The Burlingame Voice

Fire Season? When Isn't It?

This little blurb in today's Daily Journal got me thinking

A fire in Hillsborough damaged five homes Friday evening, according to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.  Central County firefighters received a report of a structure fire in the 1800 block of Black Mountain Road at about 4:53 p.m., according to sheriff’s deputies.  Two homes were fully involved in the fire and three nearby homes were also damaged.

Every year we hear one of two things:  it was a wet year and there is more underbrush that will be fuel in the summer or it's a drought year and the dry conditions are a fire danger.  Seems every year is a fire danger and perhaps the larger lots up on Black Mountain Rd. provide more fuel and more danger.  But maybe we all need to pay more attention this summer...........even in the flat lands. 

Saying Goodbye to the Fire Chief

I was not able to make the retirement celebration for Central County Fire Chief Don Dornell last night but Mayor Keighran and my lovely wife, Councilmember Cathy Baylock, were there along with a sizeable crowd to send Don off to retirement.  From the program we learn that Don was

Hired with the City of Burlingame Fire Department as a firefighter in 1977.  Promoted to Fire Captain in 1985 and Assistant Chief in 1997.  Appointed to be the second Fire Chief of the Central County Fire Department in 2006 and the shared Fire Chief for the CCFD, Millbrae Fire Department and San Bruno Fire Department in 2012.

You will recall from this post about the Screaming Eagles that Don

Served as the first Chairman of the Burlingame Adopt-a-Unit Program since 2004 which as sponsored the adopted soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division through 5 deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

I hope Don enjoys his retirement and welcome to new CCFD Fire Chief Mark Ladas.  Here's Cathy Baylock wishing Don well last night.

National Record Store Day

Today is National Record Store Day.  It happens once or maybe twice a year and is quite fun if you still like going to record/CD stores.  No matter how much you know about various genres of music (and I can honestly say I know quite a bit), going to a good ole fashioned record store is educational.  I stopped by the closest one to B'game today.  Unfortunately, it ain't in B'game.  But 25th Ave. in San Mateo, where Vinyl Solutions has been selling vinyl and CDs for more than 25 years, is more B'gamey than some parts of B'game.  Free parking.  Independently owned stores.  Good stuff.

I recall very vividly when B'game had a record store.  The proprietor was George and I think he was 3rd generation B'game, related to the original station master.  I'm not sure if his last name was Gates or not, but he had been around the local block awhile.  Anyone know where George is these days?

Here's the San Mateo store this afternoon.  They had two bands and a great crowd!

Hoover School Update

The City newsletter has the details on the groundbreaking here.  The particulars are

Hoover Elementary School – Groundbreaking on the first public elementary school in Burlingame in over 50 years.   “A former school site is once again a neighborhood elementary school”

Hoover Elementary School,  2220 Summit Drive

April 23, 2013,  10:00-11:00am

Hoover Elementary School opened in 1931, and included the construction of the Lou Henry Hoover Amphitheater in 1938. The site continued as an elementary school until it closed in 1979 due to overall declining enrollment in the Burlingame School District.

Our local columnist, John Horgan, with the longest memory around has more details in his San Mateo County Times-News column here with the ironic part being the shift from parents during the Carter Administration protesting the closure and now

Ironically, many in the Hoover attendance area aren't happy. They view its impending reincarnation as a mistake. One of their main arguments against the decision involves an expected increase in traffic congestion.

There is even litigation involved. Goodness, how times (and attitudes) change. If there are any of the Hoover families left from that contentious period during the Carter administration, they must be shaking their heads in stunned wonderment. Whatever happened to the vocal desire to maintain that cherished neighborhood academic institution?

It is quite a surprising turn of events but I guess 34 years is a long time and perhaps the Hillsborough side of the neighborhood (where the lawsuit originates) is less engaged than in 1979?

 

 

San Mateo Boom - Sonic Boom?

