Category: Smart Growth

  • Taxpayer Transportation

    The Daily Post had an interesting front page article yesterday titled "Mass transit ridership drops:  Despite billions in subsidies".  I'll just retype a couple of factoids that caught my eye:

    A new study by the Metropolitan Transportation Committee, or MTC, found that there has been a 3% overall transit ridership increase over the past two decades, but per capita usage of transit has dropped 14% since 1991, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

    Bay Area residents took 1.35 million trips on public transportation on a typical weekday in 2013, according to the MTC study.  That is an increase over recession numbers, but it is still lower than peak ridership in 2001.

    The article points out that even new transit routes "clearly don't match where the jobs are going" and mentions that the campus-style business centers on the Peninsula are not linked to mass transit.  Newsflash:  our $69-100 billion dollar high-cost rail system will not do a thing to solve any of this.

  • 2015: What’s in the cards?

    My predictions are based not on science but rather on rumors, intuition and my trusty crystal ball. My instincts tell me that 2015 and moreover the next ten years will see profound changes in our Pleasantville of a burb. I won't pass judgment, that’s up to you. I will simply prognosticate.

    In the near future Burlingame will see more and more multi-unit dwellings pop up— filling every nook and cranny and every surface parking lot. Downtown will be surrounded by 35 foot and occasionally 50 foot tall architecture.

    Here are my 2015 predictions of change.

    One easy forecast is the change to the Broadway intersection. It will look and function differently. This isn't much of a prediction since evidence of this change is staring us in the face.

    However, the area on the east side of the railroad tracks, near Howard Avenue and near Bayswater Avenue will see some of the auto related uses disappear and housing or offices appear in their place.

    Photo 1
     Nearby, we might see more apartments or condos replace the long-standing funeral home.

    Photo 4

    We might see the sleepy buildings along California Drive currently housing Gray’s Paint and the former Schaefer’s Tire (now located on El Camino Real and Broadway) turn into who knows what. Same goes for the buildings on Highland Avenue near downtown.

    Photo 2-1

      Photo 3-1

    More condos? Over on Carolan Avenue we know Camissa and the surrounding businesses will be gone in the near future—that ship we know has sailed.

    Photo 1-1

    Oh sure, the Broadway Train Station has been vacant for some time now, but my prediction is that this is the year that we’ll see a new restaurant move in—a hamburger joint perhaps?

    Photo 2

      Photo 3

    Speaking of long vacant property…the drive-in site on the bayfront will still be vacant despite swirling rumors that it will be the site of Alibaba’s headquarters. The Post Office or should I say, former PO, in the heart of downtown will see some sort of temporary tenant but a real proposal won't be realized for sometime.

    And the city is looking for developers to build attainable housing on at least one of our surface lots near downtown and talk of a downtown parking structure has been bubbling up of late. No real movement until after 2015 on these two projects.

    So let’s revisit all of this soothsaying in about a year to see exactly what has come to fruition and what died on the vine.

     

     

     

  • Our changing landscape

    Photo

    From the 101 freeway its hard not to notice it—the skeleton of a building in the making. This is the newest addition to our Burlingame landscape. According to the folks in the Planning Dept. it is going to be an indoor tennis center. So, it looks like, as we have discussed before, the Rollins Rd area is slowly changing from light indusrial to recreational. Today we have a number of recreational options along the corridor, from this latest tennis effort to Burlingame Sports Center, Sky High Sports( indoor trampolnes) to Nothing But Hoops, Future Pro ( indoor batting cages), The Burlingamer (indoor Futsol) and ofcourse PrimeTime Athletic Club and there are probably a few more that I haven't mentioned. Will this trend continue?

    Maybe this is the area the city should be considering for a new Rec Center as opposed to bulding a new one where the old one is along the residential section of Burlingame Avenue? 

     

  • B’game: Suburban or Metropolitan? Duh.

    The Marin Independent Journal just published an article about a bill (AB 1537) that Gov. Moonbeam has signed giving Marin, San Rafael and Novato some relief from high-density "affordable" housing regulations that are being rammed down cities' throats.  Their assemblyman, Marc Levine, appears to have his act together on what should (and shouldn't) be a priority as an elected official.  He is quoted saying

    "Housing should be built in a manner that reflects the character of the communities in which we live. This bill encourages this by correcting an anomaly in law. This bill assures that the law reflects what Marin residents already know; we live in suburban communities, not a metropolitan county," Levine said.

