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

Introducing Fannie Lou Hamer Park

Emeryville's First Large Park in 40 Years:

Fannie Lou Hamer Park

Opinion/News Analysis

Emeryville, you've been lied to.
It doesn't have to be more housing.
We could build a large park instead.

Emeryville residents, long agitating for public parks, could finally get a new large park at the Sherwin Williams site along Horton Street as part of a City Council led drive to deliver on the promise of 26 acres of new parks built in our town before 2028.  The fallow Sherwin Williams site could be turned into a large new park almost eight acres in size and would be funded by the sale of a park bond floated by a newly chastened City Council who, since the 1980's has been terribly remiss in the building of parks to keep up with our population growth.  We propose the new park, the biggest built in Emeryville since the Watergate peninsula was constructed, be called Fannie Lou Hamer Park named in honor of the famous civil rights leader of the 1960’s and as such would represent our values in social justice and recognize the citizen's need for a leafy green open space respite from the daily tribulations of congested urban life.  After a long multi-decade program of building housing and shopping malls in Emeryville, Fannie Lou Hamer Park would provide a much needed counterpoint to that as well as redress the long-on-talk, short-on-action issues of livability our town has been subject to.  Fannie Lou Hamer Park could correct a lot of wrongs and make our town as nice as other towns.

The Why's and How's of Fannie Lou Hamer Park 
Emeryville is vastly underserved by parks/open space according to the American Planning Association and other good government/city planning institutions.  But not for long:

• The Sherwin Williams site is Emeryville’s last large piece of fallow ground available to build a large park on, and fallow land is the least expensive location to build a park.
• Emeryville’s residents to park acreage ratio, now almost unimaginable at nearly 500:1, has increased every year since 1979 and FLH Park offers a chance to reverse that.
• No cost to relocate any businesses, building tear down or clean-up (like we incurred at Doyle Hollis Park).
• Financed by floating a general obligation park bond leveraging Emeryville’s copious assessed valuation. 
• The property is acquired by standard private to public eminent domain after paying the developer fair market value.
• The trade off is clear; 30 affordable units above our existing average to be provided by the Sherwin Williams project and a small art gallery versus an eight acre public park.
• Beautiful tree framed sight line to our future iconic South Bayfront Bike/Pedestrian Bridge that will touch down in the park.
• The Horton Street Bike Boulevard is saved.
• Much less traffic in Emeryville. 
• Chances for citizen recharging and even solitude available that only a large park can provide.
• Parks foster civic pride and citizen engagement.
• We get the park now rather than waiting for 12 years. 

The above list offers a cogent and rational take one would expect to have traction in a normal democratically served municipality.  Unfortunately here in contemporary Emeryville, citizens acting as rational cogent agents has been supplanted by a different paradigm.

Fannie Lou Hamer
1917-1977
"I'm sick and tired of 
being sick and tired"
A great moral force of the civil rights
struggle.  Naming our park after her
would continue the pre-Ronald Reagan
tradition of elevating labor leaders
and social justice crusaders by naming
grand civil projects; libraries, town halls
and parks in their honor.
Interest in learning about
Fannie Lou Hamer by children would
be served and Emeryville's values
would be proudly proclaimed.

The Pro-Developer Meme 

The idea that Emeryville would begin a program of building enough parks to catch up with our exploding population growth, an idea considered rational and normal in a different era in a different town, sounds idealistic if not crazy in a town grown used to a naysayers paradigm that has overtaken our town these last decades.  In Emeryville, we’ve been mugged by these naysayers who tell us we’re simply not good enough to have what other towns have.  A strange Patty Hearst Stockholm Syndrome has replaced a former culture of expecting civic spaces that are liked and wanted by the residents.  Now many residents here readily accept what developers and the Council tell us is our only option; let the developers do what they want in our town.  Lots of Emeryville residents feel pride in all the new development projects and are happy developers are paying any attention to us. 
  

Like the thirty year project promulgated by right wing think tanks that gets us repeating the line that limited government is best, after a while it begins to seem like common sense; government is bad, inefficient, wasteful…isn’t it?   It’s no accident that the American people, who 40 years ago used to think the government is good at solving problems now thinks government itself is part of the problem. 

