Failed Family Friendly Housing Policies: Housing YES But Family Housing? NO

Emeryville: Worst City For Families in the East Bay

City Spending Money on New No Account Housing Plan 

To Follow the Last No Account Housing Plan 

Lots of Talk But Where Are The Families?

News Analysis

The City of Emeryville has failed in its pledge to bring families to Emeryville that it promised when it passed its 2014 housing plan, now in the process of being updated.  The 'Housing Element' plan, is part of the General Plan and it places "family friendly" housing as one of its core goals.  Regardless of the officially stated goal of increasing families in town, Emeryville’s average household size remains stuck at 1.8 people per housing unit, the same as it was when the last  Housing Element was written.  And it continues to be the lowest, by far, of all cities in the East Bay.   

The objective data highlight failed public housing policy for Emeryville, even as all the familiar talking heads try to tell us otherwise.  Despite family friendly housing being identified as a primary goal by the Housing Element and despite the Planning Commission and the City Council both having repeatedly assured us they are taking the goal seriously, Emeryville has not moved the needle forward on that metric one iota according to data from the US Census Bureau.  Emeryville is as family un-friendly now as it has been since before 2010.

Listening to all the over heated talk from City Hall and the City Council on this subject, people could be forgiven for thinking Emeryville is doing very well bringing families to our town.  It’s the kind of talk voters like to hear.  At election time, every City Council candidate says they’re going to deliver more families to Emeryville, sometimes ad nauseam.  The developers with construction proposals all say their residential developments will attract lots of families.  But at 1.8 average household size for more than ten years running, Emeryville is on the bottom among East Bay cities, right where it's been for decades.  Berkeley is the second least family friendly at 2.2 people per housing unit, followed by El Cerrito that has 2.3 people per unit.  Many cities east of the hills in the Tri-Valley area average three or even more than four people per unit.

Like it did in 2014 when it was writing the Housing Element it is currently replacing, the City has been conducting polls to see what housing goals the people want.  Then as now, the people are stating family friendly housing is essential.  In 2014, the goals ensconced in the Housing Element included “larger households” and to “improve the housing tenure” for families as well as “more for-sale units and less rental units” and to “increase owner occupancy”.  Emeryville has failed on all counts. 

The new goals, same as the old goals, will almost certainly be unmet when the newest Housing Element itself sunsets (in 2033) owing to the City Council’s recent pledge to build more housing at the cost of building parks.  The General Plan delineates providing at least 50 acres of park by the time that document sunsets in 2030.  However Emeryville’s mayor, John Bauters recently announced no new parks would be build in Emeryville until enough housing is built, an unquantified statement that will not likely happen before 2030, if ever.  If building parks means building less housing, then also requiring developers to build family friendly houses that actually attract families will also come at the cost of greater numbers of general housing units. 

If Emeryville would build the parks it has promised, they would likely find themselves in a virtuous circle; parks bringing families, families bringing more parks.  But with a City Council hostile to parks, this will not be tested.  Instead, Emeryville seems to be caught in a viscous circle; a lack of parks keeping families away and a lack of families demanding more parks translating into no parks being built.

To the extent that the City Council brags about building more family friendly housing units, a reality check is in order.  Because even if Emeryville is building more "family friendly" housing units than before, that fact has failed to bring more families the Census data shows us.   That being the case, clearly Emeryville needs to re-define what family friendly housing is.   Any proper definition needs to include a metric that relies on actual families moving into town.

However, bringing in families may not even be a real goal for Emeryville's elite.  Developers want to maximize their profits and to do that they need to build more market rate rental housing.  The City Council is helping the developers by ignoring the jobs/housing balance we traditionally have followed delineated in the objective data complied by the Association of Bay Area Governments and its Regional Housing Needs Assessment.   The City of Emeryville is a dues paying member of ABAG but has been de-coupling itself from that organization in recent years in favor of a different organization; YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard), a developer backed national housing lobbying conglomerate.  The group calls for de-regulation in housing and is funded by right wing scions including the Koch brothers.

During the formulation of the 2014 Housing Element, there was a high level of popular support for bringing families to Emeryville.  The power elite in our town, the corporations, the School Board, the City staff and the City Council however have not supported this.  The Census data proves that.  The powers that be in Emeryville have not delivered on this goal despite a near constant whinging on about how they support it.  

Decade after decade, Emeryville is the most un-friendly city for families in the East Bay.

  All the talk has net ZERO for average household size.  At what point do we conclude they're not serious about bringing families to Emeryville?

                                                                               Data from the US Census Bureau

                                                                                                 

Emeryville Considers Roll-Back of Family Housing Regulations

The Most Unfriendly City to Families in the East Bay, 

Emeryville Considers Housing Roll-Back

Two Tier Deregulation Scheme Gives Biggest Developers a Pass

for Family Housing Requirements

The City Council is considering relaxing existing regulations meant to attract more families with children to Emeryville by letting big developers off the hook for providing three bedroom apartments in their projects, at a scheduled Tuesday night special meeting.  The changes to Emeryville's so called 'unit mix' regulations are being spurred to accommodate the developer of Christie Avenue's planned Onni Tower who says the City's requirement to build family housing "won't pencil out" for the controversial 700 foot tall residential tower.  If the Council agrees to the changes, the regulation roll back would not be enjoyed by small developers, as they would still be required to provide family friendly housing that the municipal code currently requires.

Emeryville's proposed Onni Tower
At 700 feet, lots of apartments but
family friendly housing
"won't pencil out" says the developer.

