“The amount of traffic being projected by this project is really small”

JKW - This is only your subjective analysis. I would say it is as flawed as the faux scientific analysis that says more traffic at an intersection will improve “level of service’ for that intersection.

We know that this project is for 104 new homes, and for that new neighborhood everyone must use a single street to go there or to leave. It is only one way or the other on Harbor Bay Rd. Look at Cowan’s other developments - especially the most recent expansions out on Bay Farm, notice only well-to-do homes with an average of at least one car for every driver. Using common sense as required – how many vehicles per commute, per school drop-off, are to be added to the intersections examined? What will happen at all the other traffic areas not examined? What will all the new cars do at the elementary schools every morning? (I think some of the traffic studies were done when school traffic was not “in session”) What you call “small” is relative, and shows your bias. If the same # of car trips were to be added to your street I doubt you would still call it a “small” number, and it is likely that most will be using that portion of Island Drive that is already the 2nd most congested stretch of roadway in the entire city. That statistic is by the traffic study used by the traffic Commission you chair, it would be wrong of you to deny the facts.

You point out the flawed methodology; I still wonder what exactly they are talking about. I have not had time to read the final EIR, but I noticed my letters were not included. Perhaps if all the given traffic leaving the projected new development heading toward the south bay used the cross-airport ‘Cowan expressway’ and were not required to stop and wait for the traffic light to change at Harbor Bay and Cowan, this would lower the overall avg delay at the traffic light. The other example I can think of is when the rest of the traffic goes the other way on Harbor Bay to use McCartney as their ‘rabbit trail’ off the island.. If you only examine what happens if the new neighborhood uses Ratto Rd to Aughinbaugh and makes a right on red to McCartney, then by their system of abusing data to create a false perception, the average delay MAY seem decreased at the traffic light at McCartney / Aughinbaugh. Does this about sum up your understanding as well?

I’ll hopefully hear some sense by PB Monday, but w/ mayor putting in another anti-MA member on the PB, -we will have to wait and see. Despite the recent headlines yesterday’s Journal article stated that after going to PB on Monday, Cowan’s Village VI will go to CC for final OK.

Jeez, I though after Monday’s PB meeting it would go to CC for appeal - but that thought was just from reading the recent headlines… Let’s see the integrity with which our representatives represent us….

As it stands now, I counted 17 rental units and houses for rent on my drive home the other day.Some of these ( including the house I mentioned above that finally sold)have been for rent for 6 months or more. It would seem that the rental market in Alameda is dismal these days. So I can only imagine that the people who bought these already own so much real estate that they can afford to lose money on them. Either that or they still willfully believe the lie that real estate only ever goes up and they can refi.

What irritates me most about the Bay Area is that the idea of homeownership is rarely seen as what a home is intended to be: a home where you live and not simply something you buy with the full intention off selling in 5-10 years. Every summer it seems like half of the island goes up for sale and more people move out.

This kind of activity didn’t happen at all where I grew up: People simply stayed put, got to know the neighbors, invested in things like gardens, porches, and a new kitchen maybe every 2-3 decades. You had a real sense of community. That feeling of community in Alameda seems to dilute with each passing year as more and more people ” cash out”.

My advice for people here is to invest in your careers, invest in ideas, and save your money.Get too tied up in buying a house and you’re just limiting your financial potential. That way you won’t be pressured to do like everyone else does when they retire here and sell for another state or region of the country simply because they poured most of their income into their mortgages and now cannot afford to retire as a result.

They guy is selling them off. In prep for sale he’s doing things like replacing brick foundations, after twenty years of renting them as is and making minimum investments. I asked him how the buyers could possibly afford them since they can’t jack the rents to meet the mortgages. He said they are doing what Kirk suggests and subsidizing with the future in mind.

I didn’t ask about amounts but it seems to me like some serious financial bleeding. I asked the guy if he would buy one of his buildings today, if he was just starting out as opposed to the era he did start. Not surprisingly, his answer was no.