Here too we’ve foreclosed on our own agency to service a long standing right wing meme that insists like trickle down nostrums created in Washington, we have to let developers develop our town…the fact that we have almost 500 residents per acre of park/open space compared to Oakland’s 67 acres per resident only highlights how much better and more desirable Oakland must be according to this meme.  The meme permits a kind of twisted thinking that makes it unreasonable that we could expect to get the 26 acres of parks that our own General Plan requires we build within 12 years.  We’ve become a people who dream of nice things like other people in other towns do but have no expectation at all in getting them, thanks to the pro-developer meme.  

The meme in Emeryville is so ubiquitous, so pervasive that “progressive” City Council members are not at all distinct from the old school conservative Council members on this subject: even though they campaigned on parks, there’s little chance they would consider Fannie Lou Hamer Park because the developer doesn’t want to do it.  The meme is so powerful that even the “progressive” Council members will retract when confronted by the idea that we could build a park, they retract instead of offer a reason why we cannot build a park; reason takes a holiday thanks to the meme.  It is cast as reasonable to not provide reason; developers must be placated and no other vision is entertained. To do otherwise, to build Fannie Lou Hamer Park at the Sherwin Williams site, is so far off the radar that to propose it is tantamount to proposing an Emeryville space program.  

And it’s not just the Council “progressives” and otherwise who cannot even imagine building a park, it’s the citizens too, seduced by the pro-developer meme that Emeryville just isn’t good enough to get what other towns have, who vote for Council members who promise parks but don’t deliver, who worked on our General Plan that promises parks that’s not worth the paper its printed on, who publicly profess the love of parks who dismiss the idea we could build a park here and now for reasons they refuse to specify.  

And the new City Council candidates plying for our votes in November are telling us exactly the same as Council members seeking election have said for decades: they like parks, they’re going to deliver parks they say but they don’t think the Sherwin Williams site is appropriate for reasons not specified other than the dog whistle of the pro-developer meme.  Of course anyone who is aware of the pro-developer meme will not be taken in by the new crop of wanna be Council members.  They seem to be playing to new resident rubes and those mesmerized by the meme.

In coming weeks, Fannie Lou Hamer Park will likely fade into the ether like bike boulevards here and the other things the residents say they want but run afoul of the desires of developers.  Our polity is stark and bereft.  As opposed to what the residents get in other towns not taken over by an alien ideology overlain public policy.  And that’s really sad but it’s also who we’ve become; a town with no pride.  So remember Emeryville, next time you hear anyone say anything good about our town: we’re actually measurably much worse than our neighbors.  We have almost 500 residents per acre of park/open space land and that number is rising with no clear way to reverse the trend or improve on that.

Parks in Emeryville are always going to be built at some future date.  Say, about 12 years from now.  A newly arrived Emeryville citizen, looking at our General Plan and its built-in impending sunset in 12 years, might assume the City is going to engage in a massive flurry of park building at the end of the sunset period.  Cynical old timers who haven't been hoodwinked by the pro-developer meme know better.  They know the score; 12 years from now when we write our next General Plan (with lots of citizen participation mind you), the same 26 acres of parks that will make us as good as other cities will be in there...only a new 20 year clock will have been reset and a new program of placating developers will begin afresh.  The only place to build parks in Emeryville then will be on the site of existing viable businesses and expensive buildings.
Or we could build Fannie Lou Hamer Park now and prove the cynics wrong.

Ken Bukowski: School Board Candidates Statement

Emeryville resident Ken Bukowski is running for a seat on the School Board of Trustees for Emery Unified School District.  Mr Bukowski noted the $900 fee required by Alameda County to print a candidates statement was beyond his means.  Given the Tattler's pledge that no longer will appointed School Board members undemocratically slide into that body without public consent and the fact that the $900 barrier to entry for candidates is not reasonable and in recognition that unexpurgated democracy is vitally important for a functioning civic polity, the Tattler presents the candidate statement of Mr Bukowski (at no charge):

KEN BUKOWSKI

            Candidate for Emery Unified School District Governing Board

* I served on the Emeryville City Council for 24 years.

* I was the council member responsible for merging our city fire department with Alameda County Fire Department. As a result, the city saves over a million dollars each year, and the consolidation provides more equipment, and more personnel to do the job.

* We should examine the feasibility of merging the Emery School District with another district. To maintain a separate district for such a small number of kids must be impacting the amount of available funds the district has for programs and services.

* Many parents are paying to send their kids outside the district when they would potentially send them to our school. As a result, the district is importing students from outside the district. This means those parents have no voice in electing members to serve on the school board.

* I believe the school board needs to open more dialogue with parents and teachers. I propose the creation of a live broadcast event to discuss issues in the schools, including an opportunity for parents to call in during the broadcast.

