I almost didn’t sign the “optional” sign in sheet!

Long post ahead, you’ve been warned. 

By the time I arrived at the Kofman Auditorium, a tad bit late, but of course with events like this, things rarely start on time.   I was puzzled by the the number of tables and displays that were lining the entrance way to the actual theater itself.   Because I thought I was late I quickly walked by to get into the theater since I had brought my lap top to take notes and needed to find a place to plug in.   Unfortunately I had neglected to bring my extension cord and so my only options were to sit in the way front or the way back.   At that point I decided to abandon taking notes during the event and opted to rely on the tape recorder I brought.

The turnout was pretty small, but considering how poorly the event was advertised, I’m not really surprised.  Before the event starts, Don Roberts marches in and heads straight to the front of the auditorium and begins to “film” the crowd.   Obviously he will be showing this on this week’s show and declaring how small the turnout was.   After filming he promptly left, whether he came back, I’m not sure.

The event starts with Councilmember Lena Tam kicking off the event, welcoming everyone etc… etc… and then she introduced Woody Minor.

Woody Minor presentation

I’ve never seen the Woody Minor presentation before and I understand that this was just a truncated version that we were exposed to.   Here’s the thing though, after watching the presentation I am really puzzled as to how anyone can characterize it as a neutral presentation.  This is not to pass judgment on the quality of the materials presented because there is no doubt that he knows his history of Alameda and Measure A, but this presentation was anything but heavily biased.  At one point I expected huge ominous thunderclaps to echo across the theater every time he said “developer” or “Utah Construction.”  

For those who have not seen the presentation, Woody M. spends a lot of time waxing nostalgic about Alameda when it was all trees, Alameda when it was all farm land, Alameda before it was filled in, Alameda when it was inhabited by folks who live in mud huts, etc…etc…  Okay, so not the mud hut thing, but you get the idea.   He talked a lot about the population growth in the 1900s, but decided to not share the context of the population boom in the rest of the Bay Area, but I understand, time limitations and all. 

What was very interesting was the more thorough explanation of what ended up leading up to the passage of Measure A.   Rampant development plans between the Utah Construction plans to build out Bay Farm Island, Del Monte’s plans to build out the Northern Waterfront area, and of course coupled with the tear down of Victorians to build apartment buildings makes the desire for something like Measure A a lot more understandable.   

Hansom Hom presentation

This was the Legislative History of Measure A, which was informative, but I think could have used some more context as well.    Such as what led up to the City Council deciding to “clarify” Measure A by adding the 2000 sq ft per unit amendment on the ballot.  Also a more in-depth analysis about the Clayton Guyton settlement agreement would have been interesting.  I have always found it notable that the City chose to settle in this case rather than to see if Measure A could stand up to judicial scrutiny.  

Panel 1, Benefits and Limitations of Measure A on building housing in Alameda

Moderated by Lee Harris, this panel had its high moments.   A few things I learned from listening to the panel, moderator, and answers to questions from the audience, of course this is all paraphrasing, don’t quote any of the panelists on anything:

• Denise Brady is a realtor;
• Measure A, according to everyone who was not Denise B., was probably a good reaction to what was happening in the 70s, but may not be the best tool moving forward today.   Also with current government regulations that exist today: CEQA, Tideland trusts, etc… what was happening in the late 60s early 70s in Alameda would not be possible today;
• Measure A is a “blunt instrument” that may not accomplish what citizens would like future large scale development to look like;
• Measure A is “easy” to understand and therefore more easily embraced than other tools that would produce results more in line with people’s vision of Alameda;
• Denise B. is a realtor, did you know that?
• Reuse of existing historic industrial buildings is severely limited under Measure A;
• The much touted “Density Bonus” is an equally blunt instrument that applied on top of another blunt instrument (Measure A) would definitely not make anyone happy.

Major highlights:

• David Burton (Alameda resident by the way) broaching the topic of Form Based Codes as possible tool moving forward.   Form based codes would regulate not lot size or limit the housing type available to build, but would rather dictate the type of building (height, massing, setback, etc…etc…) that could be built in an area which would allow for a much more predictable type of landscape.    But Form Based Code and other tools like it are so much more difficult to understand than Measure A.
• Moving forward it is important for there to be a conversation about what it is that the community expects from development moving forward.

Of course there were some low points as well, one was Denise B. proclaiming that not only was Alameda the fourth most dense city in Alameda County (a “statistic” quoted by Woody Minor earlier) it was actually the second most dense city in Alameda County, the second — according to Denise B. — after Emeryville.  Of course, we all know, that’s simply not true.  I guess that when Denise B. was saying we are second after Emeryville, she simply doesn’t consider either Berkeley or Albany — not to mention all the other various census designated places (CDP) — as “Alameda County.”   I think this is the one time that I almost yelled out “Not true!!”  In fact, I think might have, I’ll have to check my tape recording.

