Mayor Ally Medina Finishes a Lackluster Term

Q: How Did Mayor Medina Do on 

Her Pet Issues of Bikes and Parks?

A: Zilch

Opinion
And so ends the downbeat tenure of Emeryville mayor Ally Medina.  Tuesday night Ms Medina hands over the mayoralty to Council member Christian Patz, ending the Medina era of …..what exactly?  Well, it’s not bike transportation or parks, the two issues that were central to her election campaign as she ran for City Council in 2016.  On those issues, she was a dud.  A non-starter.  Anything else?  What did Mayor Medina do for Emeryville during her term as mayor?  The readers will be forgiven if they struggle with this.
The answer is: very little.

Mayor Ally Medina Posing With A Bike
Irony alert!
Use agitprop to turn your
liability into an asset.

Truth be told, one could make an argument we’re being generous when we say Mayor Medina did nothing of consequence during her year long term.  On her two pet issues, conspicuously proclaimed on the campaign trail ("I am personally committed to taking the lead" she said at the time), she's actually taken us backward.
Regarding bikes, Mayor Medina has made it clear she doesn’t like our bike boulevard system.  It’s a stance we wish she had made clear before she made all her promises as a Council candidate.  Ten years ago, Emeryville spent $200,000 and countless hours of volunteer citizen effort formulating our Bike Plan, the central tenet of which is our bike boulevard network.  It would have been nice to know at the time that a candidate running for Council held it in such contempt.

Candidate Medina said she would implement our Bike Plan but Mayor Medina now says protected bike lanes are better.  So she set about ignoring the clear and mounting problems of excess traffic on the 45th and 53rd street bike boulevards, putting bikers in harm’s way.  The Bike Plan has a prescription for how to make boulevards safe for bikers….and a timeline.  There are too many cars and trucks on those two bike priority streets according to a traffic count conducted by the City more than two years ago.  As soon as that information was gathered, the City had two years to implement a regime of traffic calming as delineated by the Bike Plan.  Then the clock ran out for Mayor Medina to install the required traffic calming.  But it's not as if she didn't have enough time.  She simply let it languish during her entire term as mayor.  Inexplicably, she refused to even let the Bike Committee discuss the issue as she steadfastly refused to explain the inaction that has effectively taken the safety of bicyclists out of the purview of the City of Emeryville, at least on those two streets.

Mayor Medina’s experiment with protected bike lanes, her unilateral answer to our bike boulevard network, has been a disaster.  Horton Street, a street with a huge amount of traffic but still listed in the books as a bike boulevard (despite a final ruling against it by Council members Dianne Martinez and Scott Donahue in 2016), has drawn her in.  Mayor Medina, who serves as the Council liaison to the Bike/Ped Advisory Committee, instructed Public Works to install plastic bollards near the Amtrak Station meant to separate bikes and vehicles instead of implementing the Bike Plan's traffic calming regimen.  Horton, like 45th and 53rd streets is a street with too much vehicle traffic to be safe for bikers, and the bollards have caused commercial vehicles to park on the sidewalks and in the bike lanes, trapping the cyclists and causing them to veer sharply out into moving traffic.  It’s an issue that a local TV news station highlighted as complaints poured into City Hall.
If Ms Medina and the City had simply followed the Bike Plan and installed its traffic calming measures, Horton Street would be safe for bicycling with plenty of parking spaces for cars and yellow curbs for commercial trucks.  But bike boulevards are an issue the Mayor and the City can’t seem to countenance, never mind all the crowing at election time. 

Regarding parks, another self proclaimed favorite topic of our mayor, Emeryville is epic: as in epically bad.  Our city is the worst in the entire East Bay as far as parks go.  Parks and open space service is measured in residents per acre and at some 500 people per acre of park, a number that keeps rising as we keep increasing our population, residents here are green space starved.
Meanwhile, our General Plan is very clear about this issue: parks are essential and it’s resolved: all new large residential projects are supposed to offset the degradation in the parks-to-residents ratio by providing no less than three acres per thousand new residents.  Unfortunately, Emeryville has failed utterly on this issue and Mayor Medina, who sanctimoniously said we could trust her on parks, has done nothing during her term as mayor to address the issue all while the condition continues to get worse.

The Sherwin Williams Tree Debacle
Council Member Medina sees what
the developer tells her to see: dead and
dying trees.
Everybody else sees healthy shade
giving trees, doing what trees are
supposed to do.

And then there's the issue of the Sherwin Williams street trees.  Ms Medina went down in flames with the City Hall staff and the developer of that impending construction project who wanted to kill every public street tree fronting it.  Without providing evidence, the developer told us they couldn't save the trees due to underground electrical cables they needed to install.  Besides, the trees in question are dead and dying they told us, over the objections from the City's own arborist.  The developer's performance was enough to convince the staff and Councilwoman Medina.
Ally's colleagues however could see the tree cutting scheme for the con job that it was; a plan to bolster the developer's profit margin at the resident's expense.  Only Council members Martinez and Medina were duped.  The others on the Council saw right through the obvious profit maximizing ploy being foisted by the developer.  Almost two years after calling their bluff, the City Council majority saw the developer and the staff, hats in hands, finally admit the trees could be saved after all.  And a chasented Ally Medina apologizing for her naivety.

While Mayor Medina has certainly been a disappointment, in her defense, it was her misfortune to follow John Bauters.  Mayor Bauters, whom we had our disagreements with during his term, nonetheless used his prodigious if artless political skills to escort Measure C, a $50 million affordable housing bond through to voters.  That plus other consequential policies he enacted made Mayor Bauters a tough act to follow to be sure.  But that doesn’t absolve Mayor Medina who, like them all, is charged with moving Emeryville forward during their terms as mayor.  We would have thought, at least on the issues she claims to champion, Mayor Medina would have made some progress.  We never would have imagined her to shut down the cause of government transparency and accountability as she has done on the issue of the 45th and 53rd street bicycle boulevards.

It gives us no pleasure to say Ally Medina has been a bust as mayor of Emeryville.

New Development Drives Need For New Parks But Developers Aren't Helping

Clock Ticking on Sunsetting General Plan: 

 22-26 Acres of New Parks Needed

in Ten Years

City Council Letting Developers Off the Hook 

For Providing Needed Parks 

New Development is Reason New Parks Are Needed:

Onni Project Case Study Reveals  
City's Unaccountability

News Analysis

The Proposed 700 Foot Onni Tower Project
1100 new residents but only a 1/2 acre park is planned in trade,
running roughshod over Emeryville's General Plan.