Background:

* Co-founder of City-School Committee (regular joint meetings of the City Council and School District Board).

* Co-founder of Emeryville Child Development Center

* Founder of the Emeryville Chamber of Commerce.

* Volunteer provider of links to video record public meetings and events. This includes providing video links to all the school board meetings, many city meetings and meetings of regional agencies.

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.

Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire: Christian Patz

Housing Affordability: 

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, who answers questions on affordable housing:

Christian Patz

Bio:

I set my roots in Emeryville in 2003, when my wife I and purchased our home in the Triangle neighborhood. Our family grew in 2010 with the birth of our son. I am a special education teacher that now works as the Director of Special Education for the Oakland School for the Arts. I have served on the Emery School Board for the last two years.

Campaign website: http://www.crpatz.com

Section 1 Housing Affordability

With each passing year, Emeryville becomes less affordable, regardless of the epic residential building spree over the last 20 years here.  Emeryville has never built housing at a pace even close to what we have done recently.  And yet, affordable housing remains Emeryville’s most intractable problem most people agree.

Tattler: Emeryville’s affordability rate right now is approximately 11% city-wide according to City Hall using their metrics.  We had more than 30 years of the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency (RDA) who’s primary function was providing affordable housing and 11% is the sum total we could muster with all the largess that agency could bring to bear.  How do you see us raising the 11% average appreciably in the post Redevelopment Agency era? 

Christian Patz:  Housing is the biggest issue in the entire Bay Area and Emeryville especially. The complexity of the issue will require the council to look beyond a single solution. I will work with our economic development team to look at future projects to determine the best way to proceed. San Francisco and Alameda have models that are showing promise.

Tattler:  Emeryville, formerly an industrial wasteland with lots of abandoned warehouses and factories in the 1980’s has been almost completely rebuilt now with lots of housing and shopping centers.  Seeing so little fallow land left and the housing stock that we have is mostly less than 25 years old, where will we build the affordable housing that we need?

Christian Patz:  Our goal should be to include 15 to 20 percent affordable units in every new large scale project.

Tattler:  Urban density is generally recognized as a net positive thing.  However, increasing density also comes with its own problems, overcrowding of parks and traffic being among them.  Emeryville right now has more than 200% of recommended market rate housing according to the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).  How do you suggest we increase affordability without increasing our existing 200% of market rate housing more?  Is ABAG wrong?

Christian Patz:  Given the way development was done in Emeryville over the last 20 plus years, moving any of the percentages is going to be a challenge. We need to treat any increase in affordable housing as a victory. As each new project comes to the commission and then council, we need need to focus on increasing our affordable housing stock. Over time, we can move the needle from 11% to 12%, then 13%, and on until we get in line with and then ahead of the rest of the Bay Area.

Tattler:  'Supply and demand' is central to classical economics as everyone knows.  Here in Emeryville, developers and some others are using this argument to forward a position that the problem in Emeryville is that we haven't been building enough housing and that's why its so expensive here.  Yet at 200% ABAG recommendations for market rate housing (and going higher), the more we build, the higher the housing costs go.  Neighboring cities have built less than 100% of ABAG recommendations.  Does Emeryville have to be a sacrifice zone for the greater region to satiate the supply and demand axiom posited by some?

Christian Patz: Emeryville is a unique city in the area and we can not compare ourselves to other cities. I feel we are using the wrong metrics. As a town of 10,000 people, you could find we have 200% of multiple elements. We have 300% more Ikeas per residents than East Palo Alto. We have a limited supply of affordable housing in the Bay Area and a huge demand. Changing that is going to take thoughtful planning going forward and there will need to be a regional plan.

Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire: Louise Engel

Housing Affordability: 

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, who answers questions on affordable housing:

Louise Engel

Bio:
Experience: I have been an owner of a small business, as a Consultant and Project Manager, with an Emeryville City license for 20 years. In other jobs, I achieved cooperative resolution on Bay Area developments with land use and environmental planning issues: mixed-use with housing, industrial, airport, and seaport developments. I am a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (A.I.C.P.) and the Association of Environmental Professionals (A.E.P.). My skill sets give me hands-on knowledge for balancing stakeholder interests in civic affairs.

Section 1 Housing Affordability

With each passing year, Emeryville becomes less affordable, regardless of the epic residential building spree over the last 20 years here.  Emeryville has never built housing at a pace even close to what we have done recently.  And yet, affordable housing remains Emeryville’s most intractable problem most people agree.