In the mid nineties there was a single family property at Fifth Street Station which could have been acquired for under $300,000. It could taken some repair and then been rented at cost, and now would be turning a little profit, or could have been sold for a few hundred thousand profit. That was the last time I saw an opportunity for my investing in residential property in Alameda and I didn’t act.

I’ve only lived in Alameda for 9 years, and I’m not an elections specialist.

In my opinion, MA would not win an up or down vote in a general election with a high turnout - that is, the majority of voters turn out. The core MA voters can be easily counted by recent elections for city council.

Regardless of an end to MA at the ballot box, there will be those who take it to court ’til the end of their days or money, whichever comes first. Witness the work/live project. It’s these rear guard actions that will adversely affect the future of Alameda. There aren’t many people like Janet Koike (sp?) who combine vision, capital and perseverance who can litigate and wait.

Kirk, you must have missed my #14 final paragraph. If your litany is valid and you (and I) amongst many others feel that MA has outlived its usefulness (though, I question whether current Alamedans would feel the same way had they lived in Alameda in the 60’s and 70’s ), would you support an up or down vote on MA? In my view, a simple up or down vote makes more sense than digesting 80,000 different modifications of the Measure then trying to regurgitate those modifications on a ballot.

Good points. As far as first time home buyers, I rarely see anyone under 45 buying anything in my neighborhood. Even though home sales in my area have slowed to a crawl, 2 homes have sold. One for around 800k and another for close to 900k. One couple is at retirement age and are seldom if ever home. The 2nd couple owns a 75,000 Mercedes and again- are rarely home. Probably out slaving away on the mortgage.

The answer is that Alameda is not a first time homebuyer’s market. Me and my wife are one of the very few people under 30 on our street. Simply put, Alameda is getting older and older and richer and richer. Not sure if this was the intention, but MA blended with the overall housing situation in the BA is turning Alameda into a primarily one-sided affluent town.

I’m trying to find a balance for the fundamental forces of the universe known as Alameda: Desirable old buildings with multiple rental units, High maintenance costs, Lots of demand for ownership, High home prices, Low availability of middle-income housing (btw $100K per year is middle income in Alameda), Restrictive zoning and building, Proximity to work centers, A nice environment, Good schools, Desire for little or no change.

POINT 1) Current rental properties in Alameda are not economically viable. The rents do not support the cost of ownership and maintenance. Therefore, if the owner is not independently wealthy, the property is decaying. Some are decaying more than others. (I’ll gloss over entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, advising that decay is inevitable regardless of effort and capital expenditure.)

I don’t know of any knowledgable people who buy residential income property in Alameda and expect to make money each month. So, they are literally subsidizing their tenants in the short term, in the hopes of property appreciation in the long term.

Inevitably irrational exuberance has its limits. The owners can’t afford upkeep. Drive around Alameda and you’ll see what I mean.

So the BEST course of action is to enable as many people as possible to contribute to the maintenance of a building with their combined pride of ownership. The familiar form of ownership is called a condominium - where each owner has an undivided and equal share of the overall common property, and ownership of their own unit. We can also convert to a Tenancy in Common or TIC, which has similar benefits but is more nebulous.

If changing ownership from 1 person to many people makes money for owners, sellers, realtors, title companies, city transfer tax coffers, Pagano’s, SO BE IT. I do the math and just call the balls and strikes, I didn’t make the rules of economics.

POINT 2)
I have great appreciation for period properties and live in one. I don’t want unfettered construction. I don’t want to tear down older buildings - although there are a few that are begging.

But a bit of rational comparison and consideration would be greatly appreciated. Yet we seem to have Measure A phobia in town spread to everything related to any building. We seem unable to ask logical questions and get simple logical answers.

DO WE WANT TO KEEP DOCTORS AND DENTISTS IN ALAMEDA?

Why can’t my client continue to use a 70+ year old medical building as..a..medical building? It was built as a medical building before there was zoning. It was a medical building before there was a Use Permit required. And yet, because there is no Use Permit on file, the new owners may not be able to use it as a medical building. After 70+ years! Can you think of anything more absurd?

The new owner doesn’t want to tear it down, or destroy the lovely architectural character of the property. In fact, the neighbors won’t even notice it’s been sold because aside from new paint and some outside repairs, nothing will change on the outside.