The developer of the proposed Onni Tower, a 54 story residential development on Christie Avenue, has been lately shopping the project before citizens around town, standard fare in the pre-approval state for proposed development in Emeryville.  So far it's been drawing the usual chorus of neighborly concerns over the myriad negative impacts such a large development would bring.  However one overlooked issue with the Onni project, heretofore not in the eye of Emeryville residents, presents itself as a result of the tower's 1100+ new residents that could prove to be impactful not for the residents but instead for the developer.  That issue is parks.

The Onni project developer as it turns out, needs to provide more than three and a half acres of new public park space in town to offset all the new residents and new employees that project will bring- some three acres more than what's being proposed.  That's three and a half acres total of new park land for Emeryville because of this single project if when it comes time for final approval, the City Council is in a mood to enforce Emeryville's General Plan.

Onni Tower Mini Park (Proposed)
At only 1/2 acre, it won't be nearly big 
enough to satisfy the General Plan. An
additional three acres off-site is needed.

Because the site isn't large enough for that much park space, in order to comply with the General Plan, the Onni developer would have to provide the money for Emeryville to build at least three acres of parks elsewhere in town in addition to the half acre park planned for the actual site.  If the City were to build all the off-site Onni generated park space in one location, at three acres, it would be the second largest park in Emeryville, smaller than Marina Park but more than double the size of the next largest Doyle Hollis Park with its one and a quarter acre.

Existing Doyle Hollis Park (1.25 Acres)
The off-site park needed to be built by the Onni developer
 would have to be more than twice as large as this.

And that's not all.  If the City Council grants the Onni developer a full or partial pass on the City's new family housing unit mix regulations as it is considering doing, that would mean more studio and one bedroom apartment units in the 700 foot tower, adding to the population and driving up the acreage of parks needed to offset it.  The amount of extra park acreage that condition would generate is hard to calculate, contingent as it is upon how far the City Council rolls back the regulations for the developer.

Despite its clear mandates, Emeryville's central guiding document, the General Plan and its provisions for parks, are not even being discussed by the developer or the City staff as the Onni project moves forward through the approval process.  It's part of an ongoing case of willful amnesia the City of Emeryville has historically had when it comes to the General Plan's park provisions.


Three Acres Per 1000 Residents
Parks are extremely popular with Emeryville residents.  Polls conducted by City Hall over the years have revealed as much.  Candidates for City Council are all acutely aware of it; regardless of their political leanings, they routinely place the building of more parks front and center in their campaign literature.

Surprisingly though, Emeryville residents are still dramatically under served in parks and open space.  In 2009 when the General Plan was adapted, there were 15 acres of public parks.  Doyle Hollis Park at 61st and Hollis streets was added shortly after bringing Emeryville's total up to about 16 1/2 acres in a city of 10,000 residents.  That works out to an anemic 625 residents per acre, and that doesn't include the daily workforce of 20,000 using the parks, making Emeryville the most park poor of any city in the entire East Bay.
The General Plan, rising to the challenge, recognized the need for more parks and standardized city planning metrics were applied to determine how many acres of parks our town needs.  The nation's premier city planning collegial body, the American Planning Association (APA) provided the justification of a minimum of three acres of parks per 1000 residents or 333 residents per acre and that was adapted in 2009 for all new development in Emeryville.
Also included in our General Plan are provisions recommended that a minimum of one quarter acre of park land is needed to offset each 1000 daily workers.  At the current approximate 20,000 workers city-wide, Emeryville needs to add another five acres.  With a projected 30,000 workers in 2029, the sunset year of the General Plan, the daily workforce offset needed would be seven and a half additional acres of parks.  The Onni project, with its 325,000 square feet of office space plus 20,000 square feet of commercial space at the standard average of 151 workers per square foot translates into one half acre of park space the developer needs to provide to offset.

From the 2009 Emeryville General Plan
We need to build 22-26 acres of new parks to 
get to the goal of 41-46 acres before 2029,
the year the General Plan sunsets.

While Emeryville has added some park land over the last ten years, approximately two acres, that's not been enough to keep pace with our burgeoning population rise, contributing to a downward sliding ratio expressed in our lowest-in-the-East Bay population per acre of park land.  So regardless of the three acres per 1000 residents as the guiding principle spelled out in the parks section of the General Plan, Emeryville is now actually worse off than it was in 2009.  With its current 13,000+ residents, Emeryville has only 17.8 acres of City parks.  That translates to an embarrassing 730 residents per acre for our town and that doesn't include the daily workforce.


Councilman Donahue's Proposal: Nearby Parks
Against this rueful backdrop, Councilman Scott Donahue appears to be doubling down on the City's inaction on parks.  Citing the need for "close by" parks for residents instead of increasing park acreage, Mr Donahue is calling for Emeryville to use a new metric to measure how well the Council is doing on providing parks; namely how many people live within a half mile radius of a park, rejecting the General Plan's three acres per 1000 residents metric.   Conveniently, Councilman Donahue's new way of measuring shows the City as a smashing success on parks and getting better every year since more than 90% of Emeryville residents live within a half mile of a park.

Emeryville's new mayor, Ally Medina, acknowledging the poor record of the City and eschewing Council member Donahue's park proximity metric for measuring the City's park performance, is pledging to do better.  Calling herself the "parks mayor", Ms Medina says the General Plan will no longer be ignored with regard to parks.

Emeryville's 'parks fee' it charges developers has not been up to the task of actually building any parks because the amount City Hall receives doesn't match the costs the City incurs with building parks here.  Adding new parks has become extremely expensive and there has been talk of getting the property owners in town to pay for it by floating a municipal parks bond.  Because almost all the land has buildings on it, the City will have to buy land from reluctant sellers or seize it by eminent domain.  Then the businesses on the site will have to be moved, the land cleared and cleaned up before the actual park can be constructed.
It should be noted the fallow Sherwin Williams site provided the City Council last year an inexpensive way to build a large park but they chose instead to approve development of several large apartment blocks, further exacerbating Emeryville's already bad residents-to-parks ratio.

The costly nature of new park construction and City Hall's limited funds to build them thus serves as a motivator in getting the developers to help pay for the new parks.  Especially because it's the (residential) developer's projects with all their new residents who want and need uncrowded parks that are the reason Emeryville must build more parks. 


From the General Plan:
"As the residential and employment populations increase, it is essential to seize every opportunity to
create additional parks and open space, and to provide public facilities and services that meet the needs of the community."

Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire: Christian Patz

Parks/Open Space &

Sherwin Williams Project:

Christian Patz

The Tattler presents the 2016 election candidates questionnaire.  Candidates for elected office will answer questions broken down into topical sections that effect Emeryville residents. Responses will be released section by section rotating through all the responding candidates representing the City Council and School Board hopefuls.  

