Category: Smart Growth

  • Have Mercy on the Neighbors

    Mercy, Mercy, Mercy was a surprise hit for saxophonist Cannonball Adderley in 1967. 60 years later, I think Mercy will go to #1 on the Burlingame Top 100 in 2027. What follows came in as a comment on the Democracy Dies in Daylight post about the city council candidate forum, but it’s too important and so detailed that I am making it a fresh post. I don’t know Valerie Teele, but I know people who do. Here is her complete, unedited comment with some added bolding by me and one correction as noted:

    My husband and I were in attendance at the Candidate Forum because this election really matters for district 3. I encourage everyone in the district, especially those that live around Mercy, to watch and listen by clicking the link. Now that the gym is done, Mercy is moving forward with its next phase of construction. They are about to submit (or have just submitted) for two 4 story, senior resident apartment buildings (80 units) (Ed Note: the proposal is for 160 units) and an assisted living facility to be built on the land that is called “the meadow”. This is the area down to the left of the student parking lot. This property is ill suited (that’s putting it mildly) for such a project. There are only 3 means of egress to the entirety of the Mercy property: tucked back in the corner where Hoover curves into Columbus, the gates at the intersection of Hoover and Adeline and the gates at the end of Alvarado. It is not an area that is convenient for seniors to access shopping nor services, which have been prime considerations for the 1400 units Burlingame has either built or are in development. Other projects by Mercy Housing have been on campuses that have wide open multi-lane access. This proposal simply does not make sense.

    I live on Alvarado and we have the overwhelming majority of the traffic to and from the Mercy property for school and events. Our street was not built for two way traffic with cars parked on either side of the street. It is frequent gridlock in the mornings for school drop off and again at pick up. Our family’s vehicles were sideswiped twice already since classes resumed and that now brings the total to 9. Our family is not unique with this problem. We will now see what will result from the gym being open until 10pm during the week and for both school use and public rentals until 11 on the weekends. If the proposed project is built, our street will have dramatically increased traffic at all times. Residents of the apartments, 3 shifts of employees at the nursing home, visitors, delivery and maintenance vehicles….they will ALL use our residential street.

    Getting back to the Candidates Forum, listen to how the question I posed was answered. It’s at the 39:45 minute mark.

    The current Planning Commission and Council are all inexplicably advocates of letting Mercy, a tax exempt, nonprofit religious institution, build whatever they want and do whatever they want. I can already tell from Mr. Stevenson’s answer how he will vote on the Mercy project despite the concerns of the TAX PAYING residents whom they are supposed to represent. I simply do not understand this. It’s easy to vote for something when your street or your district isn’t affected. Ms. Faber says several times that a district representative should represent all of Burlingame. I have not found that to be the case. Judging from her answer to the question, “there’s nothing we can do because housing mandates are determined by the state” (paraphrasing) , I fear she will fall in line with the rest of the officials and allow Mercy to further exacerbate a problem that could have terrible consequences for the many children and pedestrians who walk and bike on Alvarado and the adjacent streets.

    I’m not sure that Jen Faber (and others in various venues) saying there isn’t much we can do given the state housing mandates is correct here. Scott Weiner’s abusive Senate Bill SB79 has a half-mile impact zone around mass transit stops where higher density and the onerous “Builder’s Remedy” apply. Unless there is some gamesmanship with a lightly used SamTrans bus stop somewhere up the hill, the Mercy property doesn’t appear to get SB79 treatment. All of the other concerns so eloquently stated need to be addressed in full, in public with public comment.

    What I would really like to see from our city leaders is support and involvement with the 501c3 Our Neighborhood Voices. We are far from the only California city chafing under Sacramento’s harness.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Travis AFB: Hypocrisy meter hits 100

    My hypocrisy meter pegged at 100 yesterday reading the SF Comicle article about possibly using Travis AFB near Sacramento as an ICE detention center.  Forget about the proposed use, who proposed it or where it is and all the other stuff that people will endlessly disagree about in the political realm without changing anyone's mind.  My H-meter spiked because of this:

    Federal officials have been looking for months for detention facilities in Northern California and other Western states that could have 850 to 950 detention beds.  Reps. John Garamendi, D-Fairfield, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Mike Thompson, D-Napa, told Hegseth in a May 5 letter that they were “deeply frustrated” and “gravely concerned” about using Travis as a migrant detention center.

    Why might you ask?

