After 23 Years, Emeryville's Consequential Community Development Director Retires

 

Retirement Journal:

Like What You See in Emeryville? Thank Charlie Bryant

Don't Like What You See?  Thank Charlie Bryant 

News Analysis

Lavishing praise on the outgoing Emeryville Community Development Director, Mayor John Bauters Tuesday night presented a plaque of appreciation to the retiring 23 year civil servant, Charlie Bryant, honoring his "service to the people of Emeryville".  Invoking the consequential nature of Mr Bryant’s tenure here as “the conductor of the orchestra” at City Hall, Mayor Bauters wished Charlie well on behalf of a grateful city noting he could make a “great history book of the city”.  

Mr Bauters' gushing commendation for Mr Bryant was not surprising given his vision of private development and the government's role that has dovetailed so well with that of several iterations of City Council majorities

Emeryville's Community Development Director
Charlie Bryant
2000 - 2023
He brought us what we see in Emeryville,
for better or worse.
August 31st, he's outta here.

.

Charlie’s vision for Emeryville did represent a change towards accommodating real estate developers using the language of inclusion for residents versus the time before when City Hall operated in a less democratic manner when those kinds of decisions were more commonly made behind closed doors.  However it is also interesting to note the change in the tenor and the language emanating out of City Hall has resulted in very little actual change in how the City gets developed beyond the normal market ephemeralities real estate developers follow.  Whereas developers were interested in building shopping malls in Emeryville when Charlie came on board in 2000, after 2007 and the Great Recession, they’re now interested in building rental apartment projects.  During the intervening 23 years, the private development intensity, encouraged by a City Hall willing to stand aside and let the market run free, remained unchanged as the developers chased their profits as they saw fit.  The name of the game at Emeryville’s City Hall, then and now is for the government to get out of the way of private enterprise.  This is the culture Charlie Bryant encouraged during his time here.  

Developers & City Council Love Charlie Bryant

While Mayor Bauters gladly noted Charlie’s helpful six year involvement in crafting Emeryville’s General Plan update in 2009, he spoke of resident friendly infrastructure it brought such as the much loved Doyle Hollis Park and the Emeryville Greenway.  Acknowledging the good it has delivered for Emeryville citizens, Charlie noted how our General Plan received an award from the American Planning Association for how democratically vetted it is.  Then reminding the viewers and the Council, he said Emeryville must prepare to conduct another General Plan update after he's gone because the current plan will sunset in a few years.  Regardless of all the praising of the General Plan by Charlie and the Mayor, neither one mentioned the many times where refusal to follow our General Plan has failed us on Charlie’s watch.

Since Charlie Bryant arrived at City Hall and under his unchanging tutelage, Emeryville has seen tremendous growth. He has seen six City Managers come and go while the town has doubled in population.  Charlie has been very influential, as the Mayor noted, and his vision for our town has largely come to pass over the last 23 years.  So while Mr Bauters talked about bikes during the Charlie Bryant fete Tuesday night, efficiently moving cars to service the shopping malls and apartment towers has been the great project for Emeryville over the last 23 years.

Shopping Malls to Apartment Buildings  

By supporting developers as a modus operandi, Charlie ushered in Emeryville’s status as a rental apartment building city, moving from a town with a majority of home owners, 55% in 2000, down to 24% homeownership today.  During Charlie’s time renters, as a percentage of the total population in Emeryville, have increased from 45% in 2000 to 71% today.  The General Plan clearly says NO to this.

Mayor Bauters also praised Charlie’s work delivering family friendly housing during his time here.  But the number of families in Emeryville, the lowest among all East Bay cities, has remained virtually unchanged at 1.76 persons per household (it was 1.71 in 2000).  Emeryville, 23 years on, is still by far the worst city for families in the East Bay.

Where Are The Parks?

But where our Community Development Director has been the most at odds with our General Plan has undoubtedly been in parks and open space.  Emeryville has the fewest acres of park and open space per resident of any city in the East Bay, both before Charlie got here and now.  The General Plan calls for three acres of park space for every 1000 new residents.  But developers don’t want to pay for parks and so every year since 2000, Emeryville gets farther behind the goal.  As a result, Emeryville added almost 7000 new residents since 2000 but only about two acres of new park land (or about 3500 people per acre).  By the sunset of the General Plan in about 2029, we are supposed to have more than 50 acres of parks, no more than 333 people per acre, as the General Plan delineates.  The Sherwin Williams project will bring an additional 3.5 acres of park space but that is little help for such a park starved city.  Right now Emeryville has only about 15 acres and for our population, that totals more than 500 residents per acre. This all amounts to a kind of development but it’s hard to call it “Community Development”.

Empty Storefronts

Typical Emeryville Empty Storefront Story
San Pablo Avenue at West MacArthur
Since this apartment building was built 15 years ago,
the retail space here has never been rented.

Trees too, were never a priority for Charlie.  Developers want to cut our street trees but since 2000, Emeryville has drafted a tree protection ordinance.  Mr Bryant has fought the ordinance every step of the way, protecting an anemic 2.5% of trees developers wanted to cut on his watch.  While our public street trees keep getting cut by developers, the square footage of empty storefronts associated with the new apartment buildings keeps increasing since 2000.  Mr Bryant pushes the “mixed use” development best practices touted by city planning professionals.  But the will to follow through and force developers to rent out the street level retail spaces they are required to build doesn’t exist in the Community Development Department Mr Bryant heads.  So instead we keep getting boarded up storefronts and the community crushing climate they bring. 

'Memorable' City?

This is the kind of development 
Charlie Bryant says satisfies the requirement 
to create a memorable city.

But perhaps the most surprising delivery brought but ultimately ignored by our Director of Community Development is the General Plan’s provision to ensure Emeryville develops as a “memorable city”.  This integral part of the Plan was quoted by the Mayor Tuesday night.  Flying in the face of acres of baking parking lots fronting anonymous shopping malls, anywhere USA apartment buildings and multi-national drive up fast food chains, our General Plan's ‘memorability' clause represents a willful detachment from reality, now 14 years past the General Plan’s inception.  Neither Charlie nor the City Council majority ever has taken memorability to heart and what exists on the ground here serves as a testament to that failure.

