto Online, the HRB objected to the project with the rationale that destroying the building would be disrespectful to Chew’s legacy and make it ineligible for placement on the California Historic Register.

There is no question of the historical value that the building has held in the past. But what’s missing from this conversation is the tangible value that demolition could hold in the future.

Palo Alto needs affordable housing. Zillow reported that the average price of a home in Palo Alto was $3.06 million, as of January. And according to a report from the nonprofit Silicon Valley at Home, Palo Alto has the highest jobs-to-housing imbalance in Santa Clara County, with 3.54 jobs per every housing unit. Although “density” can be an ugly word for some, it “is our destiny,” in the words of the Santa Clara County Grand Jury.

It’s clear that the members of the HRB have Palo Alto’s best interests at heart when they worry that demolishing Fry’s building would offend Asian Americans, or when