Parks Get in the Way of Housing Says Emeryville Mayor

Mayor Announces Parks Are No Longer a Priority for Emeryville

It's Only Housing, Housing and More Housing For Emeryville

General Plan Parks Policy Overturned With Mayor's Proclamation

News Analysis

Emeryville’s mayor Tuesday night, finally put to words why Emeryville has stopped building new parks; “Because people don’t need to sleep in a park, they need to sleep with a roof over their head” he said, adding that “the region is suffering from a lack of housing”.  

The surprising announcement came as a response to questions from the Tattler at the City Council meeting, when Mayor John Bauters presented a major reversal of settled public park policy for Emeryville.  He said the City of Emeryville will no longer prioritize building parks, focusing instead on building as much housing as fast as can be built.  “Our housing jobs balance is off” he offered as a rationale. 

While his City Council colleagues looked on silently, the Mayor did not equivocate, “Every person on the City Council agrees we wish to expand parks and find opportunities to do that but not at the cost of housing” he said.

Mayor John Bauters
He says Emeryville needs housing
instead of parks.  He presents a false equivalency
between the two: it's going to be
parks or housing and he choses housing.

The issue of parks was discussed Tuesday night as a result of developers who had responded to a request for proposals from the City of Emeryville to build a large, new all rental residential tower on land south of Christie Avenue park.  The developers told the Council they were prepared to expand the existing park by as much as 10,000 square feet if they are given permission to build their proposed project.  But 10,000 square feet of park expansion is anemic, short by about 120,000 square feet if we are to keep pace with what the General Plan says should be built to offset the proposed tower.

The false equivalency of parks or housing put forth by Mr Bauters mimics draconian language from the national housing advocacy organization YIMBY, a group with tendrils extending into the Emeryville City Council.  YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard), a lobbying organization funded by developers and right wing entities such as the Koch brothers, was formulated as a pro-development foil to the discredited and disorganized NIMBY phenomenon that local residents sometimes engage in to fight undesirable development.  Other cities in the Bay Area have also recently taken up the YIMBY cause, some council members taking money from them and approving formerly controversial development projects as the organization grows in political power.  Several Emeryville City Council members are associated with YIMBY and at least two have taken money from them, either directly or indirectly.  

It's important to note while NIMBY represents opinions and behavior from individual citizens and as such is not an organization in any meaningful sense of the word, YIMBY is a powerful lobbying organization funded by interested parties, often with corporate dark money.

Emeryville City Councilwoman Courtney Welch (in red)
She agrees, Emeryville needs much more market rate housing.
Posing with YIMBY luminaries at the
YIMBY Prom Gala: "2022's biggest YIMBY party".  
City Council candidate Welch quietly took a campaign
donation of $1000 from the 'YIMBY Victory Fund' .

What Mayor Bauters failed to note as he announced Emeryville’s new park policy is that our guiding document, the General Plan, says Emeryville DOES need to build more parks.  A lot more.  In fact, more than 50 acres of parks are delineated by the sunset of the General Plan in 2030.  As of 2020, Emeryville had (and still has) only 22.4 park acres.  We should have had 41.6 acres by 2020 if we were following the General Plan.

Mr Bauters’ unquantified announcement that the City will not build parks until some future day when there is enough housing, was really more of an imprimatur, finalizing what has been a 'no park' trajectory by the City since the General Plan was written more than ten years ago.  The City has not been building parks nearly fast enough to offset all the new housing being built and Emeryville has been falling further behind our designated park needs every year.  The mayor’s announcement simply puts to words what has been the City's default policy of not building enough parks.  

The ‘parks or housing’ false choice proffered by Mr Bauters belies Emeryville’s massive market rate housing boom of recent years.  The City has been building housing at a prodigious rate.   The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that Emeryville wants to exceed housing requirements from the Association of Bay Area Governments by 50 percent even while neighboring cities are failing to meet the ABAG housing minimums.  The Chron reported as such, "One Bay Area town, the small city of Emeryville, is shooting to not only meet the target but exceed it by a mile".  Councilman Bauters admitted as late as 2019 the City was doing its share building housing, “Developers line up to build in the City”, giving Emeryville a “pro-housing” designation, he told the Real Deal, a local real estate magazine. 

YIMBY Prom Court
Ms Martinez, a vocal
antagonist against planning and
a long time critic of ABAG's 
housing needs assessment,
was also a 'VIP' guest at the
October YIMBY prom gala.

So while Emeryville has built housing more than what the jobs/housing balance actually requires as tabulated by ABAG and in spite of Mayor Bauters’ proclamations,  Mr Bauters now says the City needs to step up even more in its zeal to build housing.  Taken at his word, the parks-at-the-expense-of housing equivalency presented by Mr Bauters hints that whereas before Emeryville could presumably build parks, now we can’t, regardless of what our General Plan says.  Parks are a luxury Emeryville can no longer afford Mayor Bauters implies.  

The new no parks policy has come at a bad time for our town.  Emeryville has been the worst city in the East Bay area for parks for decades.  Our residents per acre of park in 2020 was at 549.  That number has gone higher since 2020.  We need to be much lower; three acres for every 1000 residents or 333 residents per acre. As we build more housing and don’t build enough parks to offset the increase in population, every year Emeryville gets worse.  And with Mr Bauters’ new no parks policy, delivered by executive fiat, that will likely be our fate.  Against all this pressure from an outside organization and barring a democratic pushback, Emeryville is now on track to remain the worst city in the East Bay area for parks into the foreseeable future.

Mayor Bauters refused to comment for this story but he said his comments made at the City Council meeting can be quoted as accurately portraying his policy ideas.