The Burlingame Voice

What's Showing at the Drive-in?

Our Bayfront Development category has been quiet for some time, but that is about to change.  It has been about a year since the Drive-in site was in the news here and goes much further back.  Now it is back in front of the Planning Commission as reported in the Daily Journal with some great quotes from commissioners

While considering the proposal to build a massive business campus on the former Burlingame Drive-In property, officials balanced an effort to preserve the natural character of the city’s Bayfront.

During a meeting Monday, Jan. 25, the Burlingame Planning Commission reviewed a development proposal to build five large buildings which will house 767,000 square feet of office space and other amenities at 300 Airport Blvd.

Traffic and parking appear to be one of the mail concerns

Through various structures and lots spread across site, the project proposes to offer 2,318 parking spaces, alarming some officials to the potential for gridlock caused by an influx of workers commuting to the office buildings.

To address the concerns regarding traffic, the development design includes plans for shuttles to pick up workers from nearby public transportation stations and drop them off at the campus.

And I have to wonder if this campus might generate enough demand to reopen the B'way station on weekdays after more than a decade closure?  But all of those questions pale in comparison to the question of where the water will come from?

High Cost Rail - Part 120 Chicken!

Some genius at the California High-cost Rail Authority--and we use the word "authority" with tongue-firmly-in-cheek--has figured out that 

By building in the north initially, the state would delay the most difficult and expensive segment of the entire $68-billion project: traversing the geologically complex Tehachapi and San Gabriel mountains with a large system of tunnels and aerial structures.

This acknowledgement that the southern section into L.A. as required by the original bond measure is impossible to actually build anywhere close to the list price sold to voters is causing the switch to....us.  Chicken!  If something is difficult, we will just put our heads in the sand and go elsewhere.  So sad.

The only thing sadder is the fools at places like the Silicon Valley Leadership Group--and we use the work "leadership" with tongue-firmly-in-cheek--encouraging the chicken behavior.  Let's hope the San Jose mayor's carefully phrased non-support has some backbone behind it

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said he'd heard rumblings that the city may be back in play for the early spur. Still, he said, he's "not jumping for joy."

"What would be good for San Jose and Silicon Valley would be to have a completed line that connects the entire state," he said. "I'm not terribly interested in political battles over whether it gets to one city before another. I'm more interested in either getting it done completely, or focusing those dollars on intercity transit systems like BART."

Do not be fooled by the South vs. North debate.  The answer is to kill this albatross before anymore concrete gets poured in Fresno.

 

Rolling thru Red Lights

In the first week after I moved to the Bay Area in 1981 someone used the term "California stop sign".  It's sort of a slow-mo, look around, save some gas, maybe-not-have-to-downshift-to-first-gear sort of driving maneuver.  Our very own state Senator Jerry Hill has somehow determined that protecting the California red light pseudo-stop is a priority.  Per the SacBee, this is sort of controversial

By the way, a full legal stop is a somewhat particular thing. Your tires have to completely stop turning, momentarily, before your front bumper crosses the first white line you come to. If you stop with your nose, say, a foot over that line (thus in the crosswalk) you can be hit with the $500 ticket.

A few drivers said they don’t think they should have to obey the law if there are no other cars, pedestrians or cyclists around. In those cases, slowing down seems good enough. Two mentioned they have seen police fail to fully stop before making a right on red. They had some choice words about that.

But then the Law of Unintended Consequences might kick in

We got a few emails from drivers who acknowledged they don’t always come to a full legal stop. I suspect there are more of us in this group than any other. Most did not sound dismissive of the law. A few said they felt pressured at times by impatient drivers behind them.

Or even more likely, if people start driving like a Google-assisted car drives, they will start getting rear-ended like a Google-assisted car does.  And as we head towards legalized recreational marijuana (see the 2016 ballot), my guess is that we will have a lot more drivers pondering their navels at stop signs and red lights than rolling through them. 

Time for TOT?

After tomorrow's playoff games we will know who will play in Super Bowl 50 here in the Bay Area.  Two weeks later the Big Game will bring big money to a variety of businesses.  One can only hope B'game's hotels will be full and the Transient Occupancy Tax ("TOT") will flow into the city's coffers.  The NFL alone has reserved 18,000 hotel rooms.  About one-third are on the Peninsula and we are prime turf for getting easily to both EssEff and Santa Clara.