It is unknown how much Charlie changed his community development ideas to accommodate Emeryville's elite over the years or how much the elite changed to accommodate Charlie.  We do know it became a near perfect match.  As he prepares now to take his leave, Mr Bryant told the Council Tuesday night his biggest point of pride is the General Plan update he worked so hard on.  But it is glaring that the thing he says he likes the most is the thing he has ignored. Indeed, this was the biggest question we had for Mr Bryant for this story but he refused to comment, allowing his injudicious record to serve as his legacy.

Emeryville's Development Policy in Spray Paint

Here's What Happens When City Hall Fails to Protect Resident's Interests

Emeryville residents living in the San Pablo Avenue corridor, dismayed at the deterioration of their neighborhood by vandals who have been targeting the abandoned CVS Pharmacy building are now being told the City of Emeryville is powerless to stop it.  Graffiti is festooning the facades, vegetation is collapsing down onto the sidewalk and plywood panels have been ripped down.  The debasement of the neighborhood comes despite all the taxpayer money spent to improve and beautify the San Pablo streetscape because of a lack of will to hold businesses and developers to account by the City of Emeryville.

CVS quit Emeryville and closed down the business last September, leaving the building unattended and the City of Emeryville has no legally binding agreement from the Rhode Island based corporation to keep the property in decent shape upon their departure.  Emeryville’s Community Development Director Charley Bryant told the Tattler in December he is aware of the blight conditions at CVS but he is powerless to stop it, “We’re working with them” he has repeated since then, apparently hoping the corporate pharmacy giant will feel sorry for us and voluntarily clean up their property.  

City Hall is powerless because there is no one there that would rise up to hold a developer to account when approval is being sought for a proposed development.  A legally binding contract with teeth would hold developers to keep their property up to community standards after a client or the development corporation itself abandons the building.  But that would be considered a government constraint on a developer, something this city has not been comfortable with. 

Eventually, the property will be sold and some new developer will probably tear down the blighted monstrosity but until then, Emeryville residents will have to get used to their neighborhood brought low by a City Hall that works in the interest of business more than residents.  It's shown in Emeryville's development policy written in spray paint.

Vegetation is collapsing onto the sidewalk: ADA violation.

A look inside Emeryville's CVS Pharmacy building  
Editorial: It's warm and dry in here while outside people without homes huddle in the wet and cold. If developers abandon buildings and refuse to keep them up, Emeryville should take them over by eminent domain and provide a safe warm dry place for people without homes.

Councilman Reveals Inept/Corrupt City Staff Regarding Trees at Biomed Project

 City Staff Bid Allowing Developer to Cut Trees

Ends With Bauters' Rebuke 

Information Hidden From Commissioners  

Council Member Pounces on Staff, Saves Trees

Council member John Bauters (on right)
He has a 'Loraxian' view of the urban forest but he's
thankfully, more effective than the actual Lorax.
Photo Lea Suzuki/SF Chronicle

Emeryville was on track heading into the February 25th Planning Commission meeting to allow the cutting of nearly 176 trees associated with Hollis Street's Biomed development proposal but for the actions of Councilman John Bauters who, citing a City statute that protects privately owned trees, forced the city staff  to save 90 trees following their initial recommendation for removal.   After the City Hall staff prepared their report that mistakenly gave the Commission a green light to kill the trees, Councilman Bauters, monitoring the Commission, wrote a February 24th email excoriating the staff for failing to reveal to the Commission their option to save the trees as is preserved in Emeryville’s municipal code.  

The Planning Commission, in response to Mr Bauters’ email, voted to save many of the trees that would have unnecessarily been cut down if they had listened to the staff.  A sharp eyed Councilman John Bauters, noting the error in the staff report, ultimately managed to save 90 trees from being cut outright but further got an agreement to plant more trees than what the staff had asked of the developer – 45 trees in all.

The tree cutting, as first presented by Emeryville Planning Director Charlie Bryant, forwarded Biomed's desire to cut down 22 public street trees associated with their development proposal as well as 154 trees on their property, as they had requested.  The public street trees are protected by Emeryville’s Urban Forestry Ordinance (UFO) but privately owned trees are not.  However, a section of the municipal code does provide some protection for privately owned trees in Emeryville but Mr Bryant failed to notify the Planning Commission of that. In the case of the proposed Biomed facility, the Planning Commission's hands are not tied as Mr Bryant indicated in his staff report but rather, the law does grant the Planning Commission an option to save the privately owned trees there.

Councilman Bauters, who is operating with the Biomed project as a private citizen due to proximity conflicts, quoted Emeryville Municipal Code Section 9-4.503(c) that outlines the process for the discretionary review of a project on private property involving existing trees.  Mr Bryant, in his staff report, did not reveal to the Planning Commission the following from 9-4.503(c):

“For projects on private property that require discretionary City approval, the Director, Planning Commission, or City Council, as the case may be, may require that existing healthy on-site trees be preserved and incorporated into the project unless this is shown to be infeasible.”

Mr Bauters, calling the omission “an appealable error”, stated the City of Emeryville had failed to consider the feasibility of preserving on-site trees.  He questioned the motives of the City for hiding information that could lead to saving trees adding, “from the beginning, the application has been presented, considered, debated and developed with the presumption that their preservation was a foregone conclusion.”

Emeryville's Biomed Center of Innovation™
View looking south at Hollis Street

The Planning Commission after receiving Council member Bauters’ email asked the staff to provide the information that had been denied them and upon receipt, they voted to save 77 of the private trees and they went on to insist 13 of the 22 proposed publicly owned street trees be saved, also at Mr Bauters’ request.  The staff had insisted underground pipes associated with the construction of the Biomed project would necessitate the cutting all 22 public trees, a conclusion the Council member showed to be false.  

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the City staff has ruled public street trees be cut in error.  There has been a pattern and practice of giving Emeryville’s decision makers false information that would rule in developers’ favor regarding cutting down our trees.  In 2018, the staff told the City Council that the developer of the Sherwin Williams project be allowed to cut some 14 trees, again owing to underground pipes; a falsehood revealed by the Tattler.  In that case, the staff hid a critical arborist report from the Planning Commission that they likely would have cited to save the trees. After a protracted public battle, the trees were mostly all saved. 