Also being considered for roll back are 'tower separation' provisions in the existing regulations designed to stop the Manhattanization of Emeryville by maintaining prescribed distances between towers.  The builder of the Onni project if it were forced to abide by the rules, would not be permitted to build a planned  accompanying 16-story office tower sharing the four acre site with the 54-story main tower.

City Hall's 'family friendly' unit mix regulations, part of the municipal code since 2015, were drafted in a lengthy and democratic process that sought to repair a lopsided anti-family demographic; Emeryville's terrible legacy of  virtually unregulated growth over the previous 20 years.  The 'hands off developers' approach Emeryville became known for during that time, net us the town we now live in with only 32% family households compared with 68% statewide and an average house size population of only 1.7 versus 2.9 for the whole state.  The current unit mix regulations seek to redress these discommodious inequities and to build support for the City's investment in the recently completed $95 million Emery Center of Community Life by feeding children to the struggling Emery School District.
The existing unit mix regulations, 50% of proposed units be two or three bedroom and no more than 10% be studio apartments, were written to apply to all housing development projects that contain over 10 units.  The Onni Christie Mixed Use Project  is proposed for 638 apartments.
It is unknown how far the City Council will ultimately deregulate City Hall's family housing provisions, if at all.  A vocal citizenry will probably have an effect on their decision.

The two tier regulation proposal, one that rolls back regulation for developers building over 100 feet high and the unchanged regulations for smaller projects, was first proposed by Mayor John Bauters last October. The majority of his Council colleagues at the time, agreed it should be considered.

The special study session meeting to consider the changes is scheduled for Tuesday February 5th at 6:30 pm at City Hall.

"Manhattanization"
Tightly packed.
Emeryville's 'tower separation' regulations, designed 
to avoid this, will also be rolled back if the Onni
developer gets his way.   

More Demolition in Emeryville's "Area of Stability"

Emeryville's Last Stand of True Family Friendly Housing in Peril

Detached Single Family Residences Make Way For Apartment Blocks in Triangle/North Emeryville Neighborhoods

Big Changes Coming to the Areas of 'Stability'

     stability

noun
1 :  the quality, state, or degree of being stable: such as   a :  the strength to stand or endure :  firmness 

2 : the quality or state of something that is not easily changed or likely to change

News Analysis
As development pressures continue to mount in Emeryville, another detached single family home faces the wreaking ball in order to make way for another techie four-plex on Ocean Avenue as was presented at a Planning Commission study session last week.  The looming demolition could represent the beginning of a gathering storm of such single family to four-plex conversions in the City's last traditional family oriented neighborhoods despite prohibitions spelled out in the General Plan against demolition in designated "areas of stability".  The Ocean Avenue development is in such a designated zone and to move it forward, the City is re-interpreting the word stability to include the ability to demolish, a expansion of developer prerogative from only two years ago.  Further, the City is now interpreting language encouraging density embedded in the General Plan to exacerbate and actually encourage the demolition of the remaining single family residences in Emeryville, a subversion of the idea of stability.

Detached Single Family Home
The first choice for actual Emeryville families but
limited to the Triangle and North Emeryville
neighborhoods. The last true family friendly 
housing and a feeder for the School District.

The 1270 Ocean Avenue four-plex development proposal (presented at the January 26th Planning Commission meeting) would dramatically increase the building height over the existing single family home as well as the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) on the property and of course it would also increase the residential density.  Those qualities are all within the bounds of Emeryville's zoning ordinance for the neighborhood (with development bonuses) and in fact the demolition and increase in density has earned the developer coveted FAR bonuses allowing for much less landscaped or open space on the site.

The City's realignment to interpret the zone of stability to mean a zone of demolition has moved the needle a far amount in just two years.  At another site (also on Ocean Avenue) the community was in an uproar when a developer bought a single family home with an eye to demolish it to build a four-plex but the City invoked the stability clause in the General Plan.  That move prompted the developer to let the home sit vacant for several years letting rot to take hold of the unmaintained structure.  The developer then made a successful argument that the home was beyond repair and he was granted permission to build his four-plex.

That was then, this is now.  Now the staff doesn't even see the idea of demolition as problematic.  At 1270 Ocean, the staff is encouraging the approval of the project but they didn't even bother to tell the Planning Commission at the January 26th meeting the proposed development falls within the zone of stability as identified by the General Plan, a designation meant until recently to curtail such demolition conversions.

Apartment Building
Despite some three bedroom units, families don't 
 want to live here.  Developers throw in children's 
play equipment but families vote with their feet.

The staff's failure to disclose to the Planning Commission decision makers the fact that 1270 Ocean Avenue falls within the zone of stability may be an omission that's more than an oversight.

'Stability' Taken to Mean 'Demolition'
Outside of Emeryville, the word 'stability' is generally used to mean 'not anticipated to change substantially' and 'the strength to stand or endure'.  Even here, the General Plan itself uses the standard definition; in its designated areas of stability in town, the General Plan states "Areas of stability are those parts of the city that are not anticipated to change significantly in character, land use or development intensity over the next 20 years [the life of the General Plan]. "

The definition of the word stability becomes more expansive in the way the staff now sees it, including demolition of the stock of single family homes in town: "Stability doesn't mean NO change" a staff member who wished anonymity told the Tattler regarding 1270 Ocean.  The salient part of 'stability' according to City Hall is not the enduring nature of the housing types but rather that the new apartment buildings fit in with the character of the neighborhood in the aggregate as is spelled out in the General Plan the staff tells us, apparently lacking a sense of irony.