Tattler: Emeryville’s affordability rate right now is approximately 11% city-wide according to City Hall using their metrics.  We had more than 30 years of the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency (RDA) who’s primary function was providing affordable housing and 11% is the sum total we could muster with all the largess that agency could bring to bear.  How do you see us raising the 11% average appreciably in the post Redevelopment Agency era? 

Louise Engel:  The ability to afford housing in this region burdened with a high cost of living effects all of us who live in Emeryville. High living costs effect, for example: rental rates; the ability of “first time” home buyers to buy; and escalating association fees in residential complexes for those who already own. Pooling resources through county wide measures is one way for Emeryville to work together with other East Bay cities. For example, during the upcoming November 8, 2016 General Elections, voters in Alameda County will vote on whether or not to approve an affordable housing bond ballot measure. If the measure passes, funds for the homeowner programs and rental innovation program funds will be allocated countywide. Emeryville would have a share in that pool of funds.
On May 4 this year, Mayor Dianne Martinez attended the 20^th Annual Affordable Housing Leadership Awards ceremony of the Non-Profit Housing (NPH) Association of Northern California. Mayor Martinez received a Leadership Award on behalf of the City of Emeryville. NPH granted the award to Emeryville because of the City Council’s policy of setting aside 20% of our “boomerang” funds (the portion of the former Redevelopment Agency tax increment that flows to the City) for affordable housing.

Tattler:  Emeryville, formerly an industrial wasteland with lots of abandoned warehouses and factories in the 1980’s has been almost completely rebuilt now with lots of housing and shopping centers.  Seeing so little fallow land left and the housing stock that we have is mostly less than 25 years old, where will we build the affordable housing that we need?

Louise Engel:  The City owns a site at the corner of 43^rd and San Pablo Avenue. A city recreation center occupied the temporary structure before the activity moved to the newly opened Emeryville Center of Community Life (ECCL). Emeryville is currently reviewing the site for an affordable senior housing project.

Tattler:  Urban density is generally recognized as a net positive thing.  However, increasing density also comes with its own problems, overcrowding of parks and traffic being among them.  Emeryville right now has more than 200% of recommended market rate housing according to the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).  How do you suggest we increase affordability without increasing our existing 200% of market rate housing more?  Is ABAG wrong?

Louise Engel:  Single, detached housing is often out of the reach of first time home buyers who then look to alternative ownership. For example, residents discuss how they might make the financial change from a rental to condominium ownership. Emeryville’s “down payment assistance program” is available for the purchase of market rate units by people with a moderate income (or below) who are first time home buyers. That’s how my niece became a condominium owner through a similar program in Portland, Oregon.

Tattler:  'Supply and demand' is central to classical economics as everyone knows.  Here in Emeryville, developers and some others are using this argument to forward a position that the problem in Emeryville is that we haven't been building enough housing and that's why its so expensive here.  Yet at 200% ABAG recommendations for market rate housing (and going higher), the more we build, the higher the housing costs go.  Neighboring cities have built less than 100% of ABAG recommendations.  Does Emeryville have to be a sacrifice zone for the greater region to satiate the supply and demand axiom posited by some?

Louise Engel:  The Sherwin Williams development project is a mixed use proposal that galvanized citizens within the surrounding neighborhoods: the citizen initiated committee, PARC. This collaborative group is working within the City’s proposal review process. The project proposes residential, office and retail/restaurant uses. The developer seeks a change in the number of residential units. City rules allow 260+ units. The project proposes 520+ units.
The City review process allows the neighborhood people to join together with a united voice. Citizens can achieve leverage to influence the developer. The developer did respond to many to the neighborhood concerns. If approved and developed, the hours and hours of hard work together would shape this evolving neighborhood.

Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire: John Van Geffen

Housing Affordability: 

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, who answers questions on affordable housing:

John Van Geffen

Bio:

John T. Van Geffen, Esq. is relatively new to local politics having recently moved to Emeryville in 2014 with his family. John's campaign platform is about three things, making Emeryville a better place to raise families, cultivating the city's unique character by supporting local business, and ensuring the City Council direct its energies towards projects that help Emeryville residents, not

 special interest groups. For more information, his website is http://johnvangeffen.striki ngly.com/

Section 1 Housing Affordability

With each passing year, Emeryville becomes less affordable, regardless of the epic residential building spree over the last 20 years here.  Emeryville has never built housing at a pace even close to what we have done recently.  And yet, affordable housing remains Emeryville’s most intractable problem most people agree.

