Category: Planning

  • Parking Ah-ha: It’s a necessity

    The Merc is highlighting a 23-story apartment building with less than one parking space for every three units. Guess what? It’s a problem

    The Fay apartment tower in downtown San Jose was built to draw residents back to the city, a sleek high-rise with rooftop views and luxury amenities. But two years later, the building is 60% vacant, and city officials say one key reason stands out: not enough parking. Two years after it opened with fewer than one parking spot for every three apartments, The Fay has plunged into foreclosure.

    The Fay’s parking problems provide an early test of a 2022 statewide law that erased parking requirements on housing developments within a half mile of a major public transit stop. But those policies are colliding with California’s deep-rooted car culture — and in pockets around the Bay Area, the signs of pushback are starting to show.

    I love it when they talk about our “car culture” like it’s some Happy Days muscle car cruise night memory or a low-rider meet up. Or drag racing up at Ocean Beach before they closed the formerly Great Highway. But cars are intrinsic to everyday life if you need things like groceries, trips to the vet, Home Depot, etc etc etc.

    Across the Bay Area, tenants living in housing projects with limited parking are finding themselves running up parking fines and doing battle with neighbors over street parking. At some affordable housing projects, where parking requirements were eased as early as 2015, the frustration is mounting. “I have 20 parking violations,” said Candy Sandoval, a custodian and single mother of four who lives at Quetzal Gardens low-income housing in East San Jose, “plus my car was vandalized because of parking on the street.”

    Her fellow tenants are so exasperated without enough parking — there are 42 spots to accommodate 70 apartments — some of them park in silent protest directly in front of the building, smack in the middle of a designated bus stop.

    I’ll bet you would stump Google and ChatGPT is you asked, “how does a single mother of four manage without a car?” This little charade is creeping into B’game as well. The latest example is a proposal at 2 Park Rd. where Crosby N Gray is located. While not nearly as bad as The Fay or Quetzal Gardens, it’s proposed to have 140 spaces for 144 “units”. One really needs to consider the number of bedrooms and the number of units to understand real parking needs. Will we have to rename it No Park Rd.?

  • California Dr: From bad to worse

    Now that the El Camino Real project, The Little Big Dig, is in full swing things have gone from bad to worse on the reroute path–California Dr. It was unpopular two years ago as we noted here. But now with the additional volume it’s downright frustrating. The bike lane seldom has even one biker on it. Turning left out of Floribunda or Douglas has become perilous due to the steadier flow of traffic. The cars parked alongside the bike lane all seem to know how to protect their mirrors and doors by parking as close to the bollards as possible. And the mostly empty middle turn lane beckons to drivers like the sirens of Greek mythology calling sailors to the rocks.

    I know it’s hopeless, but I can’t help but wish things would just Go Back To The Way They Were on California. In the meantime, if you must park on the Caltrain side, do as the locals do. Squeeze in.

  • Town Square: Postal bliss

    About 300 community members came together under a clear blue sky last week for the ribbon-cutting at our new Town Square. It’s a long story which you can revisit via the Post Office category here from the groundbreaking in 2021 all the way back to 2012. I thought Mayor Michael Brownrigg delivered an outstanding speech and Michael kindly gave me his detailed notes to excerpt here. Here are some very lightly edited highlights of that speech.

    The history of Burlingame last 50 years is history of parking lots: buying and leveling our bowling alley, the old City Hall, and others to build parking lots to compete with malls. 15 years ago, with our downtown sagging, we realized it was not parking, it was vitality and activity that mattered. And those parking lots – bought as a way to enhance Burlingame — now looked a lot like underutilized assets.

    In 2008/9, in the heart of the Great Recession, our city leaders challenged our community, let’s reimagine our downtown. Over the course of a couple of years and many, many meetings, a vision arose. It was the product of robust input from groups like Citizens for a Better Burlingame and the downtown BID, Planning Commission, community leaders, etc.

    We now see so many fruits from that 2010 Downtown Plan: affordable housing, creative and efficient parking, expanding energy and retail over to Howard, enhancing Burlingame Avenue with wide sidewalks and more pedestrian amenities. And today, the cherry on top, our new Town Square.

    There are so many people to thank. Neighbors like the Salmas and the Karps and the owners of Yves De Lorme, who have consistently leaned in. Other business owners like Janet and Carl Martin who worked hard to make Safeway a better project way back when and who care deeply about the entire fabric of our downtown. Safeway was the first salvo by Burlingame in terms of imagining a more pedestrian friendly, community oriented and vital downtown. And a shout out to Stanley Lo, who helped control the Post Office site after it was put on the market and then helped sell the site to a group of people who could honor the history and imagine the future, and to Dave Hopkins, a co-conspirator at Sares Regis without whose courage this project might never have materialized.