The Last Developer Battleground in Emeryville
The City Hall expanded definition of stability will serve as a windfall for developers seeking avenues for profit after the 25 year Emeryville building boom.  The boom has left the older residential neighborhoods, the areas of stability, the last place left to turn a profit.  The last three large development projects in town, Anton/Nady, the Marketplace and Sherwin Williams (primarily residential developments) approved last year, together collectively represent the last of the large residential projects that will be built in our town for at least 20 years (the average lifespan of a typical commercial building being about 30 years).  Residential developers, long given the keys to Emeryville by City Council majorities over the years, now have few opportunities left here and so it is understandable they would turn to the zones of stability to eek out the last little bit from our town.

A quick back-of-the-napkin calculation shows the potential for handsome profits; home prices in these two Emeryville neighborhood zones of stability run about $500K to $600K for a fixer upper.  Tear down costs are about $30K and building costs run less than $1 million for a four-plex.  Sale price would be about $800K for the upper end market (times four) leaving about $1.5 million made over six to eight months.  After financing costs are figured in, a tidy profit remains.  That's not enough to interest the biggest developers we've been attracting up till now but plenty of mid-sized developers would gladly enter this field.  All it takes to get the party started is a re-defining of the word stability to open the floodgates to developers.  And that's something the staff at City Hall has already taken care of.

The Late Great Single Family Residence

"Stability"
This is how the City of Emeryville defines
a stable neighborhood.

Single family detached residences are by far the most popular type of housing for families.  Among other advantages, the private backyards associated with this kind of housing permits young children to play unattended, parents the time to do the myriad things that need attending to besides their children.  This kind of housing is abundant in the suburbs and it's the primary reason young parents often decamp for the leafy hinterlands.  Emeryville's housing stock at this point is only a small fraction detached single family (and it's all in the zones of stability), but the two zones of stability are the biggest feeder areas as a percentage for children attending the Emery Unified School District.
But after developing the rest of our town, it is here, the last low density places left in Emeryville where developers now turn to extract their profits.   The word 'stability' is meant to stop this from happening regardless any new interpretation by City Hall.

With a staff willing to overtly turn the meaning of the word stability on its head to facilitate the remake of these last traditional neighborhoods in town, some might find it curious that the General Plan uses the word stability to describe what should be done with the single family home neighborhoods when it presumably would be easier to facilitate the demolition of these last homes in Emeryville without that word in the Plan.  Why is the word stability used for the North Emeryville residential neighborhood and the Triangle neighborhood in our General Plan?

The idea of the zones of stability rose up when during the public vetting process for the formulation of the new general plan in 2009, residents were alarmed that the staff was pushing such an increase in density for our town (compared to our former general plan).  The allowable huge building height increases and residential density increases over the old plan were a cause of concern for the residents.  The zones of stability were added to mollify criticism because at that time, most Emeryville residents lived in these zones.  Now after so many new apartment projects having been built outside the zones of stability, this is no longer the case it's helpful to know.

1270 Ocean Avenue
The little home on the right with the gardens and
large backyard will become a three story wall.

The final irony is that unless the new building replacing the former single family residence has at least 10 units, the project need not be constrained by Emeryville's family friendly housing ordinance.  Thus, 1270 Ocean Avenue at four units (eight if the ground floor bedrooms with their own baths and separate entrances are subsequently rented out via Airbnb) will not be built as a 'family friendly' project.

1270 Ocean Avenue, while certainly not the first demolition of a single family home in a zone of stability since the new General Plan was certified, will add to the precedent being built up that will prove harder to resist if a resistance were ever to be mounted.

Amend the General Plan
The drive for home demolition in East Emeryville is further buttressed by a provision in the code that makes density like a one way check valve; it can only go up, never down.  A tear down of a duplex say could only happen if the developer built at least a replacement if not a triplex or more.  And that means over time the zones of stability will be completely made over and Emeryville's last single family residences will cease to exist.
A fix for the bad optics for Emeryville, its oft repeated claims of being a family friendly town running at cross purposes with language that encourages demolition of the most family friendly housing in town, would be to amend the General Plan.  The most obvious amendment would be to eliminate the zones of stability altogether to remove the hypocrisy.  Another amendment could be to keep the zones of stability but remove the language that encourages developers to demolish these family homes.  The City of Emeryville is probably most comfortable leaving be the mutually exclusive provisions ensconced in the General Plan.  It's the path of least resistant even if it is so easily construed as hypocritical.

Map from Emeryville's General Plan
1270 Ocean Avenue is located between Ocean and Peabody Lane; the zone of stability

Breaking News- Negoiations Complete, City Council Calls Developer's Bluff, Major Concessions for Residents

Market Place Developer Concedes: Will Build Affordable Family Friendly Housing

Progressive City Council Majority/Residents 

Emerge Victorious

Details are leaking out of City Hall today bringing light to what's shaping up to be a major victory for affordable housing in negotiations with the developer of the Market Place development at the hands of the progressive Council majority.  Details have not been confirmed but insiders tell the Tattler that City Center Realty Partners, the developer of the contentious Market Place development, finally folded and accepted the Council majority's terms for building more affordable units, now some 50 in total as well as increasing the number of family friendly units to match what is required by City Ordinance.