    They want the Pentagon to explain how building a detention center would affect Travis’ water and energy infrastructure.

    Sure, filling 950 beds in an established major facility that has housed people since 1942 kicks off concerns about water and electricity.  But building thousands of units that have 2-4 beds in every city and town up and down the state?  Don't worry, there will be plenty of water, sewer capacity, electricity, parking, school capacity, police and fire–fergettaboutit.  Just don't use natural gas.  If you are a big-time Federal politician, you can just throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks.  Try that as a regular resident and you are a NIMBY using zoning codes and CEQA as a weapon.  Want to avoid big residential construction on the B'game Bayfront because it lacks said infrastructure?  Too bad.  From the DJ:

    New and proposed state housing laws could mean housing on the Bayfront without specific city standards, despite the city’s intent to limit such development there in its general plan.  New housing was zoned for the north end of Burlingame, near Bay Area Rapid Transit, not on the Bayfront — though proposals for changing zoning there have been floated several times over the years.  The Burlingame City Council and Planning Commission, meeting April 29, in a joint session expressed that the laws will severely undermine the city’s ability to effectively plan its own new housing and undercut its environmental and safety goals.

    Councilmembers expressed frustration that the state was continuing to remove local control from the city’s development process, citing its recent endeavors to meet its state-mandated housing requirements by building out housing in the North Rollins Road area.

    The hypocrisy needle is pinned to the top of the meter.

  • Putting Two and Two Together on our “Crisis”

    It is one thing to believe someone cannot put two and two together and get four.  It's another to see them demonstrate it in front of 300 people in a hotel ballroom.  Last week the Burlingame/SFO Chamber of Commerce held its annual meeting at the Hyatt and added something new–a panel discussion with three local politicians.  The panel, moderated by City Manager Lisa Goldman, included B'game mayor Peter Stevenson, Diane Papan's District director David Burruto and San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa.  Each had an opportunity for an opening remark.

    Canepa started enthusiastically by highlighting how he travels all over the country and the world and people constantly tell him how much they love San Mateo County.  How lucky we are to live here and how many of them would like to do the same.  And it's more than just our fabulous weather.  It was a glowing opener and something many of us also experience, especially if we get more specific and mention B'game.  Canepa then proceeded to talk about our "housing crisis" and how we need to build a lot more affordable housing, so people and businesses stop leaving the county.  The notion that we cannot outbuild the global demand to live here that he just described never actually occurred to him.  It was remarkable.  It would have been great to ask, "exactly how much new, affordable housing we should build?"  5,000 units?  Should we accommodate a doubling of the county population (about another 750,000 people?) Should we triple it?  Should we perhaps address some of the other areas that go into the total cost of home ownership–some of which he might actually be able to do something about?  Should it all be "stack and pack" cellblock designs so it will be "affordable"?  That would have been fun.

    Given it was only a 20-minute talk, Lisa Goldman only got to ask one additional question out of a big pile submitted by the audience.  She did a quick tally and determined that about half were asking about the Broadway grade separation.  All three panelists responded.  I listened closely.  There was mention of "close coordination", "better communication" between agencies, "making it a priority" and the challenge of working around "electrified Caltrain".  In other words, five minutes of bobbing and weaving because there is no viable plan to deal with the new, bigger cost estimate.

    Here's the panel at work.  Lunch was good.

    Chamber panel_012325

  • RWC: We don’t need no stinking parking!

    I mentioned this front-page Daily Post article in yesterday's edition to a couple people and they just did not believe me.  So here's the proof.  What can the developer and the city of Redwood City be thinking?   They have already made a mess of downtown RWC, but apparently they aren't done yet.  178 units get 6 parking spaces.  You must have a lot of faith in renters relying on Uber, Lyft and Waymo.  Could it happen in B'game?  Let's hope not. RWC apartment

  • Connecting the Density Dots

    Sometimes connecting the dots is hard–other times it's pretty easy.  Last week's connection was pretty easy.  The Chronicle ran two pieces on density, but no one there connected the dots so let's do it here.  The front page piece was "Density" cited in canceled policies".  It noted property insurers consider two flavors of density–how closely packed together houses are and how many policies any one insurer has in an area.  Both are causing the insurance crisis in California to spiral up.  Insurers don't like the risk of a fire in one house jumping to its neighbors.  And they realize multi-family means multi-kitchen, etc.  So "you're canceled".

