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Showing posts with label Richard Nixon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard Nixon. Show all posts

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Post Moratorium Debate, a Flawed 'Market Place' Development Moves Towards Approval

Mayor's Secret Plan For Better Housing Gets First Test

News Analysis
A huge residential apartment development proposal is just now rounding the corner in Emeryville, heading into the home stretch, headed for approval at City Hall.  It's the massive multi-phase 'Market Place' project on Shellmound Street with its 456 100% rental residential units, 70,000 square feet of retail and 1345 structured parking spaces.  Being all rental, this housing project is similar to most every other residential development project approved in Emeryville over the last many years.  It's also counter to what Emeryville residents say they want from new housing projects.

What's noteworthy about this project is that it's the first development proposal coming up for approval after a controversial residential building moratorium idea was proposed by the City Council but then rejected by Mayor Ruth Atkin and Councilwoman Nora Davis last February.  The three vote Council majority sought the moratorium to carve out time to strengthen the City's planning documents after so many years of flawed developments approved under the existing documents.  Lacking a four vote super-majority, the moratorium idea failed leaving only Ms Atkin's plan to fix Emeryville's weak planning documents.  However, Mayor Atkin has yet to reveal her plan to fix the problem, tantalizingly offering only "a moratorium is the wrong way to go about doing this".

Artist's Conception: Market Place Development
Featuring lots of deluxe White People.
For their part, developers aren't interested in waiting to hear about the Mayor's plan to stop flawed residential development; they're rapidly moving ahead in Emeryville.
One of the last three major residential developments left in Emeryville (the other two being  at the Sherwin Williams site and the 'Nady' site), the Market Place received approval for the first of its five parcels from the Planning Commission on May 28th.  The remaining four parcels are being presented rapid fire at subsequent meetings for the Planning Commission's approval.

A high density development, the Market Place project has the following characteristics identified by the public as being undesirable for future Emeryville residential development proposals:

  • 100% rental, no for sale units
  • No affordable units
  • Automobile dependent
  •  Not family friendly
  • No guarantee for locally serving non-formula chain retail
  • Exacerbates Emeryville's existing bad ratio of residents per acre of park/open space

The bullet points above are taken from goals highlighted by Emeryville's planning documents.  The Market Place project runs afoul of the following City Hall documents:

  • The General Plan
  • The Housing Element
  • The Family Friendly Design Guidelines

After a 25 year building spree has left only three sites to get housing right in Emeryville, residents know the kind of housing development found in the Market Place proposal is flawed.  A contrite Mayor Atkin assured everyone she agrees the residential development that's been built over the last many years has been flawed.  Regardless of the fact that as a five term Council member, she herself has voted for all that flawed development, Ms Atkin has assured Emeryville residents now she gets it and this time she will deliver a Market Place development in line with what the residents have said they want.  However time is running short for Ms Atkin's plan to take shape and it appears with the vote to approve the first Market Place parcel already having been cast, the Planning Commission is simply doing what it has always done with regard to project approvals.  At this point, Ms Atkin's plan will require the Planning Commission's first vote on the Market Place be overturned.

The Planning Commission will continue to approve the project on a parcel by parcel basis and the City Council will vote on the final development agreement for the Market Place project sometime probably in August.  Watch this space.

President Richard Nixon
In 1968 before the election, Mr Nixon indicated he 
had a secret plan to end the war in Vietnam.  
Strangely, he refused to give details on the plan.  
The war continued on.

Mayor Ruth Atkin
She intimated she also has a secret plan:
 to bring better housing to Emeryville.
Like Nixon, she too has not given any
details for how it will be achieved.  
We hope for the resident's sake, it 
works out better than Nixon's plan.
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Saturday, May 18, 2013

City and School District Impose Gag Order on Task Force

Black List Revealed 

Members of the newly formed City Schools Master Plan Task Force, a group set up under the auspices of a paid School District consultant, received notice of an astounding "ground rule" at their first meeting on April 29th: a gag order forbidding contact with the media, including blogs and other local electronic media.

In February the Tattler brought you the story of the School District's decision to pay $170,000 to consultants, MIG and MKThink, to facilitate a Task Force that would determine the fate in a post-Emeryville Center of Community Life (ECCL) world of six public properties that currently provide community services. Only three of those sites, Anna Yates Elementary School , the former Ralph Hawley Middle School, and the San Pablo Avenue dump site that is the future home of the ECCL (aka the former High School) are actually under the control of the School District. The other three sites, the 43rd Street Recreation Center, the Senior Center, and the Emeryville Child Development Center, are operated by the City. The future of only two sites is really in doubt, that of the Anna Yates Elementary site, and the Recreation Center.

$7700 Per Meeting
Not a Big Fan
of  Transparency:
He also had a black list and
a "plumbers unit" meant to
plug media leaks.
The Task Force was eventually created by both the City and the School District at a recent City Schools Committee meeting.  While the Task Force members and the public will be invited to six Task Force meetings, the consultants will conduct more than twice as many private closed door meetings as well.  Emeryville residents needn't fret that the consultants will be over-worked.  If they conduct the originally-planned 22 meetings, then that works out to just over $7,700 per meeting, generously provided by Emeryville taxpayers.  For that price, one might expect that these will be the most well-publicized city-wide meetings in Emeryville history. Not so.

The first of the Task Force's six public meetings was held on April 29th, although one will search in vain for any mention of it on any School District website.  This lack of notice constitutes a violation of Sacramento's Brown Act, which sets the actual "ground rules" for public meetings, Emery proclamations notwithstanding.
The Tattler has obtained the Task Force meeting minutes which speak for themselves (page 1 Section III):
"One Task Force member asked for clarification on the ground rule asking members not to speak with the media, wondering whether this applied to blogs and other local electronic media. Yes, it is intended to cover all media; having Task Force members refrain from speaking to the media ensures that no group member is pushing a specific agenda by exerting media pressure on other members, and helps to build a culture of trust within the group."
The Tattler confirmed that these minutes accurately reflected the discussion at the meeting through a non-member that was present.

As a public service for Task Force members, the Tattler provides the following Black List of those that Task Force Members should be sure not to speak with:

City and School District's Black List:

(partial list)
The Task Force, which meets to decide the fate of properties in the Triangle neighborhood, meets across town at Ralph Hawley on May 20th at 6:30 p.m.
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