The trouble with those types of justifications is that they are highly idealistic and not fact-based. Therefore, they can be used to justify almost anything. By that line of reasoning, we should bulldoze every bit of open space and fill it with multi story housing.
The truth is we have no idea where people will live and work. For all we know mom and dad's work will be further away living here than before. As of the 2010 census there were 24,951 households in Folsom. So, I'm pretty sure 56 additional households (0.2%) won't even move the needle for the small mom and pop businesses.
Here's what we do know:
-There are currently about 550 homes that use Silberhorn as a primary ingress/egress street. So, 56 homes represents a 10% increase on an already over-capacity residential street. 10% may not seem like a large increase--unless you happen to be the one living on that street, but why should they matter?
-The housing being proposed and its large paved parking lots and bright lighting absolutely does not fit in with the character and design of a single family home neighborhood. Do you notice that these types of projects are always done after the developers have completed selling the new homes in the subdivision? They're done with it at that point and just want to squeeze the last bits of profits out of the development.
-The only reason the city is looking to make this zoning variance is to make the lot more profitable for the developer-let's not kid ourselves. It was zoned single family, in a single family neighborhood and that's what they should be forced to build--or nothing at all, that's fine too. Their profitability on that lot is not our problem.
So, between this, the 3-story Section 8 subsidized apartment complex in Empire Ranch (conveniently only after all the homes had been sold), and the general trend toward Bay Area housing density in every new development, frankly I've had it. I can only imagine what South of 50 will end up like. If I wanted Bay Area housing density I'd move to the Bay Area.