The project located at the existing Public Market on Shellmound Street, originally planned for 33 affordable units in the 456 total rental unit mix.  That plan was rejected by Council members Jac Asher, Dianne Martinez and Scott Donahue (the progressive majority).  The new plan, now agreed to by the developer calls for 50 affordable units, bring the project at or very nearly at parity with what exists in Emeryville as far as affordability goes town-wide in terms of percentage, a progressive Council majority goal.
In addition to rejecting the non-parity affordable housing, the progressive Council majority also rejected the "family flexible" plan put forth by the developer.  After negotiation, City Center Realty Partners now agrees to build actual family friendly units as called for by the City's new family friendly housing ordinance.  Originally the developer sought to ignore the new ordinance and instead build some number of what City Center called "family flexible" units, a cheapening of the provisions laid out in the ordinance.

Notably, veteran Council members Ruth Atkin and Nora Davis voted in favor of the previous iteration of the Market Place development, the deal favored by the developer, with only 33 affordable units and no family friendly units.

Details of the negotiations and the final agreement will be revealed at Tuesday's City Council meeting.

Emeryville Can Demand More From Developers Than Neighbors Cities Can

Position of Power:

Emeryville Can Say 'NO' to Developers and the Developers Know It

After a generation of taking anything and everything from every developer who wished to make a buck off our town, Emeryville is finally in an inarguable position now to demand better development.  And we can easily get it.

Opinion / News Analysis
Abstract:

• Emeryville doesn't need any more market rate housing.
• Emeryville doesn't get any positive revenue from housing.

Got that?  These two points aren't a matter of someone's opinion even though that word precedes them in this story.  These two points are factual and they assertively inform us through hyperbolic debate frames rising up from interested parties of the ideological sort as well as those who would materially benefit.  Once people realize the prophetic exigency of these two points, how we finish the job of developing our town becomes a lot clearer.

Emeryville is in an enviable position with regards to development. Due to forces in our control and those out of our control, we're at a powerful place where we can call the shots; we can rationally say NO to flawed development, starting now.  The last City Council election with its progressive sweep and the rise of a newly enlightened electorate has something to do with this fortunate position we find ourselves in, of course, but in addition it has to do with the extremely limited supply of large scale development properties left in our town and the incredibly valuable geographic location of Emeryville that only gets more valuable over time.   But more pressing than those extant and compelling realities, our new power position has to do with our over the top, nay epic RHNA numbers.

Emeryville's RHNA Numbers
Twice as big as we need.

RHNA or Regional Housing Needs Assessment (pronounced reena) is a housing data compilation of the whole Bay Area produced by a consortium of local governments meant to mete out each municipality's work load share of the goal of providing a jobs/housing parity.  The state mandated idea is each city should carry its weight as far as providing enough housing for the entire region.  Emeryville was given a specific housing goal by this consortium (known as Association of Bay Area Governments ABAG).  Due to Emeryville's huge housing boom over the last 20 years, we not only met our ABAG goal, we smashed the goal.  We actually doubled the market rate housing goal, Emeryville's built market rate housing right now is more than 200% of what RHNA suggests.  At this point, nobody can claim with a straight face Emeryville needs to build more market rate housing, that we're somehow derelict in our duty.
If we do approve more housing projects moving forward, it can and should be only those that improve the livability of our town.  We've already more than done our regional market rate housing duty.

Emeryville's 'double RHNA' numbers have the effect of punching a huge hole in the 'supply and demand' argument that's always proffered by developers.  They use that argument to shame municipalities into approving housing projects they want to build.  Some places, they would have a point.  Not here.
Everybody knows the argument; if we increase the housing supply, the housing demand goes down and so do the prices.  Except here in Emeryville we've doubled RHNA and the housing prices still keep going up, especially rentals.  That's because all the developers are really interested in is maximizing their profits and thus, all they're interested in building (and all we've been getting) are $2500 per month one bedroom luxury apartments. As shocking as it is, this shouldn't come as a shock.  The idea that a developer (or indeed any business owner) might lie to protect his profits should be seen as a given...especially since there's no down side to lying, no penalty.  And so that's what we get from them generally.

With the supply and demand canard off the table, there's really no cogent reason developers can offer as to why we should accept a flawed housing project.  Some apologists will fatuously claim housing development adds to the City's tax base, but that's a lie too; Emeryville actually loses money (a little) off residential projects.  Residents use more in services than they pay in.  City Hall gets its revenue from businesses, not residents.

With nothing to gain and much to lose, at this point with these RHNA numbers, developers better offer something overwhelmingly good in trade for approving a project that will increase traffic, noise, pollution and crowding.  That's the point of the Tattler story of July 23rd.  We posit there are four chief areas where Emeryville needs improvement:

1. Affordable Housing
2. Family Friendly Housing
3. Parks / Open Space
4. Locally Serving 'Non-Formula' Retail

These points are measurable.  We say every developer's project proposal must demonstrably improve (or least not make worse), the existing ratios we have in these four categories.  These should be the starting point for any residential project.  Otherwise, the default position should be no development at all.  Right now, we have an intensively developed town with a lot of density and a lot of commercial revenue shared by our existing population.  If we stay as we are, we're fine.  Unlike our neighbors who haven't met their RHNA goals, we don't need to take on more market rate residential development.
The residential developers may be salivating at our remaining three or four fallow patches of land with their boatloads of potential profit but we could retain the status quo; keep a couple of patches of our town fallow for future consideration (a future park perhaps?), and we'll be OK.
Or we could allow more development...a new kind of development we haven't demanded or gotten up until now; development that demonstrably improves our town.