Yet our Planning Board is literally afraid to state the obvious, “Sure, we’d like to keep those doctors and dentists in town, especially since that’s been used by doctors and dentists for 70+ years.”

POINTE 3) (sic)
Cardinal Pointe’s removable cooktops are a brilliant sham. Can you honestly say, “WE DON’T WANT MORE SENIOR HOUSING IN ALAMEDA!”

Last time I looked the greatest generation is in good health and is planning on sticking around a lot longer. They’re impressive! Plus, there are going to be a lot of boomers retiring soon. So demand for senior housing is certainly to increase in the future. Yep, someone will make a buck putting active seniors into an affordable group housing setting. Maybe that someone will be you. Maybe that senior will be you or a family member.

Regardless of your role, we have to be pretty obtuse a city to ignore the need and refuse to consider something other than the type of bland warehousing which was common a generation ago. Few people can afford a Cardinal Pointe and the extensive politicking that went into its creation.

Every ordinance and piece of red tape condemns another senior to higher living costs and lower quality of life with no benefit to the community.

I say we need to act now to establish some rational policies even if they conflict with Measure A.

There are approximately 675 properties in Alameda that could not be rebuilt to conform to Measure A. These were built before 1942 and currently have 3 or more residential units.

An additional 124 properties were built between 1943 and 1959 that wouldn’t qualify.

This is out of a total of 15,181 properties of all kinds, including vacant lots, in Alameda 94501. Obviously, not a huge percentage today…

But 8,700 existing properties were built before 1943. Obviously some of the older properties were torn down, increasing the total built prior to 1943.

But entire blocks of Clinton, San Antonio and San Jose from Chestnut to Park, just to name one area of which I’m fond, would have be devastated to comply with Measure A.

I’m trying to calculate how many mixed use properties we have, but the database I have isn’t sufficiently granular.

I suggest a fun project: Let’s go around town and put up signs on the lawns or in the front windows of buildings built before 1943 which would not comply with Measure A. Then we’d really see the unintended consequences of trying to “maintain the character of Alameda.”

Or perhaps we should build a photographic database and website to accomplish the same task.

Is that enough pins?

Many folks are oblivious to the loss of revenue from the commercial sector which could be adjusted without threatening grandma on the fixed income.

Meanwhile, the tax burden put on first time home buyers is an insult added to the injury of their mortgage. I don’t know how new home owners are able to enter the market, but they have plenty of incentive to keep good care of their investment, if they have any cash left to buy paint.

I wasn’t able to locate your other postings, Kirk, but I will comment on the two you mentioned above.

Cardinal Pointe, described on their website as the “Pinnacle” of Aegis’ senior communities and you quibble about faux kitchens. What you call subterfuge, sounds to me like a creative way to uphold the intent of MA while designing senior living spaces which meet the needs of senior citizens. I understand that those who work in the real estate field want few restrictions on sale/conversions/density and other issues concerning their livelihood, however, the rest of the community may desire otherwise.

Victorians (or any structure, for that matter) may or may not “decay” due to the owner being an occupant. Conversion of a unit from rental to condominium, will not, in itself, change the rate of structural upkeep. Pride of ownership is not a universal human trait. There are plenty of owner occupied single family dwellings in this city that appear to be ill kept. I don’t think one can lay that at the feet of MA. The other shameful traits which you mention MA has caused for the city (lack of easy financing/control/oversight/tax) almost made me not want to write the next paragraph.

My own feeling about MA is that it has outlived its usefulness. I believe it did what it was designed to do during the turbulent times when it was passed. In essence it saved Alameda from being Oaklandized (remember our arteries are directly connected to Oakland) and made Alameda citizens feel secure in their City. Later on, in 1978, Prop 13 finally made citizens feel they were secure in their homes (from a confiscatory tax agency). I do not, however, believe Prop 13 has outlived its usefulness. Tax agencies by their nature are much more voracious than Oakland ever could be.

So, I guess we agree but for different reasons. I would welcome MA to be voted, up or down, on the Ballot.