    Being re-classified as "suburban" means those three cities'

    future affordable housing developments can be built at 20 units per acre versus the 30-units-per-acre previously required by the state. The law takes effect Jan. 1, 2015, and will apply to one eight-year housing cycle from 2015 to 2023, after which it will be reviewed.

    Let's put aside the theory that "affordable housing" is just a shell game that moves costs from one development to another or from part of one large development to another part.  This is progress.  Perhaps our Kevin Mullin could get cracking on the same initiative?

    An acre is 43,560 square feet or between 5.8 and 8.7 standard B'game lots.  So suburban reclassification would still equate to between 2.3 and 3.4 times our current single-family density.  San Mateo County is already 3.3 times as dense as Marin County!  Seems like plenty to me especially for something forced on us from Sacramento.  Kevin?  Jerry?  What say you two?

  • Priorities vs. Preconceptions

    How to spend money we don't have is an on-going discussion in B'game.  It's sort of like my on-going discussion with my buddies about which model of Ferrari I want.  The Daily Journal captured the latest pecking order as follows

    The downtown parking garage was ranked number one by the council and would cost $10 million to $20 million. The Community Center was ranked number two and would cost $35 million to $40 million. City Hall safety improvement ranked third and would cost $11.5 million. Number four was the $4 million Bayview Park, while a $1.6 million police station improvement ranked fifth. Sixth was the $25 million downtown streetscape that would expand the streetscape of Burlingame Avenue to the rest of downtown. 

    The bolded text is my addition.  What say you educated Voice bloggers?  I say nay to #1, 3, 4 and 6 and I would need more info on #5.  It might be a new record as it touches on 10 of our categories!

  • Part 2 Affordable Housing Myth

    Here is a repost from Next Door Burlingame that can't go without some real-life response.  I have added my comments in line in bold italics

    I am urging renters and homeowners who are concerned about the lack of affordable housing in Burlingame to attend the City Council meeting on Monday night, August 18th, at 7:00 p.m. The City Council is scheduled to review and authorize approval (um, no.  Not "authorize" unless she knows how the vote will go) of the Housing Element to the Master Plan for submission to the State of California, in effect mapping out the possible future of housing in the City. 

    Renters comprise the majority of residents in the City, and need protections like those enjoyed by homeowners (and exactly what "protections" are those?). Neighbors who have established lives in our community are facing increased impoverishment and displacement because of egregious (define "egregious" or is she just being inflammatory?  Are our rents any higher than the rest of the Peninsula?) rent increases. 

    We need to unify now to make a difference. If you are not a registered voter, let me know and I'll make sure to get a registration form to you. (I look forward to this vote by the people if it ever comes about.  And I will be watching the Council vote with that future vote in mind).

    Cynthia Cornell

    It can be complicated to explain to someone with very little economic understanding that there are consequences to every sort of "government control" and that those consequences often hurt the exact constituency that the control was meant to help.  The absolute WORST THING that could happen to current and future renters in B'game is to have rent control.  Just look at EssEff or New York City.

  • Local Real Estate Moguls

    Maybe you get the Gentry magazine in your driveway the way I do and maybe you even read it.  If you read the current edition that landed this week you saw that two of our local real estate pros are at the top of the WSJ national lists.  Stanley Lo heads up the Bay Area list with $300M+ of transactions in 2013 and he came in eight in the whole darn country.  Stanley is quoted saying

    "Entrepreneurs and professional people account for 60% -70% of my clients.  The other 30% – 40% were from mainland China.

    Landing at No. 9 on the Top Teams list is Tom Neel and Associates with $88M of transactions last year.  They did this by

    selling everything from grand Mediterranean-style mansions to historic arts and crafts-style bungalows.

    Glad to see someone in the biz thinks our Arts & Crafts bungalows are historic–even if it is an uphill battle at City Hall to get them to acknowledge it and treat them as special.

