Dirty words

Dan Zack, the Downtown Development Coordinator for Redwood City, who was also spearheaded the free market parking scheme for downtown Redwood City, has created a quiz challenging people’s assumptions about what “density” looks like.   In this town, to some folks density is a dirty word, right up there with “development.”    It doesn’t matter to those folks if the project is well designed and well executed, if you use the dreaded “d” word (either one, density or development, doesn’t matter) the will be against whatever it is.

But the quiz is rather interesting, give it a whirl.   I only wish that I had the fill in sheet so folks could get the real experience, because as Dan Zack mentions, people’s reactions are visceral when it comes to issues of density:

Yes we can

I always find that endorsement pieces tend to be the most difficult posts to write.   Not because I don’t know how I intend to vote, because often times I am reluctant to tell other people how to vote.

Personally, I have already voted yes on Measure B, and while I am hopeful that the result will be in Measure B’s favor, I’ve already resigned myself to the inevitability that it will go down in a massive blaze of glory.

But it’s not because the development isn’t good or that the land plan isn’t solid, it’s because SunCal allowed the debate to be about the Development Agreement instead of what is really important: the vision for Alameda Point.

Value add

Another one of the numbers touted by opponents to Measure B is the $51 million in fees that SunCal has asked they be exempted from paying.    The bulk of those fees is for the Community Development Fund which was a fee created by the City in 2001 to pay for projects in the City that have been deemed to be a priority to the City.

When I say “bulk” of those fees, according to the Interim City Manager’s rebuttal letter to SunCal, she estimated that those fees would be about $34 million.   Also in that rebuttal letter, the ICM declared that the way that the CDF is set up, since only a portion of the cost to construct the individual projects is assigned to new development, technically SunCal would only get a small portion of the fees they are supposed to pay credited toward the larger fee amount.

Don’t turn around, look look

Tonight the City Council will be getting reviews of all these financial documents tonight which will be deadly boring, but I’m sure someone will find them newsworthy.

One of the documents is a ten year history of lease revenues for the ARRA (Alameda Point).   An interesting number is the spike in FY 07-08 in the Fund Balance of almost $1.8 million.  Because it appears that expenditures had gone up, the collected lease revenues looked pretty flat, so in looking for where the extra money came from, it looked like a category called “Charges for current services” gave a substantial bump to that year.  To compare, the “Charges for current services” has only been collected three out of the ten years tracked here, in FY 06-07 only $44K was collected and in FY 08-08 only $107K was collected.

The bulk of that money which made up the largest portion of the fund balance was from, wait for it…wait for it…

The sum of all fears

Before I got too sidetracked by the new submission by SunCal for Alameda Point I wanted to talk about the $500 million number that has been put into print by opponents to Measure B as proof that Measure B is a “bad deal” for Alameda.   As you might have guessed, I just got my Protect the Point mailer with this little nugget prominently placed.   I liked the clip art of the little guy with his pockets overturned and a big frown-y face.

For those who have watched the joint meeting of the City Council and School Board you may remember Councilmember Frank Matarrese vehemently defending this number as being valid since it comes from “three sourced documents”:

Attachments in order

Many thanks to Lara Weisiger, City Clerk, for being gracious enough to send over as many of the attachments for the SunCal submission as I was interested in.   So for those who haven’t had a chance to read the transmission letter that was sent as a part of the packet, here is a copy that you can download and copy and paste to your heart’s content, however I have excerpted highlights from the letter:

…The development plan we are submitting today is the same plan that is on the ballot on February 2, 2010. The scope of development is the same; the number of residential units and nonresidential building square footage and other provisions of the plan have not been modified. The public benefits and amenities are the same. The Alameda Point Sports Complex, the Seaplane Lagoon Park and other parks, a new fen’y terminal and transit hub, a new library and other public benefits contained in the ballot initiative are all provided.

Visual aids

If you didn’t catch this on Alameda Daily Noose, it’s too funny not to mention.  If anyone caught a movie at the Alameda Theatre over the holidays you probably were subjected to the really lame video of the Mayor beseeching folks to “Shop Alameda.”  The movie then took a strange turn and featured school kids and boy scouts and other folks telling us to support various Alameda groups and activities. Then it rolled back to the whole Shop Alameda shtick.

Well Alameda Daily Noose has uncovered the flip flop video where the Mayor now tells us that we should be shopping elsewhere, for the good of Alameda.

It’s tricky

So, in an apparent about-face from last Friday when I was told that the SunCal submission was a public document, apparently both the City and SunCal have gone to Def con stall and I’m getting the runaround.   According to SunCal spokesman, Joe Aguirre, they are not releasing the documents because of the “confidentiality agreement” between the City and SunCal.

The unspoken is that it appears that the blockage is coming from the City side (surprise surprise)  So, in the public (namely, my own) interest, I’ve submitted a public records request and if the City wants to justify how precisely it is not in the public’s interest given the election, I can’t wait to get the answer.   For a City that is interested in “transparency” and and “informed populace”, it will be interesting to see how they justify that these documents are not public.   So far, I have not received a response yet from the City Attorney’s office, but it’s only been a day.

And given what this post topic is about, it’s not surprising that SunCal is playing along with what the City wants if they want to use the density bonus to achieve the type of development they want, as SunCal’s spokesfolks have stated:

The development plan submitted on Thursday is the same plan that will be on the ballot on February 2, 2010. The scope of the development is identical, as are the residential components, public benefits and amenities, and other facilities and elements. Our goal is to develop Alameda Point with a vibrant, transit-oriented, mixed-use community that provides great public benefits to the City of Alameda and its residents.

So that leaves the question of how it can be done.   Of course, there is always the ballot measure, but I wouldn’t hold my breath that this Council would consider placing a Measure A exemption the ballot themselves.    The other method is the density bonus ordinance.   But as the title of this post would suggest, it’s tricky.

Back to basics

So as I mentioned on Friday, SunCal has submitted to the City another plan (which happens to be the same plan) with a new Development Agreement containing modifications to certain terms the City found objectionable.   This submission has now placed the next move firmly in the hands of the City to decide what they want to do next.

The complaints, to recap, with Measure B, in large part was in large part due to the appearance finality of the Development Agreement, the lack of ability of the City to negotiate terms, and the need for affirmative steps being taken by the developer only to amend portions of the Development Agreement.    This move now gives the City all the negotiating room it wants in order to scale the terms to its liking, so everyone should be behind the plan now?  Right?

After all, this is the plan that the Mayor, Councilmember Frank Matarrese, the Chamber of Commerce, etc and so forth have said that they like.   Now, they can negotiate the bejeezus out of this thing.

Happy MLK, Jr. Day

Back to As Alameda Turns tomorrow…