After that absolute shit show of a housing meeting for Bay Farm I thought I’d pull out the letter that was sent to the consolidated Harbor Bay Homeowners Association to the Planning Board with regard to the Housing Element. This is really important because, in the grand scheme of things, Bay Farm is getting away with barely helping to accommodate any of the RHNA numbers. If I were a Bay Farm NIMBY I would be lying real low to not call attention to the imbalance but instead Bay Farm wants to do even less.
If I had to guesstimate I would say that Bay Farm probably is about 1/4 of the size of the main island. The Housing Element is only allocating about 300 units for Bay Farm total. Even though the waters have been a little muddied with the release of some vibe check documents from the Harbor Bay Club folks it’s no where near ready and it’s definitely not a part of the City’s plans for Housing Element compliance.
But, rather than lay low, they sent this:
Because whoever is informing Bay Farm neighbors is doing an absolute disservice to them and doing things that could bring more attention to the fact that Bay Farm, even though it comprises a quarter of Alameda’s land mass is only taking, what, like 5% of the RHNA numbers and probably doing very little to help affirmatively further fair housing.
It’s not that they’re even saying “do less” they passed a resolution saying “do nothing”:
Honestly if Bay Farm folks were really serious about the traffic on Bay Farm there would be one really easy way to ease congestion: school shuffle. If you’ve ever seen Bay Farm on a commute morning on a non school day it’s a night and day change for the most part. So, turn Earhart (or Bay Farm whichever is the smaller school) and have that school be the 6 – 8 for Bay Farm. The other school is the K – 5. No one leaves Bay Farm to go to any other public school in Alameda if they’re in K – 8 and there would be no internal district transfers into Bay Farm schools. This would also relieve a lot of the pressure on Lincoln which is majorly impacted. Most everyone will be circulating cars only on Bay Farm or they’ll be able to ride bikes or walk since Bay Farm is not that big. There won’t be parents trying to get in to the “good” schools on Bay Farm because they won’t be available in order to lower traffic. Win!
Blogging Bayport Alameda 
Some of these people are incredibly privileged and arrogant. Every neighborhood in Alameda is special and interesting. What makes Bay Farm exceptional that it does not need to abide by the rules? It feels like a slap in the face to the rest of Alameda.
Comment by An Alamedan — June 1, 2022 @ 10:25 am
Is your last paragraph intended to be tongue in cheek? I typically agree enthusiastically with your posts but am disgusted at the idea of walling off Bay Farm schools. The solution to traffic is fewer automobile subsidies and greater investment in public transit, pedestrian, and bicycle facilities, not amplification of the existing economic disparities between schools.
Comment by Traffic over children — June 1, 2022 @ 2:26 pm
I mean, traffic is such a problem to Bay Farm residents that surely they’d try any options to allow them to freely get to South Shore at prime school drop off times. I figured they hadn’t considered the most obvious culprit of their congestion woes.
Comment by Lauren Do — June 1, 2022 @ 2:33 pm
They might try other options but don’t call them Shirley!
Comment by Rod — June 1, 2022 @ 3:55 pm
Hi, Lauren. Terrific blog. Thank you. I’m a resident of Harbor Bay Isle. I canvased at least 80% of the homes on Bay Farm on behalf of the Wellness Center. I was complemented for being willing to handle Harbor Bay because it was considered hostile territory. To “get the vote out” they provided a list of mostly Democrats who had voted in recent elections. Seemed to me I could skip those homes and should knock on doors of every home NOT on the list. As a compromise, I knocked on every door. I also covered several precincts on the eastern end of the main island. Lessons learned…
First, after living in Harbor Bay for decades, shameful to admit I was very surprised how many homes on Bay Farm are not in Harbor Bay.
Second, Harbor Bay Isle was not at all hostile. In fact, so many homeowners wanted lawn signs that we ran out of supply. Many, many friendly conversations. The few angry reactions all happened on the main island. I have trouble reconciling the letter from the Community of Harbor Bay Isle board with that experience.
Thirdly, the Harbor Bay board letter against new housing was an embarrassment, a poorly written hodgepodge list:
– some false like lack of fire department service – my home insurance rate reflects our excellent HBI fire department coverage. Also, Harbor Bay Landing parking lot is not full daily. In fact, it’s dying because it’s a dying business model in our economy.
– some deliberately misleading like “flight path trajectory” over new homes, just like the homes of the board members today and my home
– some fatuous like “proposed housing units under water.” True and the only viable solution is redevelopment. The city has a consistent record on that, like the sea wall at the Encinal Terminals project and infrastructure at Alameda Point. The HBI Board solution is better to let it Harbor Bay Landing flood than fix it.
Comment by FBT — June 18, 2022 @ 12:16 pm
Of course HBI was “not at all hostile.” Your knock alerted them to their ability to vote for a homeless center on the opposite end of town. They were giddy with delight to put that burden onto other neighborhoods.
Take a look at the map of the results. You’ll see that voters near the proposed center were quite negative on it.
Everybody is for homeless services — in someone else’s neighborhood. Not so many want it in their own.
Comment by . — June 18, 2022 @ 5:32 pm