Emeryville has always had naysayers in our midsts.  There's always been those who loudly claim we're no good, terrible really and we must let the developers have what they want because we don't rate anything better.  Indeed, before last November, the City Council majority itself said as much ad infinitum over the years.  There are plenty of regular residents still saying it now.  Somehow, these Chicken Littles see these last pieces of fallow land left as an emergency; a gap that must be filled with whatever the developers want.   No time to waste they're saying, we must defer to the developers now.
Or maybe they'll bide their time: we expect the naysayers to try to retake the City Council majority next year with lots of hidden campaign donations from developers.
But in the meanwhile, next time you hear the old 'supply and demand' con, remember our epic RHNA numbers.  Next time you hear them try to frame the debate in terms of development being a given, remember we don't increase our revenue from residential projects.

To reiterate:

• Emeryville doesn't need any more market rate housing.
• Emeryville doesn't get any positive revenue from housing.

School Board Member Christian Patz: Willing to Agitate for Emery's Students

Member Patz Tells the City Council to Hold Out For a Family Friendly project

Emery School District Not Interested in Bringing Families to Emeryville Despite Claims to the Contrary

Opinion
For years now, the Emery Unified School District has decried the existential threat posed by falling student attendance and the critical need to bring more families to town to help with that.  Followers of the District know however that this kind of talk is just so much hot air because never have any District employees or School Board members ever actually done what it takes, impolitic though it may be seen by some, to facilitate that; none have summoned the courage to appear before the City Council to challenge a non-family friendly residential development project on the docket to press the District's interests.  For more than 20 years as the Emeryville City Council continued to approve residential projects, one after another, all built to attract singles or childless couples, never once did anyone from the School District press its case for holding out for building housing for families.  Not as the Center of 'Community' Life was being planned and built, not ever.  Not until the Tuesday before last.

Emery School Board Member
Christian Patz
Courageous agitator for the
students and the District. 

The Emeryville City Council meeting that Tuesday July 21st was historic in two ways: first the City Council said NO to a developer pushing a flawed project and second a School Board member came and testified for the need to build family friendly housing and to reject a residential development proposal, the Market Place project, for not being family friendly.  The City Council as it turned out, agreed with the School Board member and rejected the project, also something that's never happened before in Emeryville.

So who is this heroic and courageous School Board member?  None other than Christian Patz...the dissenting voice on the School Board...the voice for the citizens, students and parents; the same Board member that voted NO to the disastrous hiring of the now infamous Russom Mesfun, a vote incidentally that stands now as an archetype for political courage at the Emery School Board analogous to Senator Barack Obama's 2003's vote, so deeply unpopular at the time, against the Bush invasion of Iraq.

We applaud Mr Patz for his principled stand at the dais before the City Council on the 21st but we are chagrined it's taken this long for anyone from this District to have the cajones to get involved, for this is how democracy works and how change can happen. And so with a School District filled with administrators and politicians making political calculations all while the District fails for lack of revenue increased attendance would alleviate,  we are relieved finally someone has shown he will put his ass on the line and speak out for the students even though it may embarrass some entrenched aging politicians.

Emery School Superintendent John Rubio
Not willing to stand up for family friendly housing to
help the schools.  Not courageous. 

Emery School Board President
John Affeldt
Like the Superintendent, not courageous...
another 'C' word comes to mind:
rhymes with 'showered'.

To School Superintendent John Rubio and School Board president John Affeldt, both of whom have never had the temerity to so challenge the City Council in the District's interest, we say you two have just been humiliated.  Your colleague Christian Patz, the same one you routinely vote down 4-1 when important decisions come before the Board, has shown us all what principled courage looks like...done at your expense (even though he didn't intend for that to be the case probably).  Because where were you on the 21st when it was time to testify for family friendly housing?  We've heard your oft repeated but empty family friendly rhetoric, why though we ask, have you never followed through?
We're sad it's newsworthy when an Emery School Board member gets up before the City Council and tells it like it is because that's what's in the student's and the District's best interests.  This should happen every time a residential project appears before the City Council, not once in...well, once ever.

'Market Place' Developers Overturn Hard Fought Family Friendly Housing Policy

'Family Friendly' OUT,

Say Hello Instead to"Family Flexible" Housing

Developers Eviscerate New Guidelines 

Empty Euphemism Replaces Real Policy

The developers of Emeryville's largest residential development to be built in years, the 'Market Place' project on Shellmound Street, are requesting the City Council give final approval for their 456 unit all rental proposal Tuesday night but they're asking that the Council ignore Emeryville's new family friendly housing guidelines, protections the Council itself enacted recently to correct a chronic lack of suitable housing for families in town.  Instead the developers, City Center Realty Partners and Avalon Bay Communities Inc, are pushing something for their project they call "family flexible" design; a dramatically weakened version of the Council approved 'Family Friendly Design Guidelines', that critics say will result in precisely the kind of housing the City's new guidelines are meant to stop; namely apartment units taken up by students with roommates in place of families.
It's a critical distinction; the "family flexible" Market Place project in fact removes the most salient and essential protections of the Family Friendly Guidelines; the single master bedroom requirement, and separation of sleeping areas from living areas, rendering the Market Place proposal as essentially not different from any other Emeryville residential project built over the years that has failed to attract families.

Roommate Problem
The developers for their part insist their "family flexibility", that being the regular two and three bedroom apartments in the project's mix without any restrictions, is sufficient enough to do the job.

Mark Stephan
City Center Realty's
point man for the 
Market Place development.
"Family flexible" units are good.
It's got the word 'family' and 'flexible'
...that's good, right?...as opposed to rigid.

However if history is to be a judge, families won't move in to those units; instead the more likely outcome will be students and others will rent out the units and take on roommates for the extra bedrooms.  This is in fact what has happened with other apartment buildings built with multiple bedrooms over the years in Emeryville before the Family Friendly Design Guidelines were crafted.  The 'roommate problem' is exasperated by this "family flexible" every-bedroom-is-a-master-bedroom provision and is the primary reason the City wrote the new Guidelines.