    Two pages later there was a headline "Court rules lawmakers can override local housing limits"–to force more, you got it, density.

    Limits on housing density approved by local voters can be overridden by lawmakers, a California appeals court ruled, upholding legislation that was intended to encourage construction of small apartment buildings.  The law, SB10 by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, allows city and county governments to authorize new housing with up to 10 units in some urban areas, including those near transit, without conducting environmental studies.

    “The housing shortage is a matter of statewide concern,” and SB10 is “reasonably related to addressing that concern,” Justice Brian Hoffstadt said in Thursday’ 3-0 ruling, which upheld a judge’s decision.Hoffstadt cited previous legislation aimed at addressing the shortage of affordable housing, starting with a 1965 law that required local governments to adopt long-term plans to promote adequate housing.

    You read that right.  This has been an issue since 1965.  Why?  Because it's always going to be an issue.  You cannot outbuild the global demand to live in the Bay Area–unless you make it notably less livable vis a vis water, traffic, grid stability, crime, street parking, et al.  Those are symptoms of density.  Some stupid judge can't change that, and neither can the legislature.  If you live next to a project that is building three, four or five units on a 5,000 square foot lot and you lose your insurance coverage, will you have a cause of action?  Against whom?  The state?  Good luck with that.

    And if you are thinking insurers can't or won't cancel you, think again.  No explanation required.  They could easily use housing density as the deciding factor in where to reduce their policy density.  The Law of Unintended Consequences will not be denied.

    Desnity cancels you

  • Five Units on a Five Thousand Foot Lot

    As I type this, the city council is going into closed session for two issues:

    1. CLOSED SESSION
    1. Conference with Labor Negotiators Government Code Section 54957.6
      City Designated Representatives: Human Resources Director Maria Saguisag-Sid, City Manager Lisa K. Goldman, City Attorney Michael Guina, Chief of Police Michael Matteucci, Timothy L. Davis Attorney, Finance Director Helen Yu-Scott
      Employee Organizations: AFSCME and Teamsters
    2. Conference with Legal Counsel – Existing LItigation (Government Code Section 54956.9(d)(1))

    Yes In My Backyard v. City of Burlingame, San Mateo County Superior Court Case No. 23-CIV-00519

    The YIMBYs are filing lawsuits all over the Bay Area and the state because, well, the state has handed them a cudgel and why not use it?  The Sunday Chronicle added some color that you can read about here.  I'll just grab the start and then some B'game specific bits:

    Los Altos Hills resident Sasha Zbrozek is the first to admit that he is not a real estate developer.  “I’m just some random homeowner dude,” he said. “I’m not qualified to develop much.”  Yet, over the past few days, Zbrozek has become the face of the “builder’s remedy,” a fledgling movement that over the next year could transform the way housing development is approved across the Bay Area.

    The builder’s remedy allows property owners to bypass most local planning and zoning rules if that city or county has failed to complete certification of a state-mandated eight-year housing plan known as a “housing element.” So far, the Bay Area is not doing too well: Only five of 109 jurisdictions had their housing plans approved by the state by the Jan. 31 deadline.

    Currently, the property has a house and a pool on it, but Zbrozek has submitted two alternatives for redevelopment. One would add five townhomes and retain his current house and swimming pool. The other would require razing his house and pool and putting a 15-unit apartment building along with the five townhomes. If the larger project is approved, he will sell to an experienced builder and move.

    It's nice that Mr. Zbrozek knows he's not a builder but is pretty confident he can find one to buy him out once he sets it all up.  Now onto the local comments

    So far there are dozens of property owners looking at invoking the builder’s remedy, but only a few have pulled the trigger, according to Sonja Trauss, executive director of YIMBY Law, which has sued several cities for not having compliant housing elements.

    Trauss said she knows of property owners in Burlingame, Fairfax, Oakland, Sausalito and Palo Alto who are likely to file applications, but that many are hesitant given that the builder’s remedy has been in effect for only two weeks.  Trauss predicted that the “sweet spot” for builder’s remedy projects will be five units on a 5,000-square-foot lot, which is the most common lot size in California. That is the scale of the projects in Burlingame and Sausalito that she expects to be filed in the coming days.