Mr Bauters also caught the staff falsely advising decision makers to cut publicly owned trees before the February 25th debacle.  In 2016, he managed to save 21 of 30 proposed tree removals associated with a PG&E pipeline renovation project on 53rd Street after the staff had told the Planning Commission to allow all 30 trees be cut.  The staff was forced to remove the agenda item at Council member Bauters’ behest after he demanded the legal agreements and maps showing pipeline proximity from PG&E.  Eventually, it was revealed that there was no agreement with the City as staff had claimed, and that the pipeline PG&E thought was under the sidewalk was in fact under the middle of the street.

Emeryville: Where a Door is Not a Door

Door  \ dȯr \   noun

1: A hinged or otherwise movable barrier that allows ingress into and egress from an enclosure.

Emeryville Door \ ˈem-rē vil  dȯr \  noun

1: A barrier resembling a door that blocks ingress into and egress from an enclosure.

News Analysis

There’s a corporate entity in Emeryville more powerful than the City of Emeryville and the Alameda County Fire Department combined.  This is a nation-wide corporation with a local Emeryville profit center address that has the power to redefine English words in order to retroactively make signed contracts work to their benefit.  They even have the power to unilaterally re-write the fire code to make it align with their desires to increase profits (for more than 72 fiscal quarters so far).  What corporation is this?  It's CVS Pharmacy, America's ubiquitous and seemingly innocuous strip mall chain fixture.  In the world of corporate malfeasance, CVS ranks with the best of them; from illegally peddling oxycontin, to bribery of elected officials, to wholesale customer medical record HIPAA violations, CVS is a classic corporate bad actor.  

Here at their Emeryville unit, the malfeasance is more pedestrian, so to speak.  Here, it’s all about their fire exit doors.  CVS doesn’t like the doors, so they’re not allowing it, regardless of their contractual agreement with the City of Emeryville’s Planning Department or the dictates of the California Fire Code and its enforcers at the Alameda County Fire Department.  Full stop.

Permanently Locked Fire Exit Doors
On one side, a sign says "Emergency Exit"
and the other side says "Bitch".
One was put up by the Alameda County Fire Department,
the other possibly by a graffiti artist.  Or maybe
both signs were placed by the Fire Department.  

Back in 2002, when the building at 4349 San Pablo Avenue was built, the previous owner, the now defunct Longs Drugs (subsumed by CVS in 2008), agreed to place doors on the sidewalk to assuage an Emeryville General Plan dictate that requires retail businesses on that street to follow an urban design guideline meant to activate the pedestrian sidewalks.  But Longs and the new masters, CVS, prefer a suburban strip mall model for their stores with a parking lot out front and doors there.  That model ran headlong into the General Plan with its urban model.  So the pharmacy simply signed the agreement and immediately proceeded to close off the doors, rendering them inoperable.  Customers use the parking lot doors, making the Emeryville unit in the style of their preferred strip mall suburban model despite initial objections from Emeryville.  

Complaints against the CVS doors over the years have gotten nowhere because the corporate giant simply ignores pleas from the City of Emeryville and orders from the Alameda County Fire Department.  Charlie Bryant, the Planning Director of the City of Emeryville has since given up asking CVS to honor their agreement and he now fully takes the position that the doors need not be operational for the corporation to be in compliance.  Mr Bryant has not seen fit to answer to the definition of the common English word “door” that is explicit in its insistence that a person be able to pass through one for it to qualify.  Resemblance to a door is good enough.

  

Over at the Alameda County Fire Department, they’re not so blatant in siding with CVS, rather they simply aren’t enforcing the ongoing fire code violation.  Citizen complaint driven rather than fire concern driven,  ACFD keeps issuing orders to keep the doors open but CVS keeps ignoring the orders.  Interestingly, a while back, the ACFD put up an “Emergency Exit” sign on the outside to keep homeless people from blocking the doors.  But inside, the exit is still blocked by CVS with merchandise and a permanently closed heavy steel roll down door.

These are just a couple of doors.  Why is our government so flummoxed by this?  Why can’t this easy problem just be taken care of?  Is our government really this hapless?  These doors, meant to enliven the San Pablo Avenue sidewalk and to keep people safe in the event of a fire, can be seen as a metaphor for the general state of societal dysfunction over the last couple of decades where governance over the public commons has increasingly played deference to private corporations that are untouchable in their monarchal power.  This corporation doesn’t want these doors so they’re not going to open them.  Eighteen years in, that’s obviously the end of the discussion.  Still, we like to imagine a bygone time when the Alameda County Fire Department worked to keep the public safe from fire and when the City of Emeryville, likewise burdened with the people’s business, were unconcerned with a private corporation’s pecuniary interests regardless how many billions in assets it might have.

The latest order from the Alameda County Fire Department.
Every so often the Emeryville CVS Pharmacy gets one of these orders. 
The corporation promptly puts them in 'File 13' and goes about its business.
Maybe the Fire Department thinks the scary red ink is helping.

Sherwin Williams Developer Violates Emeryville's Construction and Noise Regulations Over the Last Six Months

Councilman John Bauters Steps Away From Dias, Addresses His Colleagues:

'Do Something to Preserve Neighborhood 
Peace and Quiet'

Planning Director has Dropped the Ball

at Sherwin Williams Site

The developer of the Sherwin Williams housing site has been violating Emeryville’s noise and construction laws over the last six months while City Hall has refused enforcement says City Councilman John Bauters who testified as much at Tuesday’s Council meeting.  Despite numerous complaints from neighbors over the last half a year at the Sherwin Williams site, Emeryville’s largest toxic waste cleanup brownfield site, the responsible department, the Planning Department, has done nothing more than offer verbal compliance requests to the multi-billion dollar housing development corporation says Mr Bauters.

Speaking as a private citizen,
John Bauters called on the City Council
to override the Planning Director and
force the Sherwin Williams developer
to comply with the City's construction
and noise regulations.

At the Tuesday regular City Council meeting, Councilman John Bauters stepped off the Council podium and addressed his colleagues as a private citizen, alerting them to a litany of abuses he says Lennar has engaged in as the developer attempts to speed up their work schedule to begin building the 500 apartments the City Council have approved for the site.  Mr Bauters accuses Lennar of violating myriad noise and construction regulations over the last six months including jack hammering after hours, truck queuing in violation of their agreement, illegal Saturday work and incessant construction activity beginning too early.  The toxic clean up phase of the job is still being completed and is late by several months owing to a large amount of toxic soil the developer is removing that was not planned for.