Anti-Family Emeryville
Compared with all our neighboring cities, Emeryville is a city without families.  This is known by census information.  Formerly ignored by City Hall, appreciating Emeryville's lack of family friendly housing reached a nadir after passage of 2010's Measure J, the $95 million public school bond and its built in existential need to increase student enrollment at the new school.  Soon after, City Hall's come-to-Jesus moment came as a result of the civic embarrassment accompanying a paper released by the University of California's Goldman School of Public Policy.  The Goldman study found a primary reason for Emeryville's remarkable childless population was the family inappropriate housing stock; virtually all the new housing built is for singles or couples.  Families have been left out of the mix.  So even though the rhetoric at City Hall has been pro-family, the housing policy has not been supportive of that cause and the housing as built has stubbornly remained anti-family.
The Goldman report noted when developers had been convinced to provide some two and three bedroom units in their projects, instead of attracting families, they were generally rented out by college students.

$18,000 Family Housing Study
Last November's election brought a new pro-family City Council majority and earlier this year, the Council commissioned a six month policy study to ameliorate this lack of family housing.  The council spent $18,000 on consultants and lots of paid staff time on the study and the resultant policy is now official, encoded as the Family Friendly Design Guidelines.

Meet Emeryville's newest neighbors!
Build "family flexible" units and they will come.

Central to the new Guidelines are three provisions the Market Place's 'family flexible' designation overturns (J-53 through J-55 in the 'unit design'); among them the every-bedroom-is-a-master-bedroom, and a prohibition against bedrooms opening directly onto common living spaces.  Perhaps tellingly, the Market Place developer's "family flexible" designation removes what the consultants said are the most essential ingredients for attracting families.

Tuesday night the developers of the Market Place project will attempt to convince the new Council majority all their work and money invested in attempting to attract families to Emeryville has been wasted and public policy is best left up to developers who know what's best.  The developers of the Market Place, who did not return calls from the Tattler,  will try to tell the Council their "family flexible" idea is great for attracting families.  Perhaps the developers won't reveal that it just so happens they can maximize profits with the "family flexible" idea over the more regulatory and onerous Family Friendly Guidelines.
Will the new progressive majority of the Emeryville City Council hold?  Before the sun rises Wednesday morning in Emeryville, we'll know if the first stand of the new Family Friendly Design Guidelines was also its last stand.

Why Family Friendly Housing?

The Primary Reason We Want Families is Being Ignored

News Analysis/Opinion
The Emeryville Tattler has long chronicled the radical dysfunction surrounding family friendly housing in our town.  We've noted how everyone says they love family friendly housing and they want family friendly housing and how it's past due to get family friendly housing.  Developers too say they want family friendly housing and each residential project they build they assure us is family friendly (even though families aren't moving into them).  The City Hall staff says they're all about family friendly housing.  The internal planning guidelines at City Hall, the General Plan and the Housing Element,  direct the decision makers how to get family friendly housing.  The City Council says it's imperative we build family friendly housing.  They put it in their campaign literature; 'vote for me and I'll deliver family friendly housing' they say at election time.  And so we elect them and yet we still can't seem to get family friendly housing built in Emeryville.  When it comes to family friendly housing, Emeryville is so pathologically dysfunctional, it's the little city that can't.
Either that or there's an anti-family friendly hidden agenda lurking at City Hall.  The Tattler certainly has hinted as much over the years.

But let's take everybody at their word for sake of argument.  Let's say the oft repeated sentiments are real and everybody wants family friendly housing built in Emeryville (but City Hall is presumably just too inept and incompetent).

Nobody has ever asked why though.  Why do we want family friendly housing?  It's just taken as a given that families are inherently good things to have in your town.
Aside from a few WC Fields style naysayers, people would want families in Emeryville for two primary reasons; one is for diversity, because it's stultifying to have too many adults.  Children can be uplifting and life affirming.  But the primary reason we want families is to support our public schools.  We want to support the schools because of the general belief in continuing on and helping the next generation like we were helped, surely.  But in Emeryville we also want to support the schools because we're so heavily invested in them.  We've borrowed money up to the hilt to build the Center of 'Community' Life and we don't want to see our investment squandered.

Understanding all this, there's a specific existential problem here.  The problem is an irrational municipal code.  City Hall has correctly identified the problem of the lack of family friendly housing but hasn't correctly identified a critical metric for how to deliver more children to the schools.  The problem is Emeryville's municipal code and planning guidelines don't make the vital connection between family friendly housing and affordable housing.  As it stands now, family friendly housing in Emeryville needn't be affordable.  This assures that even if we did start to build family friendly housing, we would subvert the primary reason for building it.  And that's because wealthy and upper middle class families, the only ones that can afford to buy in Emeryville now, won't send their children to our public schools.  Those kids go to private schools. That's been well documented.  Only the desire for diversity part of bringing families to Emeryville is being addressed by our polity.  The biggest part, supporting the schools, is left out of consideration entirely.

We know why Emeryville is set up for failure with this.  It's because developers don't want to build affordable housing of any kind, let alone family friendly affordable housing.  This placating of the desires of developers is a relic left over from before our newly elected City Council majority.  The new Council can fix this irrational piece of tautological incoherence at City Hall.  We may not be able to force developers to deliver affordable family friendly housing as much as we would like but we should at least stop deluding ourselves and craft a cogent and rational polity surrounding it.  From now on, affordability should be part and parcel of being family friendly; the two are inexorably connected.  If it's not affordable housing, it's not family friendly housing and if it's family friendly, it's affordable.

