Tower Separation Regulations to be Repealed Just In Time For Onni Developer

"No Connection" Between Regulation Rollback and Desires of Onni Developer, City Council Assures Us

Planning Director Suggests City Staff Expressed Poor Judgment in 2013 When the Regulations Were Crafted 

News Analysis
The City Council members and the staff at City Hall has a tough task they’re engaged in.  They’ve got to move quickly to repeal Emeryville’s existing ‘tower separation’ regulations meant to protect the residents in order to help out a billionaire developer seeking regulatory relief for his proposed towers all while assuring the residents they’re not doing that.  It’s been an illuminating exercise in government chicanery watching the Council members’ strain as they carry water for the developer of the Christie Avenue Onni project and it’s two towers (one at 700’ and one at 200’), all while they deny they’re doing it…sometimes in the same sentence.

After Emeryville's Planning Director Charlie Bryant made a brief presentation at the July 9th Tuesday Council meeting wherein he said staff had goofed when they added tower separation to the city planning regulations back in 2013, he noted the Council is now being offered a chance to correct that mistake by completely rolling back the regulation.  Staffs' findings from 2013 that were made in support of the tower separation regulation were not presented Tuesday night, only that by overturning it, the Council would be "cleaning up" a terrible staff mistake.  Charlie Bryant, Emeryville's Planning Director, without explaining why, tried to quantify the mistake for the Council members, "This regulation was not based on any extensive research, rather it was based solely on staffs' professional judgment at the time" he said.

Emeryville Planning Director Charlie Bryant
The staff made a mistake in 2013 (lack of research)
with the tower separation rules.  He says the City
Council now has a chance to correct the staffs'
lack of "professional judgment".

For the record, tower separation regulations were to protect against overcrowding of high-rise towers; a condition pejoratively called ‘Manhattanization’.
The Council however jumped at Mr Bryant's reasoning Tuesday and “clean up language” was trotted out as the reason for abolishing the tower separation regulation by three Council members.  They assured the citizens it’s only a coincidence that they are “cleaning up” this regulatory burden the Onni developer says is unacceptable, now, just in time for approval for that controversial project.
Councilwoman Dianne Martinez seeking to allay any condemnations from citizens, was unequivocal and she sought to completely uncouple the Council’s action from the wishes of the Onni developer,  “It’s clean up language and it would apply to ANY high-rise.”  she said.  She made no other specific mention of the questionable timing of the rollback.

The wholesale denials that this action the Council is taking has anything at all to do with the Onni project were noted by citizens at the meeting.  One resident who wished to remain anonymous told the Tattler later he found it “curious” the Council members were all so adamant about denying any connection with Onni.  It’s worth noting and it’s also curious that the roll back of the tower separation regulations is happening at the same time the Council is also considering rolling back Emeryville’s family housing ‘unit mix’ regulations, also an existential problem for the Onni developer (or so he has said).  Strenuous denials have been issued from the City Council there as well, about any nexus between rolling back the family housing unit mix regulations and the desires of the Onni developer.  It’s just another coincidence, the Council says.

The Proposed Onni Project
The developer wants Emeryville's  existing
'tower separation' law to be repealed.
The Council says it's all just a coincidence.

Where four Council members left it as self evident that our 2013 tower separation regulations are terrible things that must now be rooted out and rolled back, unworthy of even offering explanation, Council member John Bauters thought a few words about it should be offered to the public.  The tower separation regs are unnecessary, Mr Bauters told the crowd, because future environmental impact reports for projects (presumably that means Onni), will take up any concerns about what the proper distance of towers should be.  That’s a pretty extraordinary plea against the whole idea of city planning but one Mr Bauters bolstered when he said if we don’t get rid of our separation rules, we’re going to get “sprawl”.  The Councilman didn’t explain how that would work and as such, it was presented as another self evident fact.  But the most incongruent evidence for why the Council must roll back the tower separation regulation was presented in a non sequitur he offered up, claiming regulations in general remove the ability for the "Council to review projects”.  Mr Bauters told the crowd that if the tower separation regulations are removed, the Council will get a chance to review (the Onni) project for the public benefit that somehow would not be possible were there to be tower separation regulations on the books.  Again, no explanation of how that works was offered.

Mr Bryant, throwing out a lifeline for the struggling City Council, volunteered that the tower separation regulation, "... was in merely one page out of over four hundred pages of regulations” that were generated by staff as they sought to overhaul the zoning and planning regulations in 2013 he said.

The City Council will finally remove tower separation from the books at their July 23rd meeting when they do a required ‘second reading’ of the ordinance that forever removes the regulations so unpopular with the Onni developer.