Tattler: Emeryville’s affordability rate right now is approximately 11% city-wide according to City Hall using their metrics.  We had more than 30 years of the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency (RDA) who’s primary function was providing affordable housing and 11% is the sum total we could muster with all the largess that agency could bring to bear.  How do you see us raising the 11% average appreciably in the post Redevelopment Agency era? 

John Van Geffen:  Regardless of any action taken by Emeryville's City Council, local housing costs will not stop rising so long as the economies of San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland continue to grow. Currently the only realistic option for small cities like Emeryville to do their part in increasing "affordable housing" is to mandate that developers set aside BMR units. But unless the city is offering some form of incentive for setting aside BMR units, developers will simply consider moving their projects to otherwise viable locations with less restrictions. More over, we need to come to a consensus on how much density we want in Emeryville and take steps to cultivate home ownership.

Tattler:  Emeryville, formerly an industrial wasteland with lots of abandoned warehouses and factories in the 1980’s has been almost completely rebuilt now with lots of housing and shopping centers.  Seeing so little fallow land left and the housing stock that we have is mostly less than 25 years old, where will we build the affordable housing that we need?

John Van Geffen:  If Emeryville were to green light every development in the pipeline, we would increase our housing (all housing, not just affordable housing) by nearly 20%. But, I do not believe that the majority of people living in Emeryville want the resulting congestion, strain on our city's infrastructure and the multitude of other problems that will inevitably result from such rapid density growth. We (Emeryville and surrounding cities) need a regional approach for increasing affordable housing and we need to make sure that high density development is targeted for neighborhoods with the available resources, public transportation and infrastructure to handle it.
  

Tattler:  Urban density is generally recognized as a net positive thing.  However, increasing density also comes with its own problems, overcrowding of parks and traffic being among them.  Emeryville right now has more than 200% of recommended market rate housing according to the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).  How do you suggest we increase affordability without increasing our existing 200% of market rate housing more?  Is ABAG wrong?

John Van Geffen:  According to www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/ the Bay Area population is over seven million people. While it is important for Emeryville to do its part to ensure Bay Area residents can afford to live in the cities where they work, we need to acknowledge that Emeryville's population and size is less than a percent of one percent of the Bay Area. Increasing affordable housing needs to be a regional issue so construction can be targeted towards neighborhoods that can best implement large scale projects, provide sufficient incentives to lure developers, and have the infrastructure to absorb the increased population. 

While I believe Emeryville should maintain BMR requirements to ensure a vibrant community, I also believe that Emeryville should not try to tackle this problem by itself. We should instead be pushing for development around existing BART stations to ease the strain and congestion these developments create.

Tattler:  'Supply and demand' is central to classical economics as everyone knows.  Here in Emeryville, developers and some others are using this argument to forward a position that the problem in Emeryville is that we haven't been building enough housing and that's why its so expensive here.  Yet at 200% ABAG recommendations for market rate housing (and going higher), the more we build, the higher the housing costs go.  Neighboring cities have built less than 100% of ABAG recommendations.  Does Emeryville have to be a sacrifice zone for the greater region to satiate the supply and demand axiom posited by some?

John Van Geffen: No. The regional demands of the Bay Area for more housing does not trump our fellow Emeryville citizens' desire to control our cities growth, density and design. As I mentioned above, increasing housing costs are not unique to Emeryville and continued development should be focused in those cities and neighborhoods that can afford to incentivize BMR unit construction and have existing infrastructures (like BART Stations) capable of incorporating a higher population density.  

Election 2016 Candidates Questionnaire: John Bauters

Housing Affordability: 

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, who answers questions on affordable housing:

John Bauters

Bio:

John Bauters is a member of the Emeryville Planning Commission, Housing Committee and chair of the Measure K Parcel Tax Oversight Committee at Emery Unified. He is also a member of the Park Avenue Resident's Committee that recently negotiated a community benefits agreement with Lennar Corp, the Sherwin Williams developer. John works as policy director at a nonprofit that advocates for increased state funding to community-based programs that provide mental health care, addiction treatment and trauma recovery services. He lives in the Park Avenue District with his partner Aaron and their dog, King.

Bauters for Emeryville City Council
4260 Halleck Street

Emeryville, CA 94608

(510) 693-7474

FPPC #1380397

For A Stronger Community

Section 1  Housing Affordability

With each passing year, Emeryville becomes less affordable, regardless of the epic residential building spree over the last 20 years here.  Emeryville has never built housing at a pace even close to what we have done recently.  And yet, affordable housing remains Emeryville’s most intractable problem most people agree.

