Comments on: Willie Stargell (Tinker) Avenue Low and Very Low Income Units

By: Joel

Joel — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:42:57 +0000

To be honest, I never heard of Measure A until I lived here for over 1 year. I would have not believed it as there are so many apartment buildings in Alameda. After a year, I went on a tour of Alameda Landing and that was the first time I heard of Measure A and I didn’t really believe it. I at first thought it was okay, then changed my mind and thought it should be overturned.

Recently, I have noticed all the apartments on the West end and Shoreline have changed my mind once again. One of the things which brought me to this conclusion was the old Coast Guard housing which they will be renting to some facility and they are building a new project Shinsei Gardens for mostly low income veteran when they could use the money for the new building to remodel a project the Navy already owns. Also the are putting Alameda Point Collaborative, the old Coast Guard Housing, and The Breakers all in the same area. Why put all the low income housing in one area and not across the City? Consequently mostly because of Shinsei Gardens project has made me look at the West end of Alameda and a supporter of Measure A once again.

So I look at the options and change my mind now and then, maybe one day I will be back on the other side.

By: keepmeasurea

keepmeasurea — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 05:29:35 +0000

As for my house, it has been renovated in modern times (i.e. post-2000) and I will welcome the soil contaminant test unit to my backyard the same day they commence current spot tests at Alameda Point.

By: Willy

Willy — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 23:43:11 +0000

Much has been said about the contimination of the former military base, which in my research shows was primarily used as a repair facility for aircraft. Oil, gasoline, additives, certain solvents for cleaning parts ( benzine) , and so on are all present there. Indeed… nasty sounding stuff.
But what about what’s in your house? Most homes in Alameda were built before 1978… so most are filled with lead paint, asbestos insulation, and certain wiring coated with PCBs. Indeed.. by themselves potentially dangerous things that could hurt you if you ate, licked, or otherwise ingested them. What about the streets? Over 100 years of cars leaking all various kinds of fluid have likely soaked them forever, with runoff finding it’s way in your yards and basements. Oh ya- the basement- itself filled with whatever zliion cans of garage things, like poison, oil, gas, grease, etc etc… a verifiable brew of nastiness.
What I’m trying to get at is that while I don’t want to undermine the importance of careful polution asessment prior to building, perhaps the public needs a comparision of exactly how dangerous the pollution is on the base versus our very homes.

By: dave

dave — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 20:46:39 +0000

Clarification: The comment referenced above was mine, but I’m not Dave K — just plain Dave.

By: keepmeasurea

keepmeasurea — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 20:19:50 +0000

Nobody shows up at the meetings because they are not well-noticed. Posting a paper notice on the door of Room 241 City Hall West isn’t much help, as development staff told me “nobody comes out here.”

Also, getting information on these sites is a Kafka-esque experience. I myself went to City Hall West to development services to find out about planned developments and nearby contaminants, and was told I had to speak to the Navy, because they’re cleaning it up, it’s their land. They led me to two big rooms constituting the libary that is said to contain a copy of all the Navy documentation on the clean-up and left me alone, offering no assistance.

The documents are in typical government bureaucratese “Contaminated Soil at IR02 (Installation Restoration Site 02)” or “Former NAS Alameda Operable Unit 1 IR Sites 6, 7, 8, and 16″ and interested citizens are left to their own devices to try to match up the Navy site designators with City planning documents (EIR, etc.) Again, with no assistance from the City. Making a genuine, knowledge-based contribution at any of the meetings would require a time commitment equivalent to a full-time job, just to decipher the code.

It’s very odd that there should be so much planning activity within City staff going on, and so much debate going on among residents, yet City staff take a decidely hands off approach when a citizen wanders in to ask questions. Perhaps _all_ plans for Alameda Point should be put to a halt until the Navy cleans up the land.

It’s also interesting that despite what some HOMES representatives have said, there is indeed housing planned for contamination sites on Alameda Point, this development being an example.

The toxins are in the ground and groundwater, and a gas barrier membrane (read: plastic sheet) is being installed as part of the construction to try to keep them there.

But just in case they don’t stay in the ground, there are vents being installed to route the gases up into the air over top of the building.

Again, I think it would be interesting to study the residents 20 years from now to see if this area forms a cluster of afflicted people.