Let's get to work.  First we need to fix the documents, then we can start bringing in the families.  Kids are nice to have around, it's true, but more importantly we've got hundreds of millions of dollars in public money being spent on the schools at the Center of 'Community' Life that needs supporting.

Imagine
the future of Emeryville

Councilman Brinkman's Swan Song

'We've Had Enough of Families & Bikes,
 Thank You'

Opinion
After five long years on the Emeryville City Council forwarding contentious policy, including a bait and switch drive he led to subvert a citizen ballot initiative to remove a regressive business tax cap, Councilman Kurt Brinkman finally stepped down Tuesday night.   But not before he took the chance to engage in one last incoherent Brinkmanesque diatribe:  "We talk about friendly family [sic] we also have to remember there's lots of people without families and they to need to feel like they're involved" the retiring Councilman said.  An interesting take given Emeryville has been building virtually nothing but housing for singles for years now leading to a crisis for the schools because of a lack of family friendly housing identified in the City's own documents.  

Young Council hopeful
Kurt Brinkman

The sentiments aired Tuesday night were in line with Councilman Brinkman's five years of failing to deliver on family friendly housing but they sounded funny coming seconds after a reading of a farewell Resolution penned by his fellow Council members extolling his work on the Council providing such housing.  
We're not sure which is more outrageous, Mr Brinkman's tone deaf comments warning Emeryville residents that the town must be made safe for singles or his colleague's insistence that Councilman Brinkman has worked diligently during his term to provide lots of family housing.
Tuesday's farewell served as a curious bookend to City Council candidate Brinkman's interview with The Secret News five years ago, wherein he explained he would be a family friendly Council member if elected, and that building family friendly housing is critical in Emeryville. 

Kurt went on to remind everyone that bicyclists are persona non grata in Emeryville, "We need to have a town where you can walk to work and walk home at night", again sentiments backed up by his (anti-bike) actions on the Council.  
While it would have been audacious, given his record, if Councilman Brinkman had stated bicycling should be an acceptable way of commuting to work in Emeryville along with walking, we find it bizarre that the Councilman, as he takes his leave, is so willing to have his final swan song be that 'we've had quite enough of bikes and families in Emeryville thank you'. 

Housing in Emeryville Faces Big Change

New 'Housing Element' 

+ New Council Majority

=  Big Change

News Analysis/Opinion
A funny thing has been happening in Emeryville over the last 20 years; as the city has experienced tremendous residential growth, virtually none of it has been anything like what everybody in town says they want.  Strangely, even the City Council members themselves, the ones charged with approving residential housing development, even they say they don't want the kind of housing that keeps getting built here.
Without getting into the obvious political dysfunction if not outright prevarication regarding what the Council members say they want (loudest at re-election time), the backwards universe described above now appears to be ready to crumble.
Two vital game-changers have entered the scene in Emeryville: a new 'Housing Element' and a new progressive City Council majority.  Working in tandem, these two forces are going to mean Emeryville residents will likely get the kind of housing they really want finally.  The old days of developers having a free hand, regardless of whatever some pesky official documents at City Hall say, are likely over.  What we say we want and what we get are likely to be a closer match from now on.

The Housing Element
Bound for a dusty shelf
until the November 4th
City Council election.

The new Emeryville Housing Element, certified by the City Council on November 18th, is compiled by a professional urban housing firm, the Housing Committee and the Planning Commission that takes account of the existing housing conditions and establishes housing goals and implementation actions.  The new Housing Element is part of Emeryville's General Plan and it's the final word on housing in Emeryville until 2023.


The document doesn't mince words as pertains to the housing need side of the equation.  Central to that is a goal of more affordable family friendly housing for Emeryville.  Developers have been building too much market rate housing for singles in Emeryville the Housing Element says and our town hasn't been well served by a City Council majority that has been unwilling to effectively plan for the future.  The new Housing Element isn't alone in this assessment, Homayra Yusufi at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy authored a study, scathing in it's recounting of the baleful history of Emeryville housing highlighted by the Tattler in 2011: Building a Community: Affordable Family-Friendly Housing in Emeryville.   After the publicly embarrassing Goldman Study, the Council has moved forward a little on affordable housing, albeit in fits and starts,  but the Housing Element notes the need for affordable family friendly housing remains huge.

Here's some of the findings made by the Housing Element-

Existing Housing:

• 82%  of new housing is comprised of studios or one-bedroom units (52% increase 2010-13)
• 65% of occupied units are rental (47% increase 2010-13)

Housing Goals:

• Improve 'housing tenure' specifically for affordable family-friendly housing 
• Increase owner occupancy

Community Outreach:

The Housing Element uses data from a community workshop, a community 'roundtable' and an online community survey conducted in spring 2014.  The community reports the following needs-

• Emeryville needs more affordable housing for families with children
• Greater home occupancy rate (target 50%)
• Larger households
• More for-sale units and less rental units
• Retail associated with housing should be locally serving, locally owned, non-chain, non-'formula'

There's lots of expensive plans commissioned by the City Council gathering dust at City Hall.  The General Plan, the Pedestrian/Bike Plan, the Climate Action Plan and a plethora of neighborhood design guideline plans among them.  Some of Emeryville's plans have received awards.  Some of these plans have been done in order to satisfy State requirements.  Some were probably conducted with an eye towards imparting an aura of legitimacy for Emeryville, more to give the impression this town is as good as other towns with similar plans. The problem has been when there's a contest between a City Plan and a developer's desires.  The plans we have are no match against a developer with profit maximizing as his goal.  Then the plans remain on their respective shelves or they get amended to accommodate the developer (the Tattler has reported on this for the entirely of its near 5 year run).

