Transit Center Gets Nix From Planning Commission

2nd 'No' Vote From Planning Commission

to Transit Center

"Not Enough Public Benefit" 

Thursday night, Emeryville's Planning Commission gave a thumbs down to Wareham Development's contentious 'Transit Center' proposed to be built north of the Amtrak station on Horton Street.   The No votes among the Commissioners (Kuemmerle & Gunkel) said the project doesn't offer enough public benefit especially considering a $4.2 million grant  of public money Wareham is to receive for the project.  Two Commissioners voted Yes (Cardoza & Keeler) and two abstained (Moss & Tann).  A tie vote results in a rejection of the application.  The City Council will be the final arbiters in the project and they could override the Planning Commission as they did in 2010 on an earlier vote on the controversial project.  That earlier Council vote split 3-2 (West & Asher dissenting).

The Transit Center project is comprised of an office tower on a parking podium, a small public plaza and four bus bays in the parking garage.  The bus bays are meant to accommodate the Amtrak station.

Some residents cried foul when City Council earlier in the year voted to grant Wareham $4.2 million in public money to build the project, funds leftover from the remains of the former Redevelopment Agency.   Wareham had promised to clean up the toxins left over from the polluting days when Westinghouse Electric Company manufacturing operated at the site, a fact Council Member Nora Davis said was a deal maker.  Ms Davis it should be noted has been very vocal on using developer and public money to clean up toxins from Emeryville's industrial past. In the intervening years since the agreement was hammered out with Wareham however, the development firm reneged on their promise and they will now only partially clean up the site, leaving toxins entombed in the soil beneath the new building.

Thursday's Planning Commission vote against the Transit Center marks the second time the planning body has rejected the project.  In 2010, they said the project with it's four bus bays in the garage and small plaza was too light on the public amenities to approve because of the traffic the project would generate and the fact that the building was too tall for the neighborhood.  That Planning Commission vote was made before Wareham retracted it's agreement to clean up the toxins it should be noted.  The Transit Center project as proposed today is worse from a public benefit analysis (no complete clean up and a new grant of $4.2 million public money).

Wareham, a favored developer at City Hall, has received more than $4 million in subsidies already from the City Council to help them build their other development projects around town.  In November 2012 a generous Council OK'ed a deal with Wareham to allow the developer to bank increment taxes the project generates for 12 years even as the Transit Center uses city services.
The $4.2 million in left over Redevelopment funds the Council earmarked for Wareham and the Transit Center is money the City could have applied to other proposed public projects in town including the moribund South Bayfront Bike/Pedestrian Bridge now starving for money and dying for lack of it.

The Council is expected to vote soon, one last time, to give the final OK for the Transit Center.

Planning Commissioners Reject Colleague's Plea to Save Pedestrian Path

EBI Path Dead, 

ECCL Path Gets a Second Chance
Commissioner "disheartened"

In a unanimous voice, the Emeryville Planning Commission spurned their colleague, Sean Moss as they collectively voted to move ahead with a proposal to amend Emeryville's General Plan to remove the EBI Pedestrian Path tonight.  The path would connect 45th and 47th Street in Emeryville's Triangle neighborhood.

No good.
We have enough of this already, thank you.

The absent Commissioner Moss made an impassioned plea in a letter to the rest of the Planning Commission to not change the General Plan and to retain the path ahead of the vote tonight but the letter fell on deaf ears.  All four attending Commissioners voted to get rid of the EBI path but at least three wanted citizens to know they did so with a heavy heart.  Commission Chairwoman Vanessa Kuemmerle said she was "disheartened to take apart the General Plan" with her vote.  Commissioner Steven Steinberg recused himself because of his home's proximity to the proposed ped path.
Surprisingly, one of the two original neighbor complainants to the path spoke in favor of keeping the path but he said he wanted adjustments made to it to address safety concerns.  The neighbor indicated that the other original complainant also was not in favor of removing the path, creating the bizarre spectacle of the Planning Commissioners one by one voting to eliminate a General Plan mandated pedestrian path against the wishes of the original complainants.

ECCL Path Saved
In another action, the Commission later voted to keep the General Plan as it is and not amend it to remove the so called ECCL Path.  That proposed path connecting 47th and 53rd Street behind the future Emeryville Center of Community Life, is also required by the General Plan but School District officials and some residents at adjoining Emery Bay Village have said they want it eliminated.  The Commission voted 4-1 to keep the ECCL Path and retain the General Plan (Buzz Cardoza dissenting).
The city staff advised the Commission to elimintate the ECCL (and the EBI) Path and amend the General Plan to reflect that.