Tattler: Emeryville’s affordability rate right now is approximately 11% city-wide according to City Hall using their metrics.  We had more than 30 years of the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency (RDA) who’s primary function was providing affordable housing and 11% is the sum total we could muster with all the largess that agency could bring to bear.  How do you see us raising the 11% average appreciably in the post Redevelopment Agency era?

John Bauters: Several strategies exist for raising the percentage of affordable homes in Emeryville. Our development bonus point system was amended to require that any construction over 10 units include not less than 12% affordability in most cases - a good start. The percentage of units that must be affordable increases as the number of bonus points needed by the developer to get project approval increases. Personally, I believe the starting point should be higher than the current level. The city should also make additional properties that it owns into affordable housing opportunities, much like it has done with the property at 3706 San Pablo. Finally, the city needs to protect the existing below market rate (BMR) ownership homes it acquired with redevelopment funds. BMR units in foreclosure are at risk of losing their affordability covenants and the city must step in under its right of first refusal privilege to acquire and resell these homes, keeping them affordable for the future. This ensures we don't actually lose any ground on our affordability. The most recent capital improvement plan the city approved included a recommendation I made with the support of my fellow members of the city's Housing Committee, creating a self-financing revolving fund the city can use to intervene and prevent loss of these units during the foreclosure process.

Tattler:  Emeryville, formerly an industrial wasteland with lots of abandoned warehouses and factories in the 1980’s has been almost completely rebuilt now with lots of housing and shopping centers.  Seeing so little fallow land left and the housing stock that we have is mostly less than 25 years old, where will we build the affordable housing that we need?

John Bauters:  The opportunity to build affordable housing in the city is limited to the extent that formerly available sites/land have already been redeveloped. I support several goals going forward: (1) Prioritizing city-owned properties in residential and mixed-use zones for future affordable housing development; (2) Providing additional procedural protections to safeguard our existing affordable ownership housing stock from losing its affordability; and (3) Regularly evaluating the impact fees and bonus point percentages required of market rate developers to ensure we maximize affordability as a community benefit in future development.

Tattler:  Urban density is generally recognized as a net positive thing.  However, increasing density also comes with its own problems, overcrowding of parks and traffic being among them.  Emeryville right now has more than 200% of recommended market rate housing according to the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).  How do you suggest we increase affordability without increasing our existing 200% of market rate housing more?  Is ABAG wrong?

John Bauters:  The only economically plausible way to increase affordability without increasing market rate housing is to build 100% affordable housing. The other way the city could increase affordability would be to purchase existing market-rate housing and sell it back out through one of our below market rate ownership programs. When we had RDA affordable housing funds and the housing market was cheaper this was a viable option. Given the current fair market value of housing and the loss of RDA dollars, this is no longer a financially feasible option and so the only economically viable solution to your question would require 100% affordable development.

Tattler:  'Supply and demand' is central to classical economics as everyone knows.  Here in Emeryville, developers and some others are using this argument to forward a position that the problem in Emeryville is that we haven't been building enough housing and that's why its so expensive here.  Yet at 200% ABAG recommendations for market rate housing (and going higher), the more we build, the higher the housing costs go.  Neighboring cities have built less than 100% of ABAG recommendations.  Does Emeryville have to be a sacrifice zone for the greater region to satiate the supply and demand axiom posited by some?

John Bauters:  While it might appear to be a simple principle, the "supply and demand" approach to development ignores the gravity of our current affordability crisis. The independent California Budget and Policy Center estimates that California has a supply deficit of over 1 million units of affordable housing. The reality is that affordability will not "trickle down" to the lowest-income households until supply fully catches up with demand under the economic principles of supply and demand - something that would not happen for decades, even with massive investment. In the interim, what we experience is displacement, where increased rents push lower and fixed-income residents, often seniors and working families, out of their homes. Market rate developers will commonly argue in favor of the "supply and demand" approach to development for another reason - because all housing built after 1995 is exempt from rent control under state law. Allowing for a boon of market rate housing development means less housing that is subject to either affordability or rent stabilization protections, creating a situation that allows for maximum rents without protections for renters. In order to preserve households of all incomes who live and work here we must build housing for all income levels as we go. This means a more strategic approach to development that balances market principles with the affordability needs of people from all levels of the economic spectrum.