I attended a joint City Council/Planning Commission meeting this morning. As a matter of full disclosure, I did not stay for the entire meeting but did stay for the overview of what Burlingame plans in the next few years. In the North, a plan for a new work/live flex space neighborhood, termed the "innovation industrial" area is what our city leaders envision where today's North Rollins Rd. light industrial is today. Along the Bayfront, more commercial development including the former drive-in site predicted to bring 3000 jobs to Burlingame.
Bottom line is that the consultants believe there is capacity in Burlingame to expand by 10,000 more people and/or 4200 dwellings.
You can read the staff report for yourselves.
But even today, there are lots of projects in the pipeline that will change the face of Burlingame. From memory: There is the four story office on Howard and Myrtle, the four story on Highland, the four story on Lorton, a massive high density residential complex on Carolan, another large high density residential project on Lorton (where the two city parking lots are located,) a proposed residential complex along Myrtle near Bayswater, a proposed large residential project on the hospital land behind the current hospital and then there's the Broadway grade separation project that will create a one-story to two-story berm running from before Broadway to just before Burlingame High School. Not to mention the Post Office project which could be another very large high density residential complex or the new Recreation Center project, Top Golf on the bayfront and the Hyatt theater site development. I've probably forgotten a few.
It seems that either the consultants numbers are off or that city council and planning commissioners have not thought of the impacts of these projects cumulatively. This folks is a lot of expansion in a relatively short span of time. Some of these projects are good in their intent, but put them all together and you have a very different town. In my opinion, it will not be the "quaint" Burlingame we know today.
I spoke at the meeting of the importance of investigating how our infrastructure can handle such expansion. How will our schools be affected? How will our sewer, storm drains, roads, traffic and parking be impacted. Of course there will be environmental studies to try to help answer those questions, but we all know that the conclusions will support whatever plan the council favors.
One council member asked that staff reach out to the current property owners in the North Rollins Rd area to see if they could get on board with the idea of a innovation neighborhood. I would ask, where is the outreach to the entire community about all of this expansion? At the meeting were the folks who always show up for these meetings. No new faces. It is clear that more intense outreach to the broader community needs to be done and quickly. I know there have been numerous meeting of a subcommittee made up of citizens and business people. That's great but it's not nearly enough in my opinion. I know that city staff and council will say that this is just the beginning and that there will plenty of time to react. I suspect those future meetings will be poorly attended as well.
I'm concerned. Are you?
Don't forget about the proposed Pennisula overpass also. Concerned? Very.
Posted by: Burlingamer | April 16, 2017 at 07:37 PM
I'm very concerned. NIMBYs afraid of change are going to make the bay area unlivable.
Posted by: response | April 16, 2017 at 08:13 PM
Anybody who thinks building tons of rack em stack em housing is the way to keep the Bay Area livable is a dangerous fool.
Posted by: irresponsible response | April 17, 2017 at 12:14 AM
Early in the presentation, the discussion included dwellings known as "micro -units"-I think these are probably less than 700 sq. ft., and frequently much smaller). BTW, this was brilliantly showcased by K. Gardener in Planning, using a photo of an "interior" taken inside IKEA comprised of approx. 350 sq. ft. total, just for discussion sake.
A criticism was made during comment period, (if I'm not mistaken, from Ms. Cornell) that if such units were built, they'd be "filled with seniors". I couldn't help but wonder, is that so bad?? Both my kids and one spouse live in 550 sq. ft. units in SoCal, and they are really pretty cool. I couldn't help but think of Ms. Hatch, who quite possibly would have been happy to have a micro-unit option).
Cynthia further commented that these were otherwise not appropriate because they'd create work-week housing where people would be separated from their families for several days, only to return (presumably to the outer regions like Tracy, Gilroy, etc.) during the weekends, or off days.
Welcome to the life of a trucker or construction worker, firefighter, etc. And that has been so, for decades. This is the Bay Area. To force the notion that every family, or individual, regardless of income, can live in Burlingame is not based in reality, OR, it takes the form of subsidized housing, from property owners, and/or from a government entity.
Finally, if the jobs created here are a big part of the problem, then maybe wages need to go up to compensate. Yes, prices will be passed on to the consumer in restaurants, on car repairs, etc., That's how the free market works. People still may not be able to afford Burlingame, but may have an opportunity to rent elsewhere on the Peninsula that can be reached within a half hour or so on a bus route, etc.