The article in the Daily Journal about all the transit-oriented development going on in San Mateo caught my eye because the high-cost rail cognescenti in B'game have been marvelling over the new construction at Peninsula and California--just over the border in San Mateo.  The DJ notes

Ground has broken on a new 111-unit transit-oriented development in San Mateo’s rail corridor between the Hayward Park and Hillsdale Caltrain stations.

The former Lithographix printing facility at 2090 S. Delaware St. has been demolished and the new $43.7 million apartment complex is scheduled to be ready to lease in spring 2014, according to developer Wood Partners.

The reason the high-cost rail watchers have focused on the one on our southern border is the setback from the railroad right of way.  It would appear to be just enough to handle a four-track allignment for HSR.  Can you imagine being in one of those units when the sonic boom of a 120 mph train goes by?  You have to wonder what all of these developers are thinking--"I'll be long gone before HSR gets to the Peninsula?"

Here's the foundation being laid a few months ago.  I'll add the current view later.  I almost think B'game share the "credit" for these units under the ABAG quota.  They are a lot closer to B'game than anything but the disputed 7-11 in San Mateo.

Update:  Here is the view from the right-of-way.  The funny thing is they have built the new condos with windows onto the tracks!!!!  I happened to go to an Open House in the building on the opposite side of the tracks today and the first thing one potential buyer did was open the window in the unit to hear how loud the train was.  I didn't have the heart to tell him how loud High-cost Rail would be.

Eichlers Draw a Crowd!

The B'game Historical Society held its quarterly meeting on Thursday night and drew a Standing Room Only crowd to the Lane Room at the library.  Staff brought in an additional row of chairs that were snapped up immediately and it remained SRO until the end.  What was the attraction?  Eichlers.

I've highlighted B'game's cluster of Eichlers before but the new draw was Menlo Park realtor-turned-developer Monique Lombardelli who brought her video documentary about the history, evolution and community spirit that lives on in Eichler neighborhoods around the Bay Area.  As the link points out

Lombardelli’s filming at one house, an important place to Joe Eichler, led to an exciting development. That was the Bazett House, in Hillsborough, the Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian home that Eichler rented from 1943 to 1945. It was here that Eichler first felt the power of modern architecture. Inspired, he began building modern tract homes a few years later.

Today, Lombardelli lives in the Bazett House just as Eichler did, renting a portion of it from the family that has owned it since 1945. “I want to live here,” she told the owners.

Monique noted that there are about 100 Eichlers in B'game and about 900 in San Mateo with about 11,000 spread throughout the Bay Area.  The post-WWII housing crisis when demand outstripped supply from returning soldiers and materials shortages led Eichler to evolve his designs.  As Wikipedia notes

Eichler homes are from a branch of Modernist architecture that has come to be known as "California Modern," and typically feature glass walls, post-and-beam construction, and open floorplans in a style indebted to Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe. Eichler Homes exteriors featured flat and/or low-sloping A-Framed roofs, vertical 2-inch pattern wood siding, and spartan facades with clean geometric lines. One of Eichler's signature concepts was to "Bring the Outside In," achieved via skylights and floor-to-ceiling glass windows with glass transoms looking out on protected and private outdoor rooms, patios, atriums, gardens, and swimming pools.

Monique is now in planning mode to build some Eichler-style houses herself on a 3.2 acre plot in Portola Valley.  I wish her luck and appreciate the knowledge the video gave to the 100+ attendees.

Watching Millbrae's Example

I found today's Daily Journal article titled "Alleged Shoddy Construction Brings Lawsuits" interesting to B'gamers for two reasons.  First, I constantly hear comments about how rigorous the single-family residential building inspections can be in B'game during construction.  100+ units appear to be a different story.  Second, we could easily be looking at one or more projects like this on the Post Office site or nearby.  So this excerpt about the Millbrae big condo projects' inspections caught my eye

Two Millbrae condominium developers with units between $599,000 to $1.28 million recently faced lawsuits over shoddy construction that includes severe structural issues, water damage and cracking — and although city inspectors signed off on the projects, they are immune from legal action.