    More than a year ago I suggested that the City start building a legal reserve to counter all of this destruction of R1 zoning.  It was excellent advice since it appears we are a juicier target than say Palo Alto

    Meanwhile, wealthy towns such as Belvedere, in Marin, or Palo Alto have the financial resources to fight developments in court.  “The places that are most legally vulnerable are also the places where you are likely to face the longest slog in getting the project approved,” he said. “Maybe you are likely to prevail in Palo Alto, but Palo Alto is going to give you hell for a half dozen years along the way.”

    I'd love to be a fly on the wall of that closed session.  There was also a piece in the DJ recently that quoted a different YIMBY attorney as saying he was living on an air mattress in an attic because he couldn't afford anything else.  Don't the YIMBY's want to pay a living wage?  If that claim is accurate, it's hard to see how he was talking about His Backyard.

  • Favorite Post of 2022….and 2021

    Let's close out the year with a quick look back at my favorite post of the year.  I was thinking it would be Planning for a Rollicking Rollins Rd.  We heard a lot this year about how proud the city council is of the "new neighborhood" going up in the East-East side–not to be confused with the regular East side that is demarcated by the railroad tracks and the North Park apartments.  The East-East side is also demarcated by the tracks but is north of Broadway and is newly residential.  The Rollicking post was a fantasy of mine that imagined all the things that need to be done for it to really be a "new neighborhood" actually had been done.  But it can't be my favorite for 2022 since it is dated December 26, 2021.  Let's call it my defered favorite of '21.  Check it out.

    That leaves State Auditor: Housing "requirement" numbers way off from May 6th as my 2022 favorite.  It is the post that I find myself bringing up in conversations with all sorts of people.  The three paragraphs I excerpted in the post are damning of the whole process of assigning crazy high numbers of you-must-build-units from the state.  Tom Elias as the Daily Post is on a similar page as me.  His column on Wednesday noted that

    Several cities have begun to fight parts of today's state domination of land use.  Four Los Angeles County cities — Redondo Beach, Torrance, Carson and Whittier — are seeking a court order negating the 2021 Senate Bill 9, which allows single family homes to be replaced by as many as six units, with cities unable to nix any such projects….No one can predict whether or not courts will find the state Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom have vastly overreached in their power grab, which is all for the sake of increased density and based on unfounded predictions by bureaucrats who answer to no one.

    Bingo.  Wouldn't it be nice if those four cities got some help?  And in other news, California led the nation in net domestic out migration from July 2021 to July 2022 at -343,230.  That's about like all of Stockton getting up and moving out of state.  New York came in second but is the highest per capita.  Either way, the State Auditor is onto something and should get more airtime in 2023.  Happy New Year.

     

  • State Auditor: Housing “requirement” numbers way off

    I talked about how the Regional Housing Needs Allocation numbers (RHNA) will mess up cities in the County two and a half months ago.  Little did I know at the time that the whole process of coming up with these numbers is shoddy at best and perhaps fraudulent at worst.  A state auditor, Michael S. Tilden, has said as much as reported here

    The Auditor found problems in the HCD methodology that may have inflated RHNA requirements by hundreds of thousands of housing units. The Auditor concludes that “The Department of Housing and Community Development must improve its processes to ensure that communities can adequately plan for housing.”

    In his letter to the Governor and legislative leaders, the Auditor also states, “Overall, our audit determined that HCD does not ensure that its needs assessments are accurate and adequately supported. …This insufficient oversight and lack of support for its considerations risks eroding public confidence that HCD is informing local governments of the appropriate amount of housing they will need.”

    Unfortunately, the audit reviewed the RHNA plans from only eight counties, which together contain less than eight percent of California’s population. Due to pending lawsuits the audit did not consider the RHNA plans of the two largest planning organizations, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). These two regions contain almost two-thirds (65.5 percent) of the state’s population. This omission makes it difficult to grasp the scale of the problems created by HCD’s errors.

    ABAG is the one we care about here.  They are the ones jamming big numbers down cities' throats and now we learn that the whole process may overestimate housing needs by 200,000 units.  Who knows, maybe it's even more.  But that hasn't stopped our Attorney General from getting into the act as reported by Tom Elias at the Daily Post on April 28th

    RHNA Elias

    Cities, especially B'game, should immediately question their allocations from ABAG.  They should also get a read out on the full Tilden report from city staff before anymore giant projects get the green light.  Getting a read out on the "pending lawsuits" noted above and the wisdom of joining one is action item #3.  And as I said here, it's time for a new attorney general with better priorities and an ability to stay in his or her lane.

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