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. Constructing housing would require demolishing 40 percent of the building, which is now a Fry’s Electronics store.

Demolishing the building is not a decision that should be taken lightly, but we should be frustrated by the slow progress the city 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 they encourage adaptive reuse of the building that would serve the community.

But how is preserving the building the best way to honor an underrepresented minority group when many minorities and lower-income people can’t even afford to live in Palo Alto today?

We all need to care, because housing is an equity issue.

Silicon Valley at Home reported that 56.6% of Palo Alto’s homes are single-family detached, and there is a lower proportion of people of color in the city than in the Bay Area as a whole — a correlation that makes sense, according to Ryan Fukumori, senior associate with the data support system Bay Area Equity Atlas.

“Single-family homes, for a large chunk of the early to mid-20th century, were largely restricted to white residents and white families,” Fukumori said. “And even though the racially discriminatory practices were outlawed in the civil rights era, zoning laws became a way to preserve the makeup of single-family homes, suburbs and low-density neighborhoods in a way that wasn’t explicitly racist, but that favored the status quo.”

The city council recently approved 110 units of affordable housing for teachers, but we still have a long way to go. Palo Alto’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation, the number of new homes it must build, is 6100, and the city was only 42.2% of the way to the goal as of 2021, according to Silicon Valley at Home.

Because of soaring home prices and restrictive zoning laws, our community is becoming increasingly insulated, isolated and resistant to change.

“Historic preservation can sometimes serve as a lever for folks who are [NIMBY](not in my backyard) or low-density advocates,” Fukumori said. “The face value argument that we want to preserve this space can serve as a backdoor for, ‘We don’t really want to build affordable housing here.’”

No matter the underlying motives for preservation, Palo Alto’s history needs to be taken into account. 25,000 people attended the funeral of the “Asparagus King” in 1931, according to Palo Alto Online, but now Chew’s name lacks meaning for most Palo Altans. To teach residents about this important figure in our town’s history, Chew’s story must be made accessible amid any changes to the Fry’s site.

However, development should proceed. While new housing locations may open up in the future, right now, Fry’s is one of the few places in Palo Alto that is zoned for high-density housing. This is an opportunity that we cannot pass up.

In Sobrato’s current proposal, watered down in an agreement with the City Council, 60% of the building would remain after demolition to be renovated and used for commercial use. In addition, Sobrato would donate 3.25 acres of land near the building for a park and future affordable housing development.

Like a true compromise, no one will be completely happy.

But we cannot delay this deal any further. The Public Art Commission should approve plaques and exhibits that celebrate Chew’s impact on Palo Alto, and then allow the City to move ahead with the demolition of a portion of the building. One housing project cannot solve all of Palo Alto’s housing woes, but it is a step in the right direction — a step toward remedying decades of racial and socioeconomic exclusion.

History does not have to be the enemy of progress. Instead, it should inform our future.