Councilman Bauters, conflicted out of any decision making at the Council level owing to his living too close to the Sherwin Williams site,  says he and his neighbors living near the site have been beseeching City Planning Director Charlie Bryant to enforce the agreement Lennar has made with the City but they have been rebuffed.  The Planning Director has only offered “verbal requests” to Lennar according to Mr Bauters, actions that have no consequence as far as building a case to force compliance.

The lack of accountability at City Hall for resident’s concerns over the last six months at the Sherwin Williams site contributed to Mr Bauters' exasperation, “Is there ever going to be a time when residents are entitled to peace and quiet in our neighborhood and protected with the conditions of approval that you [the City Council] approved?”  he asked.  “Should a developer doing work in the City ever be concerned you will hold them accountable or will they always just get a slap on the wrist for violating local regulations?” he followed.

Owning to what they see as a lack of interest at City Hall in protecting the residents, especially by Planning Director Bryant, Mr Bauters and his neighbors have drawn up a list of two new provisions they see as being necessary to force Lennar into compliance with their development agreement.  The City should amend the Municipal Code to remove a clause that permits executive decisions from the Planning Director in such matters and give it to the City Manager they say.  The neighbors also request the start up time allowed on all Emeryville construction sites be changed from 7 am to 8 am.

The Tattler recently published a Department of Toxic Substance Control whistleblower’s account of Lennar’s actions at the Sherwin site after the former project manager for the cleanup charged his agency and Lennar with conspiring to forgo due diligence in the name of speeding up the cleanup work.  The whistleblower, DTSC employee Tom Price, says the fast and loose work done by Lennar and overseen by DTSC, enabled arsenic laden groundwater to leach past extraction wells for three years and rather than using standard cleanup protocols regarding volatile organic compounds, the developer instead just dug up wholesale, vast amount of soil to truck off the site, an action Mr Price compared with “strip mining”.  It is this improper strip mining that has pushed the schedule back and that’s likely responsible for the developer to now seek to cut the corners that have impacted the neighbors over the last six months. 
The City has been apprised of the violations with regard to the improper arsenic and VOC removal but so far have not yet responded.  If the allegations from Tom Price prove to be sustained, the actions of Lennar would constitute a breech of the Remedial Action Plan made in good faith with the City and theoretically, the developer’s ‘grading permit’ could be revoked says Mr Price.

Tuesday night, the talk was not of arsenic and VOCs but rather the illegal construction activity over the last six months.  Mr Bauters did not receive an answer to his complaints at the Tuesday Council meeting but he did take umbrage with the City's lackadaisical attitude shown to the neighbors, “There is no evidence that staff and the City has taken seriously, our [the neighbors] efforts to have this curbed and to have Lennar fully comply with you, the City Council” he said.

The commentary from Mr Bauters begins at 13:15:

Public Records Request Reveals Lie at Center of Noise Ordinance

Noise Ordinance Investigation Reveals

People's Interest Not Represented at City Hall

Public Records Request Proves Developers Are Preferred,

Residents Interest in Peace & Quiet Rank Second Place

A Public Records Request (PRR) for internal documents at City Hall, filed by the Tattler as part of an investigation into a breakdown of Emeryville's noise ordinance, has revealed a lie at the center of the ordinance perpetrated by the City Hall staff.  Previous publically made assurances of deference to the citizens and their expectations of peace and quiet by the City staff have given way to a public records revealed truth that it's really the developers who the City works for.  The trove of documents, turned over last week following an initial request filed in mid October, is revelatory more for what it didn't contain than for its mundane contents (mostly concerning getting meeting dates coordinated).  After the staff made blanket assertions of their turning away developers seeking noise ordinance waivers administratively en masse, no such evidence was found among the  documents that would bolster those assertions.  The documents turned over to satisfy the PRR means the charge, brought by the Tattler, that the staff at City Hall recommends noise waivers be granted to developers in a global way at the expense of the residents, remains uncontested.

Anybody that’s lived here for a while can see how Emeryville is changing.  Our population has doubled over the last 20 years and the business sector keeps growing as well. Emeryville is slated to grow even more moving forward; now we’re entering a new era of skyscraper construction.  All this growth means there’s always lots of construction going on.  Seventeen years ago we decided we need peace and quiet on weekends and evenings against the constant din.  And so like other cities, the people of Emeryville enacted a noise ordinance.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the end of it.  The ordinance has not served as a correction.

Developers, always looking to increase their profits, hate our noise ordinance.  Not known as a group fond of regulatory constraint, they’re free to hate it of course but that doesn’t mean we have to grant them the waivers they keep requesting.  We should only grant noise ordinance waivers for special circumstances when any public benefits clearly outweigh losing our peace and quiet.  And there’s the rub: Emeryville has fallen into a bad habit of routinely granting developers waivers for no good reason.  Sometimes for no stated reason at all.  For 17 years the developers have been getting their way at City Hall at the expense of the residents with their interest in quiet weekends and evenings.

The Tattler has followed this issue closely over the years.  We’ve documented how the City Hall staff, specifically Charlie Bryant, longtime head of the Planning Department, keeps recommending the City Council grant every waiver brought before them.  The Council, who has the final say, generally has used the staff waiver recommendations as political cover to say ‘yes’ to each developer seeking relief.

Before the release of the damning noise ordinance documents last week, anyone paying attention could see how developers have been getting preferential treatment at City Hall.  If residents desires for peace and quiet were genuinely and impartially being listened to, one would expect the staff to recommend noise ordinance constraints be waived maybe half the time; 50% in developers interest and 50% in residents interests.  But that’s not what's been happening.  The staff has gone with the developers, recommending the residents give up their peace and quiet virtually 100% of the time (with only one exception over the last 17 years).
Responding to mounting criticism from residents, the staff some months ago, made claim to an unseen world behind the doors at City Hall where they say residents interests ARE being looked after.  Planning Director Bryant says watching the Council meetings, it only SEEMS like the residents are being ignored.  He told the Tattler that the residents are only seeing the waiver requests that the staff thinks are legitimate and worthy.  A great number of developer requests are denied “administratively”, meaning the staff interdicts and refuses to even forward many to the City Council for their consideration.  Many, if not most waiver requests never even see the light of day says Mr Bryant.