The order of presentation was chosen randomly. Regular Tattler stories will be interspersed in the 2016 election questionnaire.  Readers wishing to peruse all the answers by an individual may use the search bar function by entering ”Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire” with the name of the candidate and all of that candidate’s sections will be presented. Alternatively just typing in the name of the candidate will also work. 

There are six candidates running for three seats and all answered our questionnaire save candidate for City Council Brynnda Collins.  

Today, candidate for City Council Christian Patz answers questions on parks/open space and the Sherwin Williams development proposal (please check the previously posted section 1 answers for this candidate's bio):

Section 2  Parks/Open Space

Our General Plan says Emeryville is dramatically underserved in parks.  The 26 acres we have now (includes “linear” parks, essentially glorified sidewalks) must be increased by  21-26 acres within twelve years if our General Plan is to be honored.  However something must change in Emeryville if this is to be achieved because with each passing year, we drift farther away from our goal.  Our park fees obtained from developers have not kept pace with our needs.

Tattler:  City planners use the metric of residents per acre of park land to measure how well a city’s residents are being served.  Oakland is well served with park/open space at approximately 67 residents per acre.  Emeryville currently has about 500 residents per acre.  After peaking in the late 1970’s, Emeryville’s ratio of residents per acre of park/open space has gone down every year since then, despite a few small parks having been built.  This disturbing downward trend has actually accelerated over the last 10 years. Increasing developers park fees is unlikely to help much moving forward owing to the limited amount of developable land left.  Acknowledging all this, what can be done to build the amount of park land we say we want?

Christian Patz:  As we increase our density, this is going to happen. Sometimes we are going to sacrifice park space for housing and sometimes we are going to sacrifice housing for park space. 

If we have 26 acres of parkland,  that means that 3.2% of land in Emeryville is parks. We can increase population density by building up, we cannot do this with parks. Focusing on the person to park acres ration will not work. We should look to add as much park space as possible by looking at what land the city currently owns or can acquire. We will then need to identify funding sources for developing the land.

Tattler:  Our General Plan is very clear on parks/open space; we need more than we have, twice as much.  But the disconnect between what the people say they want and what they’re getting is extreme in Emeryville.  There seems to be no political will to follow the General Plan once politicians get in office.  Politicians routinely say they’re going to turn this around but they have not yet done so.  And yet the voters keep voting for these politicians.  Several council members have been re-elected over and over again. Does this tell you the people don’t really want parks, regardless of what they say?  Are you willing to consider amending our General Plan to delete parks if you can’t or won’t deliver on your promise to build more so at least our guiding document will accurately reflect reality and not be a pie-in-the-sky fantasy meant to elect dishonest politicians?  Considering all this, at what point should the General Plan be considered a failure?

Christian Patz:  This is an historic election in Emeryville. No matter the outcome, every council member will be in their first term. Dianne [Martinez] and Scott [Donahue] are committed to working toward a better city. I will work with them to align the city with the general plan or the general plan to the city. Doing so will not be an overnight task and may not happen in the way some people expect. No plan as broad and ambitious as the city’s general plan is ever a failure or complete success. Given the number of people that worked on it and the quality of the plan, it is a success. Making it a reality will take time and adjustment.

Section 3  Sherwin Williams Project

The Sherwin Williams development project is a mostly residential proposal earmarked for the last large piece of fallow land left in Emeryville.  This single project could easily increase Emeryville’s population by more than 10%.  At 540 all rental residential units planned as well as some office space and a small amount of retail, this project promises to be very consequential for our town for better or worse.

Tattler:  The Sherwin Williams developers propose to add 2.08 acres of public park on the site.  Using the standard formula of 2 people per unit (more if the project attracts families as the developers say it will), the project will come in at about 520 residents per acre and help bring down Emeryville’s already deplorable residents/park acre average. Should negative skewing of our park/residents ratio like this be a disqualifying condition for this project?

Christian Patz:  Would I prefer to see a nice central city park on that parcel, yes. The current plan includes green / park space. Unless the city purchases the land, conversion to a park is not going to happen. The city needs to look at the land it currently owns, parcels that are becoming available, and any surplus land the entities in town have. We need to budget and plan for acquisition and development. This may mean partnering with members of the community or looking into bond funding.

Tattler:  The Sherwin Williams site is relatively cheap since it is fallow.  Because our General Plan requires us to build many more acres of parks within 12 years and because it’s cheaper for the City to buy fallow land than land with buildings already on it for this purpose, and because the City of Emeryville has the capacity to pass a park bond to raise revenue for this, is making the Sherwin Williams site a large park a rational choice?

Christian Patz:  City staff should look at every parcel to present options to the council that includes affordable housing and parks. If the past council had been more forward thinking, this would have been a good use of the land. I am running to make sure we are no longer a developer first town. I will work with Scott and Dianne, who have endorsed me, to make sure we look at the long term future and benefit in Emeryville.



Tattler:  With more than 500 parking spaces, this project can be fairly called another Emeryville ‘drive-in drive-out’ residential development.  Do you see adding this many cars to our streets as being offset by any benefits to existing residents by the project’s amenities?

Christian Patz:  No. We need to look at the transportation needs of the area. More cars will not help. A local resident suggested closing Hollis at 40th, I would be interested in seeing what impact that would have on traffic.

Tattler:  Is Emeryville right now not up to snuff, a less-than-desirable place to live that can only be improved by the Sherwin Williams project going in as proposed?  Do we ‘need’ the Sherwin Williams development? 

Christian Patz:  As I said, the proposed project is not one I hoped for. That said, I am not nor can we be blanketly anti-development. The proposed project, based on the EIR, is a weak but reasonable compromise. It is what we can expect with the current composition of the planning commission and council. As the project progresses, there will be a new council and we can adjust aspects to make ensure Emeryville gets the most it can from the project.

Tattler:  The project is hemmed in on the west by the railroad tracks and on the north by land slated for future development by Novartis, to the east is the Horton Street Bike Boulevard that our General Plan forbids adding more traffic to. How will the retail there be viable with these constraints let alone the office space and the residential units?

Christian Patz:  With most retail businesses, location is the single most important factor. I can think of several businesses that could thrive in that location and multiple that would fail. I am excited to see what opens there. Viability will depend on a strong business plan, awareness of the neighborhood, and community use of the new spaces that will be created. 

Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire: Louise Engel

Parks/Open Space &

Sherwin Williams Project:

Louise Engel

The Tattler presents the 2016 election candidates questionnaire.  Candidates for elected office will answer questions broken down into topical sections that effect Emeryville residents. Responses will be released section by section rotating through all the responding candidates representing the City Council and School Board hopefuls.  