Now something has changed.  In the wake of the recent City Council election, we think the Housing Element is going to be actually considered, as development proposals like the Sherwin Williams Project winds its way through the approval process.

The Sherwin Williams Project Can't be Built as Proposed
Sherwin Williams developer SRM Ernst wants to build a mostly residential project in the Park Avenue neighborhood with almost 500 all rental apartment units, all market rate with no guarantees about locally owned locally serving retail uses.  The vast majority of the apartment units are proposed to be studios and one bedrooms.
The Sherwin Williams Project as it is being proposed, will not be able to be built if the new City Council takes the Housing Element seriously.  Housing projects in Emeryville in the future not only need to be compliant on their own with the Housing Element, but they also further, need to help the whole city bring its averages towards the goals it postulates.   The Sherwin Williams project does neither.

CEO Joe Ernst
of SRM Ernst
Tell your friends
Joe, Emeryville
has changed.

It's easy to see how the Sherwin Williams developer could have gotten the project he wants if Emeryville hadn't had an election wherein we elected two new progressive Council members added to an existing one.   Without an election like what we had on November 4th, SRM Ernst would simply be given blanket approval for what ever they want, regardless of the new Housing Element.   Now, we're not so sure.  We think there's been a change in Emeryville.  CEO Joe Ernst of SRM Ernst is about to find this out.  Let's hope he tells his friends.  We want to attract a new type of developer to our town.  We want to see developers that aren't expecting carte blanche City Hall subservience from now on. The last few parcels of fallow land in Emeryville are going to be developed with a different operating system: a system with the residents in mind.  Sorry, Joe (and the rest of you).

Maz Project: Men's Dormitory Approved for San Pablo Avenue

"Family Friendly Housing" is to Emeryville Political Jargon as "Middle Class" is to Washington Political Jargon

Opinion
Everywhere you turn in Washington DC you hear politicians exclaim how their focus is on the middle class, about how they're going to help the middle class.  It's middle class this and middle class that.  It comes from both parties.  And yet the help never seems to come; the people keep waiting.
As it goes in Washington so too it goes in Emeryville.  Except here, it's not the middle class that goes wanting amid all the hyperbole, here it's "family friendly housing".  Emeryville's decision makers are united: we desperately need family friendly housing they say.  Like in Washington, the over heated rhetoric is wall to wall at City Hall.  Except as an aside, at the Housing Committee where until recently they didn't even list family friendly housing as one of its seven goals (oops! get in line guys!) until the Tattler exposed them.  Now they too are towing the line and they're listing family friendly housing as one of the goals.

As with their Washington counterparts, Emeryville City Council members seem to think all they need to do is say they're for family friendly housing enough and that essential category is then taken care of.  Either that or they just like to hear themselves talk.

The City Council tells us Emeryville
would be a better place to live
if we had more of this.

Need proof?  Check out the MAZ Project on San Pablo Avenue at Adeline Street that was just approved by the City Council (Jac Asher voted NO and Jennifer West had a conflict of interest and did not vote).  After a year of very public gum flapping about the need to bring family friendly housing to Emeryville, the Council quietly said yes to this project with its 105 rental units perched in a podium above a parking garage.  Sound familiar?
The apartments are comprised of 60 studio apartments, 20 one bedroom units, 20 two bedroom units and five four bedroom units, all market rate rental.  Oh, and there's also 5 one bedroom lofts for rent.   The street level will have the ubiquitous retail that's sat empty in so many other projects.  No tenants have been lined up.  By now it should sound very familiar.

It all makes for a housing project for "younger people that are seeking an interesting place to live" according to Rick Holliday, the developer for the project.  He noted the tenants would likely be more of what Emeryville has been building for the last decade and a half, "I don't see a wide age range there" he told the Tattler.
At least Emeryville's Ikea store stands to benefit by this project.

Who's going to rent this?
The Council thinks this rental 
demographic is
under represented in Emeryville.

Men's Dormitory
No wide age range indeed.  Maz is yet another techie dorm for young single men commuting to San Francisco seeking cheaper rent than that city offers. This project is a carbon copy of every other housing project approved by this Council for the last fifteen years, the years we earned the enmity of planning professionals for our lack of family friendly housing.  Notable too in this debacle is the complete lack of interest from the School Board in this Maz project (or any other housing project).   They are spending some quarter billion dollars on our new school at the Center of Community Life but there's a disconnect when it come time to supporting housing for families needed to assure success for the new school project.

Pro-developer ideologues, this City Council will finally deliver family friendly housing when some developer thinks he can make a buck off it.  Until that day, look to City Hall to talk the family friendly talk and walk the men's dormitory walk.  Sound familiar?

City to Consider 'Family Friendly' Housing on San Pablo Avenue

From Council member Jac Asher's blog:

Community Meeting on Thursday @ 6:30pm,

 Council Chambers

The City has received proposals to build an affordable, family-friendly housing development at 3706 San Pablo. The Housing Committee, staff, and the City Council have weighed in on the proposals, and there will be four developers presenting designs on Thursday. Please come to the meeting in order to find out more about this project and provide feedback to the developers and staff.

Click on the following link in order to view the flyer/announcement: Community Meeting

August 15, 2013 6:30-8:30 City Hall