That's a long way of saying, yes, I am and have been quite concerned. What little local control remains in the hands of this city needs to be very deftly handled with realistic solutions that are manageable. Otherwise, I see Burlingame's quality of life, including any modicum of "charm" we have left, vanishing in short order.
Posted by: Jennifer | April 17, 2017 at 09:59 AM
It's time to face up to reality. Never mind drought or flooding, neither the water or sewer infrastructure (i.e. the pipes themselves) is set up to handle this kind of density in B'game. And the schools cannot handle the additional kids that come with the mass of new housing. Getting approval piecemeal for each project doesn't capture the overall view the way Russ has in the original post.
Posted by: Joe | April 17, 2017 at 01:22 PM
Listen, Bruce Dickinson isn't going repeat some of the dynamite thoughts in most of the posts above.
But guys, I gotta tell ya, Burlingame has become, in effect, Hillsborough's lap dog! All these state incentives/coercive powers seem to affect all the Bay area cities, except for Hillsborough. While we Burlingame residents bear all the externalities of higher density housing including more traffic, more people, stressing the roads/water/infrastructure/parking, etc. Where does Hillsborough sit in all this? Are they going to erect a bunch of nanny housing on existing properties? Count garage spaces as "housing" for cars? No, in the ABAG horse-trading game where cities negotiate housing absorption, basically Burlingame and San Mateo step right up to the plate and take on Hillsborough's "allocation". Sorry, but exactly what do Burlingame residents get in return?
The city council needs to be far more aggressive in not only fighting the state, but also making sure Hillsborough engages in "fair trade". It's gotten so bad that I may even buy a copy of the "Art of the Deal" for all the council members, which sadly would probably have better suggestions than what they are doing now.
Looking forward to this election season!
Posted by: Bruce Dickinson | April 17, 2017 at 07:01 PM
Don't forget the sad electric grid in town. Nagel got a huge amount of press purporting to force PG&E to fix it but it's NOT FIXED. We just had another major outage two weeks ago for no reason. Hey Terry, how is retirement?
Posted by: dtn | April 17, 2017 at 08:19 PM
I was enlightened by a contributor stating there are no Jobs are available in Burlingame that create for a consumer/renter the ability to afford to live in Burlingame.
In order to create a Community that understands the needs and wants of the place they choose to live-not settle for, is the only way to move forward to get the "End" we so desperately crave.
Posted by: [email protected] | April 17, 2017 at 08:36 PM
If you want to understand "Why?" our State and Local Government behaves the way it does, you must understand who's really in charge...certainly not "The People"...and not even "The Voters".
"Big Unions" rule California plain and simple. Nearly 100% of the politicians from Jerry Brown down to the local city councils are all Heiling Big Unions and their supermajority political party. All of the other causes that the party supports are just like flowers on the big union and tradesman cake.
Good time to buy CA heavy housing REITs too.
https://www.facebook.com/prageru/videos/893001624076028/
Posted by: "Big Unions" rule California | April 17, 2017 at 10:50 PM
Ms. Cornell is an expert at telling other people how they should spend their hard earned money.
Posted by: Handle Bard | April 17, 2017 at 11:00 PM
Pretty obvious to this old cat (Bruce Dickinson) that Ms. Cornell only cares about one thing: that her rent-controlled apartment stays rent-controlled with her in it until she becomes the very senior citizen that she currently wants to exclude from affordable housing. Everything else uttered by her seems extremely disingenuous, including criticizing the micro-housing idea (quite through provoking I must admit) and senior citizens, while purportedly championing the cause of "discriminated" renters?!?
Seriously, those type of comments together with that torpedoed rent control measure she led the charge on, pretty much guarantee that rent control will be dead on arrival for 20-30 years.
Come to think of it, maybe we should be thanking her!!??
Posted by: Bruce Dickinson | April 18, 2017 at 06:56 PM
What is the threshold of affordable housing? And why do public workers warrant more attention than other working folks? Go live in SSF or San Bruno if you can't afford B-game like I did. The city council has let me down. I actually thought they had B-game residents best interests at heart when they campaigned.
Ha-rumph
Posted by: JF | April 19, 2017 at 04:14 PM
The figure 10,000 is deceptive.
10,000 "units" does not represent the facts that go with it.
-10,000 units
-Lets say 3 humans per unit. Now we have 30,000 cars with ZERO Place to store.
-Lets "guesstimate" two Public School children per 10,000 units.
That equals 20,000 new students in an already over "Taxed" School System.
-A needed increase of Personal in all City of Burlingame