    Congrats to both of the B'game pros.  You have to wonder what they think about "rack 'em and stack 'em" high density, faux affordable housing and other forms of dumb growth encroaching on the Golden Egg?

  • Designing Design Tech into Mills

    Today's Daily Journal article on where a new charter school will be located was very timely.  I had just finished reading a Wall Street Journal article about the New York State governor and legislature's deal to smack down the new NYC mayor who is anti-charter school.  New York State passed a law requiring NYC to find rent-free space for charter schools in government buildings–with a stick that if no room can be found "the city would be required to pay up to $40 million for the charter to rent private space."  The piece mentioned that California has a very similar law except California school districts can charge charter schools rent.  The DJ article notes

    A new charter school focused on hands-on projects and design concepts could soon be occupying space at Mills High School starting this fall.

    Although Design Tech High School’s leadership wanted it to be housed at Burlingame High School, the San Mateo Union High School District said there isn’t space at the growing Burlingame school. Last week, the district approved sending a letter to the charter offering six classrooms, each with 960 square feet of space, at the Mills location for the new school. The school initially requested at least eight classrooms and the district previously had offered five.

    You can click through for the financial details, but the Mills vs. BHS location negotiation boils down to this

    “Burlingame is a built-out site,” said Liz McManus, deputy superintendent of business services. “There’s a bubble going through the Burlingame Elementary School District. We have to look at our long-term projections with our capacity. In the 2014-15 school year it will flow into our schools and continue to grow for the next 15 years. We don’t anticipate the growth pattern to be as strong at Mills and it’s a beautiful campus.”

    It sounds like the SMUHSD is being much more reasonable than the new major in New York City–not that it's hard to pass that hurdle.  I've also been thinking about the "bubble" Liz identifies.  It may be more like a giant, hot air balloon if this, this, this and this all progress the way these project could go.

  • In-Fill or Fill-up?

    I'm not sure anyone saw this development proposal coming, as reported in the Daily Journal article

    The Summerhill Housing Group submitted its application for approval of a new 5.4-acre apartment and townhouse development at 1008-1028 Carolan Ave. and 1007-1025 Rollins Road. This is the current site of Burlingame Hyundai, Cammisa Luxury Cars, Enterprise Car Rental and other auto-related uses.

    The size is described as

    The site area includes 53.7 dwelling units per acre. Maximum height would be 63 feet for the apartments and 33 feet, six inches for the townhouses. Apartments would be five stories and townhouses would be two stories. There would be 268 rental apartment units and 22 townhouse-style units for purchase. There would be one to three-bedroom apartments and two to three-bedroom townhouses. Units would range from 696 square feet to 1,496 square feet for apartments and 1,507 square feet to 2,226 square feet for townhomes.

    When one is talking about 268 apartments and 22 townhouses, I am uncomfortable having a council member characterize what "the neighbors" think.  Having a lot of experience in this sort of thing, my bet is most of the neighbors don't have a clue yet.  And at that scale, aren't we all "neighbors"?  The developer's own website front page says "Building Communities of Distinction since 1976" and this does look like more than like a community than just a development.

  • Only “One Bay Area”? Not.

    There is another great OpEd in the Daily Journal by a guy I don't know named Chuck MacDougald from South City.  Two months ago, I highlighted a similar piece by a Belmont councilwoman here.  MacDougald's piece on the One Bay Area Plan goes a bit further and is worth the read.  Here's  a taste

    The Draft Plan Bay Area arose out of the flawed Assembly Bill 32 and Senate Bill 375, which mandated that super regional planning agencies (and not local, accountable governments) draw up plans to reduce greenhouse emissions in their areas. In our area, that’s the nine-county Association of Bay Area Governments, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and others. These bureaucratic behemoths saw their chance, and they took it.

    The draft plan is their attempt to remake the populated areas of the nine-county region into clones of downtown San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. Their chosen weapon of coercion — what, you don’t want to live in some rabbit-warren of a high-rise? — is funding to repair your roads, your bridges and your highways. The MTC website makes it clear; transportation funding will reward “jurisdictions that accept housing allocations through the Regional Housing Need Allocation (RHNA) process.”

    It's not one big Bay Area and your own tax dollars should not be used against you to try to make it one.

    Crystal Springs scenic

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