The Tattler, ever vigilant, saw in Mr Bryant’s claims of behind the scenes noise ordinance waiver denials, a facile attempt to put to rest resident claims of the staff's anti-democratic behavior once and for all.  And so we made a Public Records Request for all documents including electronic recordings and interdepartmental memos concerning any administratively denied waivers, just to verify.  After waiting almost three months, the documents provided by City Hall reveal nothing to substantiate the claims made by Mr Bryant.
We now know the claim of a staff diligently working on our behalf with the noise ordinance behind the scenes at City Hall is a ruse.  The Planning Department is merely forwarding each waiver request from each developer, no matter how absurd the stated reasons, over to the City Council, after giving their recommendation to waive the constraints of the ordinance.

At virtually 100% of recommendations falling in the developer’s favor, we can now say with certainty the loud weekends we’re experiencing in Emeryville are not part of any compromise.  The noise ordinance doesn’t function.  It’s just for show.  The fix is in.  Emeryville’s pro-developer reputation is not your imagination.  And it's going to get worse.  Quiet weekends are not anything the residents can expect as we enter Emeryville's next phase of frenzied skyscraper construction.

Blockbuster Demolition Comes to Emeryville's Triangle Neighborhood: Mockery of 'Area of Stability'

More Single Family Home Demolition in Emeryville's 'Zone of Stability'

Existing Working Class Families Being Removed to Make Way for 6 New Unaffordable Units

City Finds 50% Increase in Density 'Insignificant',

100 Year Old Craftsman Bungalows 'Too Old'

Rent Doubled on Tenants in Effort to 
Force Them Out

Four Family Friendly Houses on 47th Street
These existing homes with private backyards suitable for
children will be replaced with homes with no private outdoor
space except small decks (on some units).

The City of Emeryville is taking up a developer landlord's plan to demolish four side by side craftsman homes in Emeryville's Triangle neighborhood and replace them with six suburban style units on the same piece of land; a 50% density increase Planning Director Charlie Bryant calls 'insignificant'.  The demolition plan, forwarded by the owner of the homes, out-of-town landlord Mark Forbes, involves the forcible removal of his tenants; four working class families, to make way for the new market rate rentals.  The City of Emeryville has deemed the proposed replacement units, comprised of three duplexes, 'unaffordable', being offered for rent as they will be, at market prices.   Mr Forbes, who has owned the four homes "for decades", is asserting they are "in a state of disrepair " and at 100 years, are past their "useful utility" and good for demolition only.

47th St Homes Landlord
San Francisco Resident Mark Forbes
CEO heir to a real estate & investment
financing fortune.  He enjoys golf and
collecting antique cars according to
the F E Forbes corporate prospectus.
Mr Forbes recently doubled the rent on
his 47th Street tenants to force them out. 

Dispossessed and soon to be dispossessed tenants of Mr Forbes, some having lived there for decades, testified at the Emeryville Planning Commission Tuesday night that their landlord has been remiss in repairing the homes over the years.  Their collective testimony serves as an informing counterpoint that the poor state of repair cited by Mr Forbes as a reason for the demolition, has been brought on by Mr Forbes himself; a classic slumlord ploy.
The tenants told the Commissioners they were all recently offered $5000 to leave their homes by the Forbes Corporation.  Two families took up the offer but the remaining two families noted the offer has since been retracted, replaced with a 95% rent increase.  The families said they cannot afford the increase and will be evicted.  Mr Forbes, for his part said he is observing all existing laws designed to protect tenants in a city without rent control.  The tenants explained to the Commission that their families include the elderly and and at least one disabled wheelchair bound family member.

Area of 'Stability'
The 47th Street Homes are in the General Plan designated 'area of stability', a General Plan determined zone that is supposed to preclude the kind of development density increase this project proposes.  Speaking to the 47th Street Homes proposal, Chief Planning Director Charlie Bryant reminded  the Commissioners about what the Areas of Stability specifically represent.  He said in the attending staff report the Areas of Stability are, '...described as those parts of the city that are not anticipated to change significantly in character, land use or development intensity.'

Proposed Suburban Style Replacement Homes 
High rents & no back yards but nonetheless
these are newer....and therefore better according 
to the developer and the City of Emeryville.
Expect new tenants to be whiter, wealthier 
(despite fake wood siding).

Inexplicably, the City of Emeryville,  siding with the developer of the 47th Street Homes has determined an intensity increase of  50% (six homes replacing four homes) is (according to the staff report) "... consistent with the development intensity of the area, and therefore conforms to the General Plan designation of this neighborhood as an 'area of stability'."  The staff didn't attempt to quantify its use of the word "significant", even though most people would say 50% qualifies.

Notably, the 47th Street Homes request for demolitions within the Area of Stability, is not unique.  Many other developers have similarly requested demolition and been granted despite the protected status afforded by the General Plan.  Indeed, Emeryville's last areas of detached traditional single family homes left continue to fall to the wreaking ball.

Open Space for Families?

One of the "Poor Quality" Craftsman Homes
to be Demolished 

The 'three drop' actual wood siding, dormer, 
and craftsman detailing all are no good 
according to F E Forbes Inc. 
Besides, it can't be salvaged they say 
(nevermind that demolition will increase profits).

Interesting too, is how the staff of the City of Emeryville engages in redefining the qualifications for family friendly housing in general but with specificity to the 47th Street Homes.  Paramount in the City's definition of what makes for housing that will attract families, an official housing policy goal of the City, is two and three bedroom units.  Left out of the equation is what traditionally has been found to be attractive to families; the prosaic notion of large private back yards, but also two and three bedrooms and most of all, affordability.  The 47th Street Homes project takes away the private back yards of the existing homes so popular with families with young children, parents hoping to steal away a few moments for household chores and such while young children play outside, unattended.  The replacement homes will not have any backyard space at all; would be parents forced to settle on small 99 square foot private decks for the three second floor units and no private space at all for the three lower units.
But the boldest claim of family friendliness coming from the developer of the 47th Street Homes is the removal of affordable older housing stock (the rent doubling increase made to force out the tenants notwithstanding).  Not to belabor the well worn axiom of new construction costs driving the need to recoup capital outlays resulting in higher rents, the market rate new homes on 47th Street will come in at a higher monthly rent, resulting in a whiter and likely 'techier' class of renters.  That's a demographic not normally associated with families, more with roomates.