The order of presentation was chosen randomly. Regular Tattler stories will be interspersed in the 2016 election questionnaire.  Readers wishing to peruse all the answers by an individual may use the search bar function by entering ”Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire” with the name of the candidate and all of that candidate’s sections will be presented. Alternatively just typing in the name of the candidate will also work. 

There are six candidates running for three seats and all answered our questionnaire save candidate for City Council Brynnda Collins.  

Today, candidate for City Council Louise Engel answers questions on parks/open space and the Sherwin Williams development proposal (please check the previously posted section 1 answers for this candidate's bio):

Section 2   Parks/Open Space

Our General Plan says Emeryville is dramatically underserved in parks.   The 26 acres we have now (includes “linear” parks, essentially glorified sidewalks) must be increased by   21-26 acres within twelve years if our General Plan is to be honored.   However something must change in Emeryville if this is to be achieved because with each passing year, we drift farther away from our goal.   Our park fees obtained from developers have not kept pace with our needs.

Tatter:  City planners use the metric of residents per acre of park land to measure how well a city’s residents are being served.   Oakland is well served with park/open space at approximately 67 residents per acre.   Emeryville currently has about 500 residents per acre.   After peaking in the late 1970’s, Emeryville’s ratio of residents per acre of park/open space has gone down every year since then, despite a few small parks having been built.   This disturbing downward trend has actually accelerated over the last 10 years. Increasing developers park fees is unlikely to help much moving forward owing to the limited amount of developable land left.   Acknowledging all this, what can be done to build the amount of park land we say we want?  

Louise Engel:  Parks and open space enhance every community by contributing to our overall well-being as we live within this hectic, urban world. Through intense urban redevelopment over the past 20 years, the City evolved from a heavy industry focus, with strip commercial alongside an older housing stock. Emeryville occupies only 1.2 square miles. About 20 percent of the land is roads, highways and other rights of way.  Interstate freeways 80, 880 and 580 bound and/or split the City neighborhoods. Our arterial streets experience heavy commute traffic. Major railroad lines run through the town to transport people, Amtrak, and cargo to points north and south. 

Emeryville’s small geographic size, its central location and the existing transportation systems – people and cargo movers - contribute to the challenge of adhering to optimum standards for park and open space. Our City Parks and Recreation Committee members actively pursue alternative recreation options. For example, at its March meeting this year, the committee discussed parklets: Temescal Creek Park and placing adult fitness equipment in Stanford Avenue Park.

Tattler:  Our General Plan is very clear on parks/open space; we need more than we have, twice as much.   But the disconnect between what the people say they want and what they’re getting is extreme in Emeryville.   There seems to be no political will to follow the General Plan once politicians get in office.   Politicians routinely say they’re going to turn this around but they have not yet done so.   And yet the voters keep voting for these politicians.   Several council members have been re-elected over and over again. Does this tell you the people don’t really want parks, regardless of what they say?   Are you willing to consider amending our General Plan to delete parks if you can’t or won’t deliver on your promise to build more so at least our guiding document will accurately reflect reality and not be a pie-in-the-sky fantasy meant to elect dishonest politicians?   Considering all this, at what point should the General Plan be considered a failure?

Louise Engel:  The public does play a key role in Emeryville’s ability to achieve a goal such as parks/open space. Registered voters elect our City Council which has three positions up for election this November 8th. Citizens participate on committees that study an issue along with the professional assistance of City staff. The decision making process involves interaction among competing interests. Stakeholders and influencers weigh in with their special interests that pertain to development and land changes that impact potential park/ open space. 

In addition State laws and regulations impose another layer of scrutiny on City actions. For example, in March 2016, the City Council approved an annual progress report on the General Plan. The report highlighted progress on updating the housing plan elements as well as the other plan elements which would include parks and open space. The City then submitted that report to the State, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research and the California Department of Housing and Community Development, as required by law. 

Section 3   Sherwin Williams Project

The Sherwin Williams development project is a mostly residential proposal earmarked for the last large piece of fallow land left in Emeryville.   This single project could easily increase Emeryville’s population by more than 10%.   At 540 all rental residential units planned as well as some office space and a small amount of retail, this project promises to be very consequential for our town for better or worse.

Readers Note:  Louise Engel did not answer any questions on the Sherwin Williams section.  She did produce the following text as a response to all five questions:

Louise Engel:  An infill development proposal, reuse of land, challenges all of the ways in which our elected officials work through balancing the City’s regulatory framework with the interests of neighbors alongside those of the developer. The developer seeks to create a planned unit development that is economically viable.  There are no easy answers.

The proposal to develop the Sherwin Williams project site has undergone City review for more than 4 years. The Planning Commission and City Council held study sessions in fall of 2013. Earlier this year 2016, the Planning Commission held a public hearing. During the environmental review process the applicant worked with neighborhood groups and submitted a revised application for the project to the Planning Commission in July for its review. 

At the recent September meeting, the Emeryville City Council again considered extensive input from staff; public comment from businesses, neighborhood groups and individuals. Many of the issue areas, described in the five questions posed above, were among those raised in that public forum. Many concerned people have actively participated to shape, and to reshape the proposal, to achieve an outcome responsive to maintaining a quality of life here in Emeryville.

Working together as a collaborative committee, PARC, the nearby neighborhood stakeholder group, is achieving changes to the project that are directly meaningful to their daily lives. This citizen initiated committee provides an example of civic engagement that gives them a united voice coupled with leverage to effect their neighborhood for years to come. 

Tattler:  The Sherwin Williams developers propose to add 2.08 acres of public park on the site.   Using the standard formula of 2 people per unit (more if the project attracts families as the developers say it will), the project will come in at about 520 residents per acre and help bring down Emeryville’s already deplorable residents/park acre average. Should negative skewing of our park/residents ratio like this be a disqualifying condition for this project?

Louise Engel:  Did not answer

Tattler:  The Sherwin Williams site is relatively cheap since it is fallow.   Because our General Plan requires us to build many more acres of parks within 12 years and because it’s cheaper for the City to buy fallow land than land with buildings already on it for this purpose, and because the City of Emeryville has the capacity to pass a park bond to raise revenue for this, is making the Sherwin Williams site a large park a rational choice?

Louise Engel:  Did not answer

Tattler:  With more than 500 parking spaces, this project can be fairly called another Emeryville ‘drive-in drive-out’ residential development.   Do you see adding this many cars to our streets as being offset by any benefits to existing residents by the project’s amenities?