    Michael Brownrigg

    Burlingame Mayor (2026)

    On the occasion of the opening of the Town Square, April 2, 2026

    As I said, this is just an excerpt, and he thanked many more people before turning the podium over several other speakers. Hopefully this Instagram video will load properly for a taste of the proceedings. The story about moving the Post Office over the downtown culvert and then back is one for the ages and I can’t wait for the restaurant that is the last remaining bit of the project.

    Michael told me last week that he would use last night’s city council meeting to publicly affirm what we have been hearing for a sometime–that he would not seek re-election this time around. He leaves quite a service legacy having been appointed to the Planning Commission in 2001 and joining the city council in 2009. As we have seen with other long-serving commissioners and council members, their institutional knowledge is incredibly valuable in subsequent projects. And they still get button-holed in the grocery aisle long after they are out of office. Congrats, sir.

  • When is a transit stop not a transit stop?

    The wise people in Sacramento have forced density rules on every city and town in the state. Thou shall build. And it shall be stack-and-pack. And it shall be even bigger next to major transit stops. Beginning July 1, 2026, Senate Bill 79 (SB 79) enacts a significant “upzoning” mandate in California, requiring local jurisdictions to permit high-density housing within a half-mile of “major transit stops”. This law focuses on “urban transit counties”—defined as having 15 or more passenger rail stations.

    But what happens when that transit stop either disappears or is so scaled-back that it barely serves anyone? The Daily Journal and the Comicle both rewrote the doomsday planning scenarios put out by BART and Caltrain:

    A little over a month after BART laid out its tentative plan to close 15 stations if it didn’t receive funding, Caltrain also warned it could close one-third of all stations and eventually shut down passenger service altogether. 

    The agencies are relying heavily on the passage of an upcoming November ballot measure in several Bay Area counties, including San Mateo, in which voters will decide whether to help eliminate major transit agencies’ deficits through a 14-year sales tax measure.

    Even if the ballot measure passes, both systems are deep in the red. And it’s highly questionable that San Mateo County would get its “fare share” as noted back in September here. So when a stop, or 15 stops, close and the developers have already stack-and-packed the half-mile radius around it, what do we do? Answer: suck it up. 

  • San Mateo Safeway: Going Big

    The SF Comicle and the Daily Journal both had articles about the proposed redevelopment of the San Mateo Safeway into an EssEff-like commercial-residential hybrid like the one near Oracle Park. From the Chron:

    A Safeway store along El Camino Real in San Mateo is slated for a dramatic transformation, with a San Francisco developer pitching to replace the low-rise building with a dense housing complex.

    Align Real Estate on Tuesday filed an application to bring 396 new homes to 1655 S. El Camino Real, a nearly 3-acre site close to the Hayward Park Caltrain Station. The proposal involves razing the existing grocery store at the site and replacing it with a larger Safeway, topped by the planned housing, in a building that would rise seven stories. Roughly 55 of the proposed units will be income-restricted, and secured parking for both future residents and shoppers will be added to the site. 

    The piece rehashes the controversy over the giant Safeway store proposed in the Marina and refers to the state laws that are effectively gutting local control over development, but here is the real kicker in bold text

    Unlike some of the San Francisco neighborhoods targeted by Align, San Mateo has seen a notable uptick in housing development in recent years, driven largely by transit‑oriented infill and a push to address the region’s housing shortage — though affordability remains a major challenge. The most significant completed project is the Bay Meadows master plan, which has transformed the former racetrack into a mixed‑use neighborhood with about 1,100 new homes alongside offices, retail and parks, centered on access to Caltrain.

    That’s right. 1,100 new homes at the racetrack site near “access to Caltrain” and affordability is still considered “unaffordable” in San Mateo.  The fiction that we can outbuild the demand to live on the mid-Peninsula lives on. In the meantime, cities up and down the Peninsula approve more tech/biotech office space. Then they wonder why residential redevelopment doesn’t do what they thought it would do. And the infrastructure and school costs continue to spiral.

  • Single Family housing: Still popular with the kids

    During an on-line interview with San Jose mayor Matt Mahan as part of his run for governor, GFC‘s David Crane passed along an interesting anecdotal statistic from the class he teaches at Stanford. The context was a discussion of in-fill development and “green-fill development” or building on bare land further outside the suburbs. Mahan walked the fine line of sounding like he saw a need for both.