'Wood' Siding Issue

San Francisco Victorians: Too Old
Even older than craftsman era homes. 
Some are past 130 years; well past the "end
of their utility".  Just think how much nicer
new homes would be here.

The artificial wood siding proposed for the houses that will replace the demolished craftsmen homes on 47th Street, not normally an existential concern with most residents, nonetheless stands out for its mockery of our City Hall and its General Plan.   Amid the wholesale denigration of public policy the City of Emeryville signs onto as a consequence of the City placating developers like Mark Forbes, this little artificial wood detail stands out less for its naked audacity and more for its pedestrian annoyance, a pact that gives away the game as it were.  The City of Emeryville is clear on this one specific, albeit minor score when it comes to demolitions within the Areas of Stability; the siding of any new replacement house must be authentic wood.   The General Plan states it unequivocally, calling wood siding a "high quality" material that needs to be provided if siding is used for a replacement home.  That the City staff did not call out this developer for this transgression informs Emeryville citizens as to the nature of the authority of our General Plan and its Areas of Stability provisions at least as much as the very idea of tearing down homes cast as 'stability' in the first place.   

Having completed the Tuesday Planning Commission study session unscathed, the next stop for the 47th Street Homes project is the City Council who will give their thumbs up or down on the controversial proposal at a to-be-announced meeting.  Watch the Tattler for details.

47th Street Homes Landlord CEO Mark Forbes' Tangled Corporate Web
Shell Corporations put to work to increase his fortune at the expense of working families.
This is who the City of Emeryville will be in bed with if they help kick out the existing 
Emeryville low income families of color that live in this man's Emeryville rental properties.

Twice Burned 'Maz' Project Developer Burned by Council: Noise Ordinance Waiver Denied

Historic Vote:

City Council Majority Says 'NO' to Developer's Noise Ordinance Waiver Request

'Maz' Developer Used Past Fires as Excuse to Work Weekends
-------------
Neighbors Told to Give Up Their Quiet Weekends 
Because Developer Wants to Save Money on Security

The Emeryville City Council made history Tuesday night when they voted to deny a noise ordinance waiver request, only the fifth such denial in more than 15 years, after the developer applicant offered an unorthodox argument that his noisy construction project needs to be completed quickly to make for a smaller window of opportunity for arsonists to set fires there.  The peculiar offering failed to convince the Council majority (3-2 Medina, Martinez dissenting) to ask residential neighbors around the apartment project at 3800 San Pablo Avenue, to give up their peace and quiet weekends from now until April 2020, the duration of the request.

Developers commonly ask for waivers to Emeryville’s noise ordinance based on the weather or other ‘unforeseen' complications but the fire vulnerability angle was the first such waiver request made by any applicant.  Since every construction project is vulnerable to fire until suppressive water sprinkler systems can be installed, a waiver granted by the Council on Tuesday would have set a sweeping precedent, potentially nullifying the whole ordinance.

Council Members Dianne Martinez & Ally Medina
Together they feel the public has no expectancy of
weekend peace and quiet in Emeryville...
not if a developer says he wants to
save money on security.

The City staff, continuing their near perfect record of recommending waivers, told the Council it is prudent for them to make the residents suffer through seven day per week construction noise until the project’s completion.  Planning Director Charlie Bryant said the Council should grant the waiver to the developer carte blanche, calling it “reasonable” because, “…the site was burned twice” in 2016 and 2017.

At least four City Council members seemed to agree, at least initially.  Council member John Bauters, who ultimately voted NO, indicated he thought the request was tough to turn down, “This is a hard one for me” he said.

Councilman Scott Donahue indicated he thought the fire vulnerability excuse was a good one but the modular construction technique the developer is using means wood framing members will arrive at the site with fire retardant already applied and consequently, neighbors should be able to expect weekend peace and quiet he said.  Councilwoman Dianne Martinez was less circumspect, “I don’t love weekend work but I’m inclined to grant the waiver” she said after she told the developer she felt his pain; the fires at the project were “very bad” she added. 
Mayor Ally Medina, acknowledging that it wasn’t up to the City of Emeryville to ask that the developer provide better security in the future, tried to strike a compromise.  She moved that the construction noise be limited to Saturdays.  Mr Bauters however said that condition was “not specific enough of a request for me to grant approval at this time” as he joined Mr Donahue and Vice Mayor Christian Patz in their historic noise ordinance waiver NO vote.

Council Member John Bauters
He struggled with the decision:
should developers be asked to spend
more money on security to help
neighbors have quiet weekends?
"This is a hard one for me" he said.

The developer’s representatives Tuesday night happily took up their narrative that adding security at their site isn’t a thing for them and Emeryville residents should instead take up the slack and do them a kindness by allowing seven day a week work.
Regardless of their 3-2 vote, notably, no Council members or the staff suggested the developer spend more money on security to protect against possible future arsonists, instead letting the developer’s narrative stand.

Emeryville's noise ordinance, enacted in 2003, has been seen as an irritation for developers who are rarely required to abide by it but usually have been required to provide a reason why they shouldn't have to follow it.  Many developers have shown their displeasure in having to appear before the City Council to go through the sometimes humiliating spectacle of presenting a plausible explanation for why they shouldn't be constrained.
While most developers settle on using rain delays as a reason to ask for a waiver, more brazen reasons have been stated such as "complicated nature of the work" or that the public, expecting quiet weekends will get them sooner if the developer can "finish faster".  Remarkably, that developer, City Center Partners at the Public Market, got caught when they couldn't even abide by their waiver, taunting the Council by starting their granted Saturday work before the agreed to time.  After twice being warned, the Council finally revoked the waiver in an unprecedented sanction in 2017.
In an even more audacious request, the developer of the Transit Center, Wareham Development, successfully trotted out the most unabashed reason we've heard a couple of years ago; "because we really want it".  No other developer has used the 'we really want it' excuse for a waiver request since.
The City Council itself got into the act last April one upping Wareham when they granted a developer's waiver request inexplicably by waiving the waiver request, saving the developer and the citizens the bother of conducting a public hearing at all.