Louise Engel:  Did not answer

Tattler:  Is Emeryville right now not up to snuff, a less-than-desirable place to live that can only be improved by the Sherwin Williams project going in as proposed?   Do we ‘need’ the Sherwin Williams development?

Louise Engel:  Did not answer

Tattler:  The project is hemmed in on the west by the rail road tracks and on the north by land slated for future development by Novartis, to the east is the Horton Street Bike Boulevard that our General Plan forbids adding more traffic to. How will the retail there be viable with these constraints let alone the office space and the residential units?

Louise Engel:  Did not answer

Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire: John Bauters

Parks/Open Space &

Sherwin Williams Project:

John Bauters

The Tattler presents the 2016 election candidates questionnaire.  Candidates for elected office will answer questions broken down into topical sections that effect Emeryville residents. Responses will be released section by section rotating through all the responding candidates representing the City Council and School Board hopefuls.  

The order of presentation was chosen randomly. Regular Tattler stories will be interspersed in the 2016 election questionnaire.  Readers wishing to peruse all the answers by an individual may use the search bar function by entering ”Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire” with the name of the candidate and all of that candidate’s sections will be presented. Alternatively just typing in the name of the candidate will also work. 

There are six candidates running for three seats and all answered our questionnaire save candidate for City Council Brynnda Collins.  

Today, candidate for City Council John Bauters answers questions on parks/open space and the Sherwin Williams development proposal (please check the previously posted section 1 answers for this candidate's bio):

Section 2  Parks/Open Space

Our General Plan says Emeryville is dramatically underserved in parks.  The 26 acres we have now (includes “linear” parks, essentially glorified sidewalks) must be increased by  21-26 acres within twelve years if our General Plan is to be honored.  However something must change in Emeryville if this is to be achieved because with each passing year, we drift farther away from our goal.  Our park fees obtained from developers have not kept pace with our needs.

Tattler:  City planners use the metric of residents per acre of park land to measure how well a city’s residents are being served.  Oakland is well served with park/open space at approximately 67 residents per acre.  Emeryville currently has about 500 residents per acre.  After peaking in the late 1970’s, Emeryville’s ratio of residents per acre of park/open space has gone down every year since then, despite a few small parks having been built.  This disturbing downward trend has actually accelerated over the last 10 years. Increasing developers park fees is unlikely to help much moving forward owing to the limited amount of developable land left.  Acknowledging all this, what can be done to build the amount of park land we say we want?   

John Bauters:  Much like my views on housing, I believe we must think about our future and look for opportunities to engage in smart development that delivers new parkland for the community. The city must make a concerted effort to produce new green space as we move forward. Public space is a major part of improving community livability. The General Plan calls for a number of additional parks in the community and I support taking affirmative steps to fulfill that vision. Impact fees will be insufficient for financing the acquisition of property intended for park space. I would like to examine the viability of several options including a park bond to help us bring green improvements to our community.

Tatter:  Our General Plan is very clear on parks/open space; we need more than we have, twice as much.  But the disconnect between what the people say they want and what they’re getting is extreme in Emeryville.  There seems to be no political will to follow the General Plan once politicians get in office.  Politicians routinely say they’re going to turn this around but they have not yet done so.  And yet the voters keep voting for these politicians.  Several council members have been re-elected over and over again. Does this tell you the people don’t really want parks, regardless of what they say?  Are you willing to consider amending our General Plan to delete parks if you can’t or won’t deliver on your promise to build more so at least our guiding document will accurately reflect reality and not be a pie-in-the-sky fantasy meant to elect dishonest politicians?  Considering all this, at what point should the General Plan be considered a failure?

John Bauters:  Like most residents of Emeryville, I want additional park space - useable park space in particular. I have no intention of deleting parks from our General Plan and I can commit to working with the other members of council to help us fulfill the General Plan's vision for green space. The General Plan is only a failure when the community no longer holds that vision for itself. I believe that many residents still share those goals for our community's future and I am committed to helping us realize them.

Section 3  Sherwin Williams Project

The Sherwin Williams development project is a mostly residential proposal earmarked for the last large piece of fallow land left in Emeryville.  This single project could easily increase Emeryville’s population by more than 10%.  At 540 all rental residential units planned as well as some office space and a small amount of retail, this project promises to be very consequential for our town for better or worse.

Tattler:  The Sherwin Williams developers propose to add 2.08 acres of public park on the site.  Using the standard formula of 2 people per unit (more if the project attracts families as the developers say it will), the project will come in at about 520 residents per acre and help bring down Emeryville’s already deplorable residents/park acre average. Should negative skewing of our park/residents ratio like this be a disqualifying condition for this project?

John Bauters:  I sincerely disagree with the way you've characterized the value of the proposed park at Sherwin Williams. The Park Avenue District is a neighborhood development overlay that is bounded by Emery Street on the east, the railroad on the west, 40th Street to the south and just north of 45th Street to the north. This overlay accounts for a large, central region of the city that represents the historic center for the community in many ways. Ironically, the Park Avenue District has no parks whatsoever. The opportunity to create a large, unified community park in the heart of a neighborhood that has hundreds of residents but no park space is a meaningful one that at a neighborhood level, even by your metrics, will dramatically improve the ratio of parkland to resident for that neighborhood. While it is helpful to use metrics in our evaluation of overall progress, doing so without a qualitative examination of the added value from a community benefit such as a park can be counterproductive. It can deter community engagement and undermine the opportunity to build community pride. If we allow 2 acres of new park space to be framed as a detriment to the community because of ratios we abandon our pursuit of the goals outlined by the General Plan. The Plan promotes opportunities to create park space. While it is completely within your right to disapprove of the city's resident to park acreage ratio, I support a more holistic view of and qualitative approach to evaluating the value individual projects and their components hold for our community.

Tattler:  The Sherwin Williams site is relatively cheap since it is fallow.  Because our General Plan requires us to build many more acres of parks within 12 years and because it’s cheaper for the City to buy fallow land than land with buildings already on it for this purpose, and because the City of Emeryville has the capacity to pass a park bond to raise revenue for this, is making the Sherwin Williams site a large park a rational choice?

John Bauters:  Your raise a number of very legitimate points about the opportunity to acquire fallow land at a comparably cheaper rate than land with improvements on it. However, you've noted repeatedly that you would like the city to fulfill its commitments to the General Plan - a principle I share. This site is zoned to be part park space and part mixed-use residential development. Broadly speaking, the current proposal is consistent with the General Plan in that regard. As previously mentioned, I support exploring a park bond for additional park development across the city, consistent with the General Plan.

Tattler:  With more than 500 parking spaces, this project can be fairly called another Emeryville ‘drive-in drive-out’ residential development.  Do you see adding this many cars to our streets as being offset by any benefits to existing residents by the project’s amenities?