    But the interesting factoid that Crane provided was that he asked his Stanford class if they had a goal of owning their own home. 100% of hands went up. It sounds like the “you will own nothing and be happy” concept that originated from a 2016 essay by Danish politician Ida Auken that was published by the World Economic Forum doesn’t hold water with Stanfordites when it comes to their biggest future purchase.

    But wait. There’s more. The real kicker was when Crane asked the class how many of them wanted detached single family residential homes. 85% of the class raised their hands. No stack and pack for them. Developers take note. The YIMBY’s might have 15% of the market mindshare, but the next generation of buyers looks a lot like the last four generations.

    Here is a related update from the SF Standard piece on Steve Hilton’s gubernatorial campaign. Great question and an even better answer. I wish more candidates would take this approach and tell the YIMBYs where to get off instead of demanding quality of life killing in-fill.

  • Menlo Park: Drawing rave reviews

    The newish SF Standard is breaking through the SF Comicle news cycle with some different reporting and a conversational style. I get a daily email and click through to interesting pieces which, so far, have been free. They gave a two-thumbs-up to the changes happening in Menlo Park regarding housing and downtown vibrancy especially regarding the restaurant scene. Under this headline

    How a sleepy Peninsula suburb became the Bay Area’s hottest homebuying market

    The Standard notes some interesting things about MP’s Menlo Oaks neighborhood re-development that contrast with B’game.

    The small, tree-lined enclave is pocked with active job sites. Foundations have been poured where modest ranch homes once stood. The transformation has been swift and, for builders and sellers, wildly lucrative. Home values in Menlo Oaks are at all-time highs, according to Zillow, driven by an influx of luxury developers rebuilding the neighborhood house by house.

    The typical home is just shy of $3.2 million, a 4.2% increase over the pandemic-era peak. It’s the biggest price pop across the entire Bay Area. And Menlo Oaks has plenty of company. Of the seven Bay Area neighborhoods currently at their highest-ever values, five are in Menlo Park, according to Zillow’s data.

    It’s hip to be square, at least for home builders. Menlo’s flat, right-angled lots are easy to build on, and the city’s planning process is fairly straightforward by Bay Area standards. A developer who gets one design approved can build others like it fairly quickly.

    Most of the suburb’s housing stock is post-war, meaning demolishing a building won’t bring the same preservationist outrage as tearing down a Victorian. (Or a mostly original Arts & Crafts bungalow, Mission style, Tudor, Eichler or French Normandy as we have in B’game)

    “The good part about having kind of uninteresting architecture is that no one minds,” said Sotheby’s agent Chris Iverson. “‘Oh, you knocked down a ranch house and built a modern farmhouse? OK.’”

    The piece highlights one big developer, Thomas James Homes, that has been very active in Menlo Park (more than 50 projects). I see them scraping the occasional house here in B’game too. But the major difference is the commercial uptick in MP.

    The demographic shift (meaning Boomers selling); Springline’s importation of San Francisco brands like Burma Love, Che Fico, and Barebottle Brewing; plus cultural events at the Guild Theatre, bring a “daily energy” that makes the city feel vibrant well beyond the workday.

    We could use some of that culinary uplift and the Guild Theatre is a nice venue with some fun entertainment that we desperately need, but at the end of the day maybe we’re better off not attracting the scrapers.

  • El Camino: Drop the green flag, go time

    Caltrans came out in force yesterday to host the groundbreaking ceremony for the long awaited El Camino Renewal Project, aka the Little Big Dig. A larger than usual contingent of local pols showed up to issue lots and lots of kudos for all involved. Pertinent promises made included “this will take three years, give or take” and “there will be some inconveniences”. Readers come to the Voice to get the take they can’t get anywhere else and there was a really fun incident during the speechifying yesterday. After Josh Becker and Diane Papan spoke and just before “the most important person on the project”, Michael Brownrigg, was introduced, a full-size semi tractor trailer pulled up next to the city lot H, hit the air brakes and the driver hopped out to do a delivery to Walgreens–cutting southbound traffic down to one lane. They do this all the time and so does Amazon, FedEx, UPS, etc. as we noted here.

    But not yesterday. A BPD officer who was at the event immediately went over and told the driver to move. I was reminded of Gavin Newsom cleaning up the streets of EssEff for the APAC conference and Chinese premier Xi Jinping. With some effort, the truck managed to pull into the city lot between Walgreen’s and Safeway where it blocked access to half the lot for about a half hour. I had visions of things to come. Knowing Michael, I’m sure he wasn’t too comfortable with his intro but as the incoming mayor at last night’s council rotation, he will be the point person for 2026 either way. Caltrans followed up with an email today that noted something new:

    Caltrans will begin construction on the El Camino Real Roadway Renewal Project as early as January 5, 2026, in the vicinity of Dufferin Avenue and Rosedale Avenue.