The Maz project, also known as "The Intersection" with its unit mix heavily skewed towards studio and one bedroom apartments together with zero affordability, has been controversial since it was approved by a divided Council in 2013.  In a 2013 opinion piece, the Tattler’s editor Brian Donahue famously called the project a “men’s dorm” owing to its anti-family unit mix attractive to techies, drawing an accusation of felony arson in the two fires by Rob Arias, the editor of Emeryville’s business friendly blog, the E’Ville Eye.

Sherwin Williams Tree Fight Over, Trees Saved

Two Year Fight: Sherwin Williams Trees Saved

Staff Reverses Finding that Required Removal

"Embarrassed" Mayor Medina Apologizes for Earlier Vote to Cut All the Trees 

An entire block of street trees at the Sherwin Williams development project on Horton Street have been saved from the developer's chainsaw by a unanimous City Council vote on Tuesday September 17th following a standing recommendation from the city staff to cut the trees dating back from April 2018. Up until the latest vote, it’s been a divided Council with two wanting to save the trees and two wanting to cut them.
A year and a half after Emeryville City Hall and the developer of the Sherwin Williams project together determined that every street tree alongside that nascent development project would have to be cut down because of ‘undergrounding’ of utilities necessary under the sidewalk, at the newest Council meeting, the City staff suddenly reversed their finding.

At the 2018 Council meeting, without giving evidence, the staff told the Council they really had no choice on the trees.   Planning Department Chief Charlie Bryant and Sherwin Williams developer Kevin Ma, said the 11 existing street trees fronting the project, the entire block, would have to be removed because the underground pipes would have to be placed under the sidewalk owing to the fact that space under the street is “too crowded” with other utilities.
Inexplicably, the staff added that if the Council voted to save the trees alongside the project (on the west side of the street), the undergrounding of the utilities in the street could result in a cutting of trees on BOTH sides of the street.  The Council never asked for a clarification of that logic and the whole Sherwin Williams tree issue was continued.

By September of 2019, Planning Director Bryant’s views had changed.  His staff rechecked and they found out there IS space enough under the street for the cables after all and the trees can be saved he told the Council.  And with that, the City Council voted to place the utility wires under Horton Street and save all but one tree they say that has to be cut to accommodate a specific utility box in the sidewalk.

And so it would appear a very contentious and ongoing issue has finally been put to rest for the Council who had been fiercely divided on the cutting of the Sherwin trees.

"Embarrassed"
Mayor Ally Medina
Misled by the staff.
Initially she voted to cut all the trees.
At the September 17th Council meeting
 she apologized for that vote. 

The tree issue before the Tuesday September 17th meeting has been somewhat of a Rorschach test for the City Council, half the Council eagerly believing the developer and the staff and the other not believing them.
Staff and developer claims that the trees must be cut brought skepticism from Council members Scott Donahue and Christian Patz whereas members Dianne Martinez and Ally Medina simply accepted the staff's findings at face value.  The normally perspicacious Ally Medina indicated she was so eager to cut the trees down, she didn’t even want to accept a continuance of the April 2018 meeting that was ultimately dangled in front of the Councilors by the staff.  No, she said, the trees must be cut down, so let’s get on with it, she said.  The two to two split at that 2018 meeting forced the staff to bring the issue back before the Council a year and a half later (after they initially told the Council a continuance was impossible and the vote had to happen that night).

Councilmember John Bauters lives within 500 feet of the Sherwin Williams project and is by law, not allowed to vote on it.

Mr Patz and Mr Donahue had reason for their disbelieving of the staff.  At the initial April 2018 meeting, the staff publically misrepresented the health of the trees.  Attempting to coerce the Councilors, the staff said the City arborist had determined the trees to be “unhealthy”- a direct contradiction of the actual arborist’s report which indicated the trees were “healthy”.  Planning Director Bryant later apologized for the false statement following a Tattler exposé on the issue.
Additionally, the staff recommended cutting the mature existing trees along Sherwin Street (also abutting the project) offering visual aesthetics as a what for; that the species would clash with the proposed new trees to be planted along Sherwin Street they said.  The actual reason for the removal of the mature trees along Sherwin Street was specified as “hindering the creation of a unified streetscape”, a finding not supported by the City’s Unified Urban Forestry Ordinance (UFO).  The staff’s recommendation thus was improper but helped show their disdain for saving trees….as has been the  79 to 2 record of killing trees over saving them as recommended by the staff since the inception of the UFO.

The Horton Street trees are now saved but staff, leaving the door cracked just a smidge, got the last word.  Once the contractor digs the street up, there's always a possibility they could be wrong in their latest assessment they said and there may not be enough room under the street.  There's a chance the trees may still have to be cut down yet, they cautioned.

The Trees in Question
Saved From the Chainsaw
Developers have to spend money saving street trees.
It's cheaper to just cut them all down and plant lollipops.
The staff has been trying everything they can to get
these leafy profit reducing nuisances removed.  

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.

RULE Meeting

From RULE:

Residents United for a Livable Emeryville

➤Important public meeting this Saturday March 16 at 10-noon on the Onni Tower project

The resident advocacy group RULE invites all interested to attend our meeting Saturday, March 16 in the community room of Doyle Street Co-housing in Emeryville, 5514 Doyle Street. 

Both Council Member Dianne Martinez and Planning Director Charlie Bryant will be in attendance. We will be discussing the proposed Onni Tower at Christie Avenue and Powell Street in Emeryville. The luxury residential (and office/retail) project will be 54 stories (+ parking, close to 700 feet in total building height) and contain 638 units for more than 1,000 residents.  It is comprised primarily of market rate studios and one-bedrooms.  The developer has included the required minimum 17 percent affordable housing, but is below the number of two- and three bedroom units required by city ordinance.  Twelve of the 55 three-bedrooms will be located on the tower's penthouse and "sub penthouse" floors. There will also be a half acre park fronting on Christie Avenue.

For more information, go to: http://www.ci.emeryville.ca.us/1267/Onni
and
http://www.emeryville.org/DocumentCenter/View/11303/Onni-Christie-Plans-Study-Session-I--Plans-12-13-18

Council Member Martinez said she will be available to hear residents concerns and feedback, and Planning Director Bryant will answer specific questions about the proposed plans.  Mr. Bryant has requested a list of questions beforehand, so please email Lillianschroth@gmail.com with your Qs by end of day Tuesday, March 12 and she will send a summarized list to Mr. Bryant.