Panel 2, How does Measure A affect auto use and transit options in Alameda?

Moderated by Judge Richard Bartalini, who had a very different moderating style than Lee H.  It reminded me a little of the McLaughlin Group, only without the funny nicknames for the panelists.  Judge Bartalini did a pre-smack down reminding everyone that this was informational only and not advocacy.   At first Judge Bartalini started calling folks in the order they were seated on the panel (Stuart Cohen, John Ellis, David Howard, Brian Canepa) and I started feeling really bad for Brian Canepa since he had to debunk twice whatever David H. was posing as an “answer.”   Then Judge Bartalini started switching it up a little and calling folks out of order, probably to keep them all on their toes.  

Basically what we got from one of the panelists, you know who, right?   Was a rehash of stuff we have seen ad nauseum on Alameda Daily News.   Such as (paraphrasing) ”WRT Soloman says that we only need 12-15 du/ac for minimum transit service and Measure A provides for 20 du/ac, what else is needed?”  To which Brian C. had to respond that sure it may be the minimum needed but at best that would provide services frequency of every 30 minutes (sound familiar to some bus riders?), but for there to be good transit service 15 minute wait would be best and 10 would be optimal.

Some interesting things came up, one was about the need to possible decouple parking requirement from any future residential building.   As it stands now, parking costs are rolled into the price of housing, decoupling that would do a few things, one would be to reduce the price of housing and provide less incentive for people to own multiple cars if it is unnecessary.   One speaker later felt as though this was “penalizing” drivers, or one could see it as making the real cost of parking – and therefore driving — evident.  

Then came the questions, the first speaker was Art Lipow who decided to use the opportunity to begin a speech about how living next to the seven unit buildings on San Antonio (on the the examples of pre-Measure A multifamily housing that is in line with the feel of the neighborhood) wasn’t all that great and if he lived next to more buildings like that it would be like living in “hell.”   He also talked about how he had lived all over the world (London, New York, etc…) and that he has a love affair with Alameda.   Even after being asked directly by Judge Bartalini if he actually had a question, he simply kept going.  Finally, he decided to get on with his question, which was clearly a plant by one of the panelists because we’ve all heard this one before right?  Plus, after speaking extemporaneously for a good while he needed to refer to a sheet a paper to “ask” his question.    The question was about how would low income people with families who needed cars get around?  Sound familiar?   Of course and who just happened to answer first and who just happened to have a quote at the ready about the Working Wheels program in Seattle, reading off a testimonial from a mother with kids who talked about her car just being the absolute best thing since sliced bread since her work required her to have reliable transportation. 

To which Judge Bartalini replied, “I thought we were trying to get people out of their cars.”

Then we of course get the Bay Area answer to the question from Stuart C. who remind us all that there are varying levels within the blanket “low income.”  Something along the lines of 50% of low income folks have cars, and that when we talk about affordable housing that these are often folks that are not people that are one week off of welfare, but are teachers, civil servants, etc…   He also mentioned that in affordable housing developments, car sharing has been successful because folks don’t have to have the burden and cost of owning cars, yet always have access to it when needed.   Brian C. also mentioned that there is a federal program that assists with low-income car ownership tied to certain jobs.

And then what conversation in Alameda would be complete without the issue of ingress and egress where people started getting all over Stuart C. back for suggesting that even if the tubes are congested that the other bridges could also provide relief.   To which some people starting shouting, “It’s takes an hour to get across the bridges!”  Which is simply ridiculous.  Of course they were probably trying to convey that when there is a major accident or say a fire which shuts down traffic, yes, it may take a bit longer to get in and out of Alameda.   Some guy sitting behind me upon hearing all the complaints from the audience about traffic shouted out “Because you are all in your cars!”  To which, I could not disagree.

Conclusion

So was it worth spending a substantial portion of my day?   Hard to say.   I probably would have gotten the same experience had I simply watched at home from the web cast.   It was nice seeing some of the bright shining faces, but of course there was always the fear that I might get slugged by someone I might not have been all that complimentary of in the past.   Was the information valuable?  I think so.   I hope that folks that are much less familiar with the issue will take the time to watch, I think much could be learned and I think that there are still many more discussions that need to take place around what it is that people want to see for the future of Alameda and how that can be accomplished.

Oh and I almost forgot, I can’t remember if this was said during the transportation panel questions or during the open comments to the Planning Board, but Art L. stood up to ominously suggest that the city as whole is mad as hell and they’re not going to take it and that a change may be coming in the very near future.   I can only assume this means that we should be seeing a what…slate of two for the next election?   I can’t wait to see who is offered up as a candidate.

Does anyone want to pull together a small collection to buy Alameda Daily News a dictionary?   Seriously.