John Bauters:  I was fortunate to be included as part of the team from the Park Avenue Residents Committee (PARC) that negotiated a community benefits agreement with Sherwin-Williams developer, Lennar. This agreement included a lot of mitigations and concessions related to traffic mitigation. It is important to remember that residents stepped in on a voluntary basis to secure these benefits for our community in a first-of-its-kind agreement for Emeryville. Holding the developer accountable to all the terms of that agreement ultimately lies with the city. The developer has agreed to submit the agreement we reached as conditions of approval for the project. The specific traffic mitigations we obtained through the community benefits agreement, among other things, included the following:

* Private shuttle from the Park Avenue District neighborhood to West Oakland BART that will be open to all Emeryville residents; 

* 10 car share spaces, including 7 within the project site and 3 in the surrounding neighborhood, all of them open to all Emeryville residents, to increase car share options that can reduce reliance on cars within the community;

* Additional bike lockers and bike infrastructure, including secure bike rooms within buildings, cargo bike lockers and bike repair stations.

* Bike share provided by Bay Area Bike Share, aligning our bike share infrastructure with BART's program.

* Implementation of optimized shared parking within the project, allowing for fewer spaces to be proposed for construction during the Final Development Plan (FDP) process by having parking spaces that are available to the commercial office space employees during business hours become resident and guest spaces in evening and overnight hours.

* The developer will fund a parking management program that will enforce 2 hour parking for our community, helping keep spaces outside small, local-serving businesses free for use, decreasing the effect of cars circling through the neighborhood.

* A bicycle-pedestrian-only pass-through of the existing building at Horton and 4th Streets that will extend west from Horton into the community park, linking the neighborhood with both bicycle boulevards and making a direct route from the east side of town through the site and up the greenway to the South Bayfront Bridge that will connect to Bay Street, creating a complete east-to-west bicycle-pedestrian transit route for our community.

Tattler:  Is Emeryville right now not up to snuff, a less-than-desirable place to live that can only be improved by the Sherwin Williams project going in as proposed?  Do we ‘need’ the Sherwin Williams development?

John Bauters:  The city does not necessarily "need" Sherwin-Williams to be developed. The reality, however, is that without it we do not currently have the resources or plans to build over 2 acres of additional park space, add over 75 units of family-oriented affordable housing, provide a free mass transit connection to West Oakland BART, install new bike/ped connectors and infrastructure to build out our bike routes and greenway, and finance many other community benefits and features residents have been trying to obtain. We must pursue development with a focus on the ideal but understand that obtaining community benefits requires negotiation. In the end, it comes down to effort - you must be willing to fight hard in pursuit of the ideal and not simply accept what has been offered. I will always fight hard for our ideals to ensure we maximize the potential for our community by negotiating on behalf of our resident base when new development is proposed.

Tattler:  The project is hemmed in on the west by the rail road tracks and on the north by land slated for future development by Novartis, to the east is the Horton Street Bike Boulevard that our General Plan forbids adding more traffic to. How will the retail there be viable with these constraints let alone the office space and the residential units?

John Bauters:  The developer has significantly scaled down the commercial retail space proposed by this development to 8,000 sq. ft. from an initial proposal of 20,000. Discussions PARC has had related to parking have included allowing for minimal parking for these commercial developments. This can have the effect of only attracting tenants who want local customers that will walk or bike, helping us further reduce traffic demand by delivering retail that is supported exclusively by a local customer base.

Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire: John Van Geffen

Parks/Open Space &

Sherwin Williams Project:

John Van Geffen

The Tattler presents the 2016 election candidates questionnaire.  Candidates for elected office will answer questions broken down into topical sections that effect Emeryville residents. Responses will be released section by section rotating through all the responding candidates representing the City Council and School Board hopefuls.  

The order of presentation was chosen randomly. Regular Tattler stories will be interspersed in the 2016 election questionnaire.  Readers wishing to peruse all the answers by an individual may use the search bar function by entering ”Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire” with the name of the candidate and all of that candidate’s sections will be presented. Alternatively just typing in the name of the candidate will also work. 

There are six candidates running for three seats and all answered our questionnaire save candidate for City Council Brynnda Collins.  

Today, candidate for City Council John Van Geffen answers questions on parks/open space and the Sherwin Williams development proposal (please check the previously posted section 1 answers for this candidate's bio):

Section 2  Parks/Open Space

Our General Plan says Emeryville is dramatically underserved in parks.  The 26 acres we have now (includes “linear” parks, essentially glorified sidewalks) must be increased by  21-26 acres within twelve years if our General Plan is to be honored.  However something must change in Emeryville if this is to be achieved because with each passing year, we drift farther away from our goal.  Our park fees obtained from developers have not kept pace with our needs.

Tattler:  City planners use the metric of residents per acre of park land to measure how well a city’s residents are being served.  Oakland is well served with park/open space at approximately 67 residents per acre.  Emeryville currently has about 500 residents per acre.  After peaking in the late 1970’s, Emeryville’s ratio of residents per acre of park/open space has gone down every year since then, despite a few small parks having been built.  This disturbing downward trend has actually accelerated over the last 10 years. Increasing developers park fees is unlikely to help much moving forward owing to the limited amount of developable land left.  Acknowledging all this, what can be done to build the amount of park land we say we want?   

John Van Geffen:  This goes back to your earlier question about affordable housing. We as a city need to prioritize when considering new development and its affect on our city. If the majority of Emeryville's residents decided that the need for additional park space exceeded the need for affordable housing then we definitely have options available to us through the permitting process. But the idea that we can get everything we want from developers--e.g., more bike paths, park space, mixed use, BMR units, homeownership, shuttle service, etc., etc., and STILL be competitive with alternative sites in Berkeley or Oakland simply isn't realistic. As a candidate for City Council I want voters to consider me as practical and realistic, not someone who will over-promise and then under-deliver.    

Tattler: Our General Plan is very clear on parks/open space; we need more than we have, twice as much.  But the disconnect between what the people say they want and what they’re getting is extreme in Emeryville.  There seems to be no political will to follow the General Plan once politicians get in office.  Politicians routinely say they’re going to turn this around but they have not yet done so.  And yet the voters keep voting for these politicians.  Several council members have been re-elected over and over again. Does this tell you the people don’t really want parks, regardless of what they say?  Are you willing to consider amending our General Plan to delete parks if you can’t or won’t deliver on your promise to build more so at least our guiding document will accurately reflect reality and not be a pie-in-the-sky fantasy meant to elect dishonest politicians?  Considering all this, at what point should the General Plan be considered a failure?