The major missed opportunity is to also collect TOT from AirBnB and VRBO renters.  It's too late to rake in what will be one of the largest potential takes B'game is likely to see in the next decade or more, but that is no reason not to rectify the oversight afterwards.  If you scroll down to page 36 of the 2015-'16 CAFR* located here, you will see that TOT is about 38% of total city revenue.  Right now it is $23.7 Million, but it could be even bigger.

Searching the AirBnB site for rentals on Super Bowl weekend indicates only 15% of the available listings are left to be rented in B'game and the average price is $466 per night.  That, dear bloggers, is a lot of missed TOT!  Let's hope this City Council learns from the mistakes of the last one.  This was totally foreseeable.

* CAFR is the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report

Restaurant Review: Nachoria

Some bloggers got pretty excited about the Nachoria opening; like this comment from Pat Giorni

"I laughed when a coffee shop opened and expected to last while charging the unheard of price of $3.00 for a cuppa coffee and now we all call it 5 Bucks. I was again amused when I read about the concept behind Nachoria and wondered once again how long this business would last until I went in at 4pm today to check it out. I know you were understaffed because it took about 10 minutes to place my order with only 3 parties ahead of me...all deuces. But after sitting down my order was placed before me in under 10 minutes. All during my meal people continued to POUR in. When I left at 5:45, your restaurant was turning the tables for a second full seating. Having worked in the full service restaurant business...not fast food... for 35 years I have never seen tables turn so fast, especially during the dead period between lunch and early bird dining.

"I had the Super quesadilla filled w/ Pollo, Carne asada, and carnitas. I will definitely be back when the Al Pastor makes its debut! I enjoyed the use of a thick sour creme rather than the usual watery stuff. The quesadillas were crisped up nicely, and a cut above the usual preparation. The only thing I would add is that if they are grilled w/ butter rather than oil, the flavor and appeal would be spectacularly enhanced. bottom line is that your food is good enough to bring me back again and again.

Well, I had a bit more of a mixed reaction partly based on what I ordered and what I didn't drink.  I ordered the triple tacos with diablo shrimp (an extra $2) and they were pretty shrimpy.  Nicely spicy but 9 small shrimp for the price didn't cut it!  A dinner partner ordered the salad with ceviche (extra $3) and that was a much more substantial meal.  Selection envy set in.  Another dinner partner ordered the nachos.  While there were plenty of nachos, the meat was a bit sparse.  Like the tacos, they were more of an appetizer than an entree.  The real shocker was the $12 glasses of wine.  The selection (Acacia, Ferrari-Carano, William Hill) was pretty good, but in a nacho place with no table service and modest stemware I would have thought $8-9/glass would have been the right price point.  The sparklers were priced higher!

All in all, I don't think Sixto's, Steelhead or the pizza places on the Avenew have much to worry about.  I also did Rangoon Ruby (take out) last week and while very good, they also appear to be accounting for the rents on the Avenew--or maybe a bit more than accounting for their rent.  Here is Nachoria.

Drought: It's Never Really Over

The Merc/Times had a piece last Sunday that is still wiggling in my brain here on Friday.  The headline is "When is 'over' really over?  Answer isn't simple".  The simple-on-its-face answer is

Simply put: The drought could end this year, according to state water officials. But for that to happen, as California enters the fifth year of the worst drought in the state's history, rains will have to continue arriving in pounding, relentless waves through April to fill depleted reservoirs and dry rivers and push the Sierra snowpack to at least 150 percent of normal.

After some back and forth commentary, we get to the brain-wiggler that has bedeviled me all week

Others say California needs to make up the sizable rainfall deficit over the past four years, which almost certainly won't happen this winter. Other experts say that California has to replace billions of gallons of overpumped groundwater to have a true recovery -- which will take decades...NASA scientists using satellite data estimate that California is 12 trillion gallons of water short because of the drought -- in rivers, creeks, snowpack and, most importantly, in underground aquifers that have been pumped at record levels by Central Valley farmers. Groundwater experts say that will take DECADES to recover. And it might not ever happen.

I'm no water official, geologist or meteorologist, but I think I can read the tea leaves and I did back in June.  We will never have enough.  So planners, electeds and miscellaneous bureaucrats should get their heads around this and stop business-as-usual.  Perhaps this Hoover Institute poll will be the catalyst.  Scroll down to page 25 where you see "Deal with the state's water problem" beats out "Deal with global warming" by 40% -  77% to 37%.  Yo, Jerry!