The goal is to allow everyone an opportunity to speak at the meeting, from 10 am to 12 pm Saturday, March 16.

City Staff Fails at Sherwin Williams Project to Provide Required Retail Agreement

City Fails to Get Sherwin Williams Retail Agreement in Writing

City Council Comes Up as Empty as 
All the Storefronts in Town

Senior planning staff at City Hall revealed last week the retail component of the Sherwin Williams project mixed use residential development in Emeryville's Park Avenue neighborhood has no written protections that would keep storefronts from sitting perpetually empty despite the City Council expressly garnering a guarantee against that made in 2016.  The Council also directed the staff to protect against the developer renting to chain stores, another condition of approval from November 1st, 2016 that was ignored by the staff and now impossible to enforce.  Time has run out for Emeryville to ensure its retail plan at Sherwin Williams is brought forward; the developer cannot at this point be held to providing for non-formula retail at the site or providing against letting the stores sit empty as was established by unanimous Council vote.  "There are no such protections for either condition" a staff member told the Tattler, "nothing is in writing".

Councilman Scott Donahue
He told voters in October 2014:
"We should require developers to structure
rental agreements that provide for subsidies
and other support to help smaller,
locally serving businesses to succeed."

 

And so goes the Sherwin Williams project down the same path as virtually every other development with retail over the last 25 years; vague promises made by the developers to providing wonderful neighborhood serving non-formula stores in a timely manner, a paradigm that has spectacularly failed.  City Councilman Scott Donahue  summed it up best at the November 1st 2016 meeting, "It has been difficult for our city he said, The chains have more money, but we have a desire for retail expressed by our community, he added.

The loss of a written retail agreement so adamantly expressed by the Council is especially egregious for the Sherwin Williams project, watched so closely as it has been by community activists including by the Park Avenue Resident Committee (PARC).  Indeed, PARC's entire raison d'être is to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen, specifically at Sherwin Williams.  Emeryville residents would be excused thinking if we can't get a retail agreement that addresses these issues here, we likely can't get one anywhere.

It's been a problem for years here.  Many residential developers in town build associated retail as required by the City but they aren't interested in the commercial rental business and so because the City has never required them to fulfill their retail assurances in writing, the developers simply let the storefronts go empty.  The retail component is chalked up as a cost of doing business by these developers.  Other developers, seeking more traditional profit maximization, will rent their retail spaces out but at the highest rate the rental market will bear.  That generally prices out the kind of retail the residents want, leaving only chain stores.
Amid the exigency of this closed loop paradigm, Councilman Donahue hit upon a new idea to force the developer of Sherwin Williams to underwrite the retail by written agreement with the City, an expanded cost of doing business that actually would deliver, but he and his colleagues failed to follow through, trusting the staff to do as the Council directed.

Councilwoman Dianne Martinez
"Another thing we're hearing from the community 
is the fear of the retail space going empty. 
The landlord might prefer a write-off 
than lowering the rent"
She directed the staff to get it in writing.

The idea that the developers themselves need to underwrite the cost of providing locally serving, non-formula retail has been kicking around in Emeryville for many years but the previous Council saw adding such constraints as anathema to the pro-developer coda engrained at City Hall.  Responding to citizen complaints in 2003, a previous Council attempted to lure better retail instead with a taxpayer subsidy to businesses at the 'Promenade' development, albeit with mixed results.  A coffee shop that received taxpayer subsidies at the San Pablo Avenue Promenade strip mall development promptly went out of business as did a small restaurant but Arizmendi Bakery, also the recipient of start-up help from City Hall has been a success.
The current City Council has so far tried a different approach, attempting to lure the kind of retail the citizens want with a Byzantine system of 'bonus points', an approach that up until now hasn't met with success.  With the failure of the Council to follow up on the staff's directive at Sherwin Williams, the new idea of forcing the developer to underwrite the locally serving retail is an idea that has still not been put into practice in Emeryville.

A viewing of the short video (below) from the November 2016 meeting shows how stark is the recalcitrance of Emeryville's city staff.  The two Council members whom had promised voters to deliver non-formula locally serving retail when they first sought election, Scott Donahue and Dianne Martinez, were adamant.  Councilman Donahue told the staff the developer represented by Kevin Ma of Lenar Development they could lower the rent for the retail if he (Mr Ma) can't find "non-chain neighborhood serving" retail at the market rate and that the rent should go down until it is rented out to the desired tenant.  "We can come up with something simple that they (Lenar) can agree to tonight that would solve this problem and make this a better community." Mr Donahue told the staff.  "I'm all ears to cutting a deal tonight about this" he added.

Emeryville Planning Director Charlie Bryant
Handpicked by former City Councilwoman
Nora Davis, Charlie did not require Lenar to legally
agree to the Council's requirements.  Lenar is free
to leave the Sherwin Williams retail empty
or to rent to Burger King.

Councilwoman Martinez agreed and expressed concern that the retail storefronts not sit empty as so many others have done over the years in Emeryville, "Another thing we're hearing from the community is the fear of the retail space going empty. The landlord might prefer a write-off than lowering the rent"  Ms Martinez said.
The developer however expressed concern that the development process not be held up for anything, "The biggest problem tonight is from a timing standpoint." Mr Ma told the five Council members  'If we would make any amendments to requiring the regulating of the retail tonight, that really throws us off our timeline...  We've gotten to a razor thin timeline with the current approval schedule".  He assured the Council "We will work with the Planning Commission to bring these commitments..." to which Councilman Donahue responded, "I'm satisfied we can say 'no' to your project if you don't come back to us with something definitive in writing that will deliver just what we're talking about."

And then the Emeryville City Council dropped the ball; they never checked on the staff about putting their directives in writing, leaving the citizens with nothing but the same assurances they've always gotten from developers over the last two decades about all the wonderful retail to be coming.  The staff for their part, refused to comment on why they served the developer rather than the City Council they are paid to, "It is what it is" one staffer tersely told the Tattler last week after affirming that the Sherwin Williams developer could rent to any chain store they want to at their project or to not rent out the future retail spaces at all if that serves their pleasure.  It's all up to the developer's whims now.


The November 2016 smoking gun video that 
reveals the Emeryville staff to be recalcitrant.