Design challenges

Monday night the Planning Board had really only two items on their agenda.   But as with anything in Alameda, it took a long time to make a decision on the issue and for the first project, it’s not really there yet either.

So the first one involves a parcel of land that is directly across the street from Lincoln Middle School’s park/playground-y area.   It’s that big vacant lot that has been vacant forever.   Here’s the background, guy wants to build two-story house there, apparently his first design was terrible and he was told to go back to the drawing board.  Some neighbors don’t like the idea of yet another two-story house being in their mostly one-story ranch home neighborhood.  It’s the usual complaints about sun blockage and reduction of views.

In the meantime, the City tried to get a Ranch Style Home zoning overlay for that particular hood which would have put the kibosh on anything not resembling a ranch style home in that particular area.  The City Council said, no way so instead the City is in the midst of trying to revise the Design Review Manual to better reflect the ranch style home design.

Jump to Monday night when the applicant presented his revised design there was a lot of back and forth but the result was it still was not approved.  So, he’ll have to come back, again, after tweaking the design again to see if he can get a definitive yea or nay on his house.    I’m not sure at what point most people just wave a white flag and walk away.

And speaking of being in it for the long haul, the Cavenaugh Building project at Park and Buena Vista (across from the Alameda Marketplace) after two long years of back and forth and back and forth with the City is one tiny step closer to being a reality.   Of course, I wonder if the owner would have given up by now had they not hired friend of the Mayor, Barbara Price, to help massage the process along.

Although honestly though, given how long its taken this project to get its approvals, I can only imagine where this project would be without the consulting skills and connections of a Barbara Price.

The project will be a great addition to the Park Street North of Lincoln area, right now, but until the intersection of Park Street and Lincoln actually gets redeveloped, the revitalization of the North of Lincoln area will have to be confined to that particular intersection of Park and Buena Vista.  Personally, when I walk down Park Street I generally stop at that intersection because there is nothing to really see past Lincoln.    Once (or if) that Good Chevrolet lot gets developed, it would act as a pull to beckon further down Park Street, but right now it’s just a natural stopping point for folks wandering Park Street.

Just so you have perspective on how long the Planning Board meeting took to talk about these two issues, the meeting lasted nearly four hours and these were the only two items on the agenda.   A speaker mentioned Monday night  that if everything goes to plan, the owner will be able to start building the beginning of the year.

I want to leave you with this very short video of a comment made by Planning Board Lorre Zuppan.