The two developments each have more than 100 units along El Camino Real — 88 Broadway and Park Broadway. With Peninsula housing demand growing, land at a premium and a regional goal of transit-oriented multi-unit development, such housing is becoming more popular but can lead to a series of legal tangles once problems are revealed in time. While one group was able to reach a settlement, mediation continues for the other. But there may be a trend in the need to seek lawsuits.

Building up comes with different challenges than single-family homes. California has building codes, most recently adopted in 2010, regulating anything built in the state. Cities that have issued building permits are charged with inspecting the buildings to meet those codes. However, the employees and the city are immune from legal action if problems are found with that construction.

Millbrae officials declined to comment on the requirements of building inspectors. Neighboring cities also declined to comment about the requirements of their inspectors. Experts say the challenge appears to be the inability to really watch over every detail on such large projects. Ultimately, California law puts the need to fix problems to the developer. Developers are also given a chance to address the issues under California law and must be invited to mediation before legal proceedings can really begin. Mediation has become a clearly defined process.

Something to think about as we perhaps will looking at something of this scale in our downtown

 

High School Transfer Politics

The Daily Journal is keeping an eye on the SMUSHD deliberations about when and where to allow high school kids to transfer between schools in the district here.  The two interesting bits from a B'game perspective are

District enrollment is projected to increase by more than 1,400 students by 2022. But most of that growth is happening in the southern part of the district where many of the recently approved intra-district transfers take place. By contract, students in San Bruno and Millbrae, where growth has been stagnant, haven’t moved throughout the district as freely.

I'm thinking Heather meant "by contrast" instead of "by contract" and the spell checker let it through.  The relative desirability is interesting too

Over the last two years, the district received 949 requests to change schools and granted 526. Of the requests, most students were looking to attend — in order of most requests — San Mateo’s Aragon, Burlingame and Hillsdale high schools or Mills High School in Millbrae. Requests for Capuchino and San Mateo high schools were both under 60 for the two years.

With all the tradition and improvements at BHS, I can see why more kids want to go there (here).  Now all we have to do is iron out the pool maintenance issue....

 

Randy Schwartz Moves Closer to Home

H'borough has selected former B'game Park & Rec head as its new city manager.  Randy is a very familar face around B'game.  The Daily Journal has a squib here.

Randy Schwartz has been named the new city manager for the town of Hillsborough, replacing current City Manager Tony Constantouros, who is retiring at the end of the year after 18 years with the town.

Schwartz has worked as San Bruno’s Community Service director for the past four years and before that, worked for the city of Burlingame for 23 years, where he last served as Parks and Recreation director.

It will be a very short commute...pretty much walkable!  Congrats, Randy.

California - The "Barbell" Economy

Back when the California economy was the fifth largest in the world, the Wall Street Journal used to track it very closely.  Now that we are the ninth largest, the Journal still stops by once in awhile for an in depth review.  Yesterday's edition did just that with a huge article on the economy and a large one on our real estate.

Quoting from the first piece, an economist from Beacon Economics notes that "L.A. is an extreme example of California's 'barbell economy,' with a greater than average share of college graduates, but also of people who haven't finished high school."  A Claremont-McKenna College spokesperson for a cost-of-doing-business survey adds that "the most recent survey ranked 421 cities; 16 of the 50 most expensive were in California, including San Francisco and L.A."  We are still hanging tough with the 48th best business tax climate as well--and that is before this November's election where the ballot has only potential downsides for our rating.

The "barbell economy" is causing a barbell real estate market as well with Silicon Valley leading the way on the heavy ends of the barbell.  Per the Journal, "in the second quarter, the median price of a single-family home rose in 61% of Bay Area communities, compared with a year earlier, according to research firm Dataquick."  We've seen that in B'game pretty clearly.  The question is how much since the article shows Palo Alto up 14% and San Mateo up 2.4%.  My guess is we are somewhere in between, but the flight from S.F. could put us on par with Palo Alto.  And the Drive-in project certainly will contribute to putting us on the higher end in the medium term.