Although some folks will disagree, Beacon Street Development’s plan to complete the Moss Landing residential community on the waterfront is the right thing to do.

To date, the Moss Landing project has not realized its full potential. That’s regrettable. A fully built Moss Landing will increase the city’s tax base, adding more revenue to the city’s coffers, money that can be used to make improvements throughout the city.

Being on the conservative side, let’s say 30 single-family homes are added to Moss Landing and each one has a tax value of $200,000. At the city’s present tax rate of 50 cents per $100 valuation, that would generate $30,000 in revenue for the city. That money could pay the annual salary for a new police officer or firefighter, or at least come close to it. That money could be used to help pay for repaving part of a city street. That money could by a lot of books for Brown Library.

Right now, those empty lots at Moss Landing are producing some tax revenue for the city and the county, but having a family living in a house on each of those lots would produce even more tax revenue and other revenues — property-tax revenue, sales-tax revenue, revenue from water and sewer fees — for the city.

And from what we’ve seen of the designs of the proposed houses, they would blend in with the character of the Water Street neighborhood.

Beacon Street Development would like to starting building later this year. That would mean some of the area’s unemployed residents could find construction jobs.

The sooner, the better.