Both votes; against the EBI Path and in favor of the ECCL Path, will now go to the City Council for final say.

Planning Commission Joins Sacramento: 'New School Is Too Small'

Emery School District Fights Back:

We Don't Care About California Standards
"These Are OUR Standards"

Emeryville's Planning Commission deliberated Monday night about the Center of Community Life on San Pablo Avenue and the new school to be built there.  Their findings were unanimous: the site is too small to fit everything the School District wants to cram in there.
Although the findings were part of a study session and not legally binding, the Planning Commission now joins with the State of California in its admonition about the $64 million new Emeryville school, that it doesn't meet minimum standards for size in both outdoor area and built out space.
School District officials attending the meeting acknowledged the new school will not meet State minimum standards for space but they bristled at the idea that the Emery Unified School District has no standards for the children.  The District has its own standards they insisted, "This [school] is what WE are doing, these are OUR standards" said District Architect Roy Miller.  He went on to claim the State lacks the authority to stop Emery from building the school the way it sees fit, regardless of any space standards ensconced in Sacramento.

Schools Superintendent
Debbra Lindo told the
Commissioners, regarding 
the school project, "There has 
been a tremendous amount 
of community input."

The Planning Commissioners each took their turns commenting about the site but Commissioner Buzz Cardoza seemed to sum it up the best for his colleagues, "There's no getting around it, we're squeezing too much on one piece of land" he said.  Commissioner John Scheuerman agreed about the cramped space and added, "Emeryville deserves better".  In the end, every single commissioner made the lack of space their primary stated concern about the proposed school and community center.

After the commissioners read a letter from a parent about the mistake of closing Anna Yates Elementary School and moving it over to the Center of Community Life site,  Commissioner Cardoza commented, "A 6 through 12 grade school would fit [the site]" but not a Kindergarten through 12th grade facility as is planned.

Roy Miller rose to inform the commissioners that urban schools with their tight confinements commonly don't meet the State minimum standards for space.  He attempted to mollify the commissioner's concerns by downplaying the space issue for the $64 million new Emeryville school; space mandates are "regularly modified" he said.  No commissioner made a claim of satisfaction in response to Mr Miller's appeasing words.
Commission Chair, Vanessa Kuemmerle, asked for a comparison with other neighboring schools but Mr Miller said he didn't have that information at hand.

The School District officials packed up their gear at the end of the meeting, vowing to return at a later date when the Planning Commission is scheduled to make its binding vote on the project.

Asshat of the Month

Introducing a new Tattler feature:

Asshat of the Month:

Laurence "Buzz" Cardoza, Asshat

The Tattler presents the biggest asshat in the city for a given month.  It is reserved for people, through their public transgressions and foibles, for whom the epithet putz or schmuck just doesn't quite describe.

Opinion

With a nickname like Buzz, the Tattler could fairly be accused of merely stating the obvious by gracing Mr Cardoza with the envious premier edition of the Asshat of the Month feature, but we couldn't think of a better guy to lead the Tattler's new monthly public service announcement.

Buzz is an appointed Emeryville government official; he sits on the Planning Commission and the Housing Committee, both organizations rich in asshat tradition but even there, Buzz really shines.

As vice chairman of Emeryville's Housing Committee, Buzz recently took control of the reins after the chair called in sick.  Buzz wasted no time in showing his colleagues how a real asshat runs an Emeryville city committee; citizens would hereby be verboten from making comments on agenda items under his rule he announced.  Buzz even outdid committee colleague and council member Nora Davis with his dictatorial edict; she had to reluctantly tell Buzz that unfortunately the law does allow citizens to comment at public meetings..."But only for two minutes!" she exclaimed in a nod to the audaciously anti-democratic Cardozian bravado.

Later, at a Nora Davis re-election campaign function, a candidate for council whom he supports, Buzz publicly trashed men who might be nurturing fathers, contemptuously calling them "house husbands"; a re-branding of the term, now becoming pejorative in Buzz Cardoza's world.

To any Emeryville fathers out there; make sure you keep the kids in mom's care (slaving barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen one would presume), least you be judged by your government officials as unmanly or worse still, a house husband.

Buzz Cardoza: Emeryville neighbor, manly man, esteemed appointed public servant, and the Tattler's Asshat of the Month.