John Van Geffen: There is nothing wrong with wanting more park space even though in reality, the possibility of doubling our existing park space is simply not feasible (unless the train tracks magically disappear or we change the definition of "park space"). 

Unfortunately, as Mark Twain's old adage goes, "Buy land, they're not making it anymore". I do not know of a way for Emeryville to substantially increase our city's park space and simultaneously increase our housing supply to meet demands.

To answer your specific question about the General Plan, I don't think we need to amend the General Plan just to "acknowledge failure" because that does not address the problem and, in my opinion, seems to be exactly the type of political theater your blog tends to lambast against. 

Section 3  Sherwin Williams Project

The Sherwin Williams development project is a mostly residential proposal earmarked for the last large piece of fallow land left in Emeryville.  This single project could easily increase Emeryville’s population by more than 10%.  At 540 all rental residential units planned as well as some office space and a small amount of retail, this project promises to be very consequential for our town for better or worse.

Tattler:  The Sherwin Williams developers propose to add 2.08 acres of public park on the site.  Using the standard formula of 2 people per unit (more if the project attracts families as the developers say it will), the project will come in at about 520 residents per acre and help bring down Emeryville’s already deplorable residents/park acre average. Should negative skewing of our park/residents ratio like this be a disqualifying condition for this project?

John Van Geffen:  I attended the September 6th City Hall meetings with dozens of my fellow Emeryville residents and listened along with everyone else to the recent developments with the Sherwin Williams project. When the time came for comments from the public, there was a considerable number of opinions on how the City Council should manage the project--e.g., where the park(s) would be located, what the % of BMR units would be, whether the BMR units would be in a separate building, use existing buildings, use of commercial space, etc. 

But, while the residents of Emeryville have a plethora of views on how the project should move forward, the consensus was that the project should move forward. 

In answer to the remainder of your questions about the Sherwin Williams project, the people of Emeryville want, in some shape or form, for the development to move forward. So, instead of cultivating dissent, we should take a cue from the advocacy group PARC and concentrate on what our residents' priorities are and how to best achieve them.

Tattler:  The Sherwin Williams site is relatively cheap since it is fallow.  Because our General Plan requires us to build many more acres of parks within 12 years and because it’s cheaper for the City to buy fallow land than land with buildings already on it for this purpose, and because the City of Emeryville has the capacity to pass a park bond to raise revenue for this, is making the Sherwin Williams site a large park a rational choice?

John Van Geffen: Did not answer

Tattler:  With more than 500 parking spaces, this project can be fairly called another Emeryville ‘drive-in drive-out’ residential development.  Do you see adding this many cars to our streets as being offset by any benefits to existing residents by the project’s amenities?

John Van Geffen:  Did not answer

Tattler:  Is Emeryville right now not up to snuff, a less-than-desirable place to live that can only be improved by the Sherwin Williams project going in as proposed?  Do we ‘need’ the Sherwin Williams development? 

John Van Geffen: Did not answer

Tattler:  The project is hemmed in on the west by the rail road tracks and on the north by land slated for future development by Novartis, to the east is the Horton Street Bike Boulevard that our General Plan forbids adding more traffic to. How will the retail there be viable with these constraints let alone the office space and the residential units?

John Van Geffen:  Did not answer

Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire: Ally Medina

Parks/Open Space &

Sherwin Williams Project:

Ally Medina

The Tattler presents the 2016 election candidates questionnaire.  Candidates for elected office will answer questions broken down into topical sections that effect Emeryville residents. Responses will be released section by section rotating through all the responding candidates representing the City Council and School Board hopefuls.  

The order of presentation was chosen randomly. Regular Tattler stories will be interspersed in the 2016 election questionnaire.  Readers wishing to peruse all the answers by an individual may use the search bar function by entering ”Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire” with the name of the candidate and all of that candidate’s sections will be presented. Alternatively just typing in the name of the candidate will also work. 

There are six candidates running for three seats and all answered our questionnaire save candidate for City Council Brynnda Collins.  

Today, candidate for City Council Ally Medina answers questions on parks/open space and the Sherwin Williams development proposal (please check the previously posted section 1 answers for this candidate's bio):

Section 2 Parks/Open Space

Our General Plan says Emeryville is dramatically under-served in parks. The 26 acres we have now (includes “linear” parks, essentially glorified sidewalks) must be increased by 21-26 acres within twelve years if our General Plan is to be honored. However something must change in Emeryville if this is to be achieved because with each passing year, we drift farther away from our goal. Our park fees obtained from developers have not kept pace with our needs.

Tattler:  City planners use the metric of residents per acre of park land to measure how well a city’s residents are being served. Oakland is well served with park/open space at approximately 67 residents per acre. Emeryville currently has about 500 residents per acre. After peaking in the late 1970’s, Emeryville’s ratio of residents per acre of park/open space has gone down every year since then, despite a few small parks having been built. This disturbing downward trend has actually accelerated over the last 10 years. Increasing developers park fees is unlikely to help much moving forward owing to the limited amount of developable land left. Acknowledging all this, what can be done to build the amount of park land we say we want?

Ally Medina:  As a city, we can look to policies that mandate street level parks (much more usable by residents) be built in all new developments if the park fee fund exceeds the current amount of park space left to develop. We can also refuse to allow any new projects that lower our proportion of residents to parks/open space, which would automatically increase the proportion (albeit by very small measure).

Tattler:  Our General Plan is very clear on parks/open space; we need more than we have, twice as much. But the disconnect between what the people say they want and what they’re getting is extreme in Emeryville. There seems to be no political will to follow the General Plan once politicians get in office. Politicians routinely say they’re going to turn this around but they have not yet done so. And yet the voters keep voting for these politicians. Several council members have been re-elected over and over again. Does this tell you the people don’t really want parks, regardless of what they say? Are you willing to consider amending our General Plan to delete parks if you can’t or won’t deliver on your promise to build more so at least our guiding document will accurately reflect reality and not be a pie-in-the-sky fantasy meant to elect dishonest politicians? Considering all this, at what point should the General Plan be considered a failure?

Ally Medina:  I believe that our leaders are concerned about the amount of parks and open space, but there are significant challenges to reaching the goals outlined in the General Plan due to our size and density, and there are other pressing issues (economic, housing, etc) competing for prioritization. I am personally committed to taking the lead in working with my colleagues on the council, city staff and community leaders on tackling these challenges, which I realize is not going to be easy, but is possible with someone focused on driving solutions. Community feedback and support on this issue is key in moving forward - the council must be responsive to our constituents’ concerns and the more support we have from the community, the more power we have in working with developers and large businesses to ensure parks and open spaces are included in new developments and other urban planning projects.