Urban Limits: Size and Design Matter

Our esteemed local scribe, John Horgan of the SM County Times (SJ Merc) has a New Year's wish we can all get behind.  In his column, John notes

With 2016 now in full flower right there in front of us, perhaps it's a good time to check off a local fab five list of things that ought to be addressed/considered over the coming months.

Here goes:

Urban limits -- The basic rule of thumb is pretty simple. If we wanted to live in San Jose or San Francisco we would have moved there. Enough with the four- and five-story residential complexes that have all of the charm of a state prison. We live in the suburbs because they are suburbs.

There are a couple projects in the works right now in dear ole B'game where, in my opinion, a little bit of the Brutalist design aesthetic appears to be creeping in. Poor Millbrae has already been encroached upon by it.  Regarding a local example, a recent letter to the Planning Commission by my highly-experienced spouse noted

988 Howard Ave. is particularly important for a number of reasons: 1) It is the gateway to the R-2 and R-1 areas of Burlingables/Lyon Hoag. 2) It directly faces and interacts with our 1894 Mission Revival Train Station which is a National Register listed building.  3) It anchors the southern corner of East Lane while the northern anchor is the Candy Store building, a beautiful 1920’s brick structure designed by Burlingame’s most  prolific architect, Colonel Norberg (designer of the Burlingame Public Library, Washington School, the Lions Club and  Candy Store buildings among many others).  4) It is one of the four corners of Burlingame Square and it is vital that the building balance the buildings on the other side of the square located between Howard Avenue and Burlingame Avenue i.e. The Candy Store, the Bank of Burlingame building and the Salma building.

I request that the Planning Commission use its design authority as delineated in the Burlingame Downtown Specific Plan and direct the applicant to re-design the architecture of the project that reflects the prominent historic structures surrounding Burlingame Square.  Design direction should be given from these structures: The Mission Revival Train Station, the brick Candy Store building (AKA the Packard Dealership building), the Sullivanesque Bank of Burlingame building (currently the Straits Restaurant), The Salma Family Building (housing  Kabul restaurant), the former Photo Play theatre building (today’s Basecamp Fitness) or the former Greyhound Bus station (currently Sam’s Sandwiches).

You can check out the submission to the city as it stands today here by scrolling down to Item 8d.  A key point is "neighborhood consistency" and we ain't in San Fran, San Jose or Moscow for that matter.

 

Visions of $$ dancing in their heads

The lines were long at the Safeway on Howard Avenue, not for the $5 special on fried chicken or meatloaf, but rather for the use of the California Lottery machine near the entrance of the store.

The jackpot for the Powerball lottery is at an all time high. In fact I believe it is the highest amount in any lottery in any state...now hovering around $900 million.

The question is a two-parter:

A.) What would you do with the $$ if you won ( guessing your take-home will be around $500 million after taxes.)

B.) Would you give back to the Burlingame community in some way and what would it be?

Hoover Traffic Planning (and Paying)

School capacity - really the lack of school capacity - is a hot button in town.  The District estimated the available capacity in the five existing schools to be 102 seats back in the summer.  Development in town - really over-development in town - will exacerbate this even with the re-opening of Hoover School.  That saga can be reviewed here and here for newcomers (of which there are some).  Today's Daily Journal notes that tonight is when the money meets the road on traffic/pedestrian improvements that need to be made to

Officials are expecting a crush of cars and students flocking to the area near the campus at 2200 Summit Drive when 200 kindergartners through fifth-graders start classes at the school in August.

In advance of the school reopening its doors, officials will collaborate on developing an agreement over how the cost of building new sidewalks, painting crosswalks, making the site compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act standards and other improvements will be financed.

Officials project the variety of improvements are slated to cost as much as $3.5 million, when considering long-term projects such as building new sidewalks along Summit and Easton drives, as well as widening the roads and other efforts, according to a city report.

This is the first meeting of the full bodies (new Council and School Board) and they need to collaborate since

...school officials and neighborhood residents arrived at a settlement in February, after the district committed to installing a variety of alterations along Summit Drive, such as designating student drop-off and pick-up areas and realigning the school driveway, among other improvements.

This incremental capacity of 200 kids is a start, but I believe there will be more demand coming soon so the two bodies might as well get to know each other's concerns.