    The initial work will consist of tree removals on the northbound side of El Camino Real in Burlingame requiring full closures of the road. One to two blocks of El Camino Real may be closed at a time. Detour information will also be emailed in the coming weeks, and detour signage will be in place for affected blocks. Residents and businesses will continue to have access to their properties during construction.  In addition to tree removals, drainage work will be performed along the southbound side of the road.

    We’ve been told for months they would start at the tree work at the south end and PG&E at the north end, but things have apparently changed. Caltrans will be keeping us up to speed at elcaminoproject.com. Here are some pics of yesterday’s dropping of the green starting flag. Will the checkered flag wave on January 5, 2029?

    I’m thinking the Little Big Dig might be what pushes me over the line to buy an e-bike.

  • CSM: “Free college” and new housing

    I’ve been taking a class at CSM one day a week for the last six or seven semesters. It’s a beautiful campus with a lot of open space, top notch facilities and not a lot of students. I’m paying a modest tuition for a two-hour, non-degree class and happy to do so. For some degree-seeking students, tuition is “free”. Of course, it’s not free but rather taxpayer subsidized. The freebie has been given to about 5,000 students over the last three years and yet the campus often feels empty on a Tuesday afternoon except for the athletic facility. Now our state senator, Josh Becker, wants to double down on “free” per the DJ:

    Following the success of the San Mateo County Community College District’s Free College pilot, a bill making the initiative a permanent program will be introduced to the California Legislature in the new year.

    The district covers the costs that are waived for qualified students, which Moreno described as a necessary investment. For the 2025-26 school year, the Board of Trustees approved allocating $12.5 million for the Free College expenses.

    The freebies for select students doesn’t give me a lot of heartburn but calling it “free” does. The $12.5M per year comes from somewhere and everyone–students, administrators and taxpayers–should remember that. The next move up on the hill in San Mateo is a big change from a community college to one with on-campus housing. Per the DJ 

    Districtwide student housing at College of San Mateo is inching closer to becoming a reality after the community college district’s Board of Trustees approved a $61.85 million contract with developers who intend to break ground in the spring. 

    The proposed housing facility will provide 316 beds to first-generation, low-income and housing-insecure students attending any of the three colleges within the San Mateo County Community College District.

    As I said, there is a lot of land up there and that makes it possible to do this sort of project at about $200K per bed. The land is also not “free” – it has opportunity costs as well as infrastructure costs to accommodate the intensified usage. Let’s hope this major project is run on the up and up and doesn’t result in another big trial of anyone involved like what is going on down in RWC right now. It would also be nice if the county’s cities got a bit of a RHNA credit for the new housing. Everyone but the YIMBYs knows the RHNA numbers are way off and should be redone. Here’s one chance to do so.

  • Old Post Office starts filling up

    A piece in the SF Comicle today about the Mission Rock development drawing in a new restaurant (Aurelia, as in the Giants shortstop of old) reminded me of recent news about our own big downtown development at the Old Post Office. Two new tenants have been announced here and here:

    CBRE’s Industrious co-working outfit is growing its Bay Area footprint with an expansion in Burlingame.  The Los Angeles-based co-working unit of the giant brokerage has leased approximately 19,800 square feet of offices on the fourth floor of 220 Park. The $180 million development at 220 Park Road recently transformed a former post office into high-end offices in the heart of Burlingame, the San Francisco Business Times reported. (see below)

    Dostart Development Company and Sares Regis partnered to build 220 Park. Industrious’ lease will take up about two-thirds of the building’s fourth floor, making the co-working company the largest tenant the developers have landed so far. Last year, private equity firm SkyKnight Capital leased about 10,000 square feet at the property. Dostart and Sares Regis could also be solidifying another lease with another firm, sources familiar with negotiations told the Business Times.

    “There’s a lot of coworking in San Francisco and a fair amount in Palo Alto, but nothing in Burlingame,” Peri Demestihas, head of real estate for Industrious, told the Business Times. “It’s a pocket filled with folks who say, ‘I don’t want to go into San Francisco or Palo Alto. I want to live and work here.’” And who wouldn’t?

    The other deal that has been announced is fintech company Upstart Holdings relocating headquarters to downtown Burlingame’s 220 Park. The fintech firm, an artificial intelligence-powered lending marketplace, shrinks from 100,000 to 60,000 square feet as part of the move. Maybe they will use some of the co-working space from Industrious instead of dedicated space. The next question is when will the Bacchus operated restaurant open on the street level. Apparently, some code issues associated with the historic part of the building that was moved and returned has introduced some hiccups, but hungry tenants hopefully will move things along.

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