Section 3 Sherwin Williams Project

The Sherwin Williams development project is a mostly residential proposal earmarked for the last large piece of fallow land left in Emeryville. This single project could easily increase Emeryville’s population by more than 10%. At 540 all rental residential units planned as well as some office space and a small amount of retail, this project promises to be very consequential for our town for better or worse.

Tattler:  The Sherwin Williams developers propose to add 2.08 acres of public park on the site. Using the standard formula of 2 people per unit (more if the project attracts families as the developers say it will), the project will come in at about 520 residents per acre and help bring down Emeryville’s already deplorable residents/park acre average. Should negative skewing of our park/residents ratio like this be a disqualifying condition for this project?

Ally Medina:  This project has already gone through extensive public input and review by the planning commission and city council, and will likely be approved before the election. I would support a policy of not allowing new development that brings down our parks/residents ratio in the future. 

Tattler:  The Sherwin Williams site is relatively cheap since it is fallow. Because our General Plan requires us to build many more acres of parks within 12 years and because it’s cheaper for the City to buy fallow land than land with buildings already on it for this purpose, and because the City of Emeryville has the capacity to pass a park bond to raise revenue for this, is making the Sherwin Williams site a large park a rational choice?

Ally Medina:  Again, the project has already undergone extensive community review. We need to look toward future developments with a critical eye with regard to the ratio of parks to residents.

Tattler:  With more than 500 parking spaces, this project can be fairly called another Emeryville ‘drive-in drive-out’ residential development. Do you see adding this many cars to our streets as being offset by any benefits to existing residents by the project’s amenities?

Ally Medina:  I understand that there will be extensive community benefits in terms of a bike/pedestrian pathway as well as bike parking and increased affordable housing. I do not necessarily support designing developments with cars as the primary mode of transportation, studies have shown that putting public transit by affordable housing is a best practice in city design and I hope that we can increase alternative transportation options to this site to decrease the number of residents who rely on cars for their primary mode of transit.  

Tattler:  Is Emeryville right now not up to snuff, a less-than-desirable place to live that can only be improved by the Sherwin Williams project going in as proposed? Do we ‘need’ the Sherwin Williams development?

Ally Medina:  As stated above, I think there are significant community benefits that will come out of this project. Instead of debating the drawbacks of a project that has already gone through the public process, we need to look at how we can make future developments prioritize affordable housing, public transit, pedestrian safety and parks.

Tattler:  The project is hemmed in on the west by the rail road tracks and on the north by land slated for future development by Novartis, to the east is the Horton Street Bike Boulevard that our General Plan forbids adding more traffic to. How will the retail there be viable with these constraints let alone the office space and the residential units? 

Ally Medina:  By adding a dense population of new residents and bike/pedestrian infrastructure, we should see an influx of pedestrian traffic that is more likely to shop at small local businesses.

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.

New Development Proposals Degrade Emeryville Parks/Open Space

'Big Three' Residential Developments Drag Emeryville Down

Tattler Investigation Shows Town Going Backwards on Parks/Open Space

News Analysis
As developers rush to build apartment projects on the last three large plots of fallow land left in Emeryville; the Market Place development, the Sherwin Williams project and the Anton (Nady) site, the Tattler has revealed these residential projects will negatively skew the ratio of residents per acre of park and open space land in our town.  An investigation reveals these projects will substantially increase the number of people per acre of park, exacerbating an already dramatically underserved Emeryville population.

The current lack of park land is something residents often cite as a problem in Emeryville; the General Plan clearly shows this as a problem, and taxpayer funded proposed parks aren't getting built owing to a lack of funds at City Hall.  But it's a subject begging our attention: Emeryville's current 472 residents per acre of park/open space land, a shamefully high number, towers over our neighbor Oakland's 67 residents per acre.  More troubling is the trajectory; if these last three projects get approved as they're proposed, the ratio of people to parks will get much worse in Emeryville with little chance to ever catch up with our neighbors.

The numbers tell the tale:

Emeryville
Population  10,777 (2013)*
Acres of Park/Open Space  22.82
Residents/Acre  472

Oakland
Population  406,253
Acres of Park/Open Space  6,063
Residents/Acre  67

Berkeley
Population  116,768
Acres of Park/Open Space  235
Residents/Acre  497

*Doesn't include the first phase of the Market Place project, Emme Apartments completed in May 2015; 190 units with approximately 380 total residents.  Other smaller residential projects are also not included.

It's worth noting is how Emeryville's park land is currently distributed; most of it is located in the marina neighborhood leaving the east side of town underserved.

The last three large residential projects will increase our population and two of the projects will increase our park land.  But the new ratio of acres of park land to residents in the Big Three will drive down the ratio of park land to residents for the whole town.
Here's how the 'Big Three' numbers by themselves break:

Market Place Development
Units  456
Acres Park Land Added  .46

Sherwin Williams Development
Units  540
Acres Park Land Added  2.08

Anton (Nady) Development
Units  211
Acres Park Land Added  0

Together these three projects add 1207 units and 2.54 acres of new park land.  Using the double formula (an average of two persons per unit), the total number of people added to Emeryville with these projects will be 2414.  It should be noted however City Hall has said they are pushing for more family friendly units and to the extent they are successful, there may be more than an average of two people per unit for these projects, skewing the numbers presented here, driving up the people per acre.
Here are the numbers of the projects by themselves against Emeryville currently:

Emeryville Currently (2013)
Residents/Acre  472

Market Place Proposal
New Residents  912
Residents/Acre  1983

Sherwin Williams Proposal
New Residents  1080
Residents/Acre  527

Anton (Nady) Proposal
New Residents  422
No Park Land Added

So it can be seen these housing projects actually take Emeryville backwards when it comes to residents per acre and subsequent crowding in our parks/open space.  When added to Emeryville's numbers, these big three projects will skew the numbers against our neighbors thusly:

Emeryville (add 'Big Three')
Population  13277
Acres Park/Open Space  25.36
Residents/Acre  524*

Oakland
Residents/Acre  67

Berkeley
Residents/Acre  497

*Doesn't include the first phase of the Market Place project, Emme Apartments on 64th Street completed in May 2015; 190 units with approximately 380 residents.  Adding these apartments after they're fully rented would change the total Emeryville number of residents per acre of park to 538.  Also, smaller residential development projects are not included in this calculation but they also will drive the number of residents per acre higher because no other of these proposed small developments will directly add to our park acreage.

Doyle Hollis Park
Emeryville residents can expect our parks to get a lot more
crowded if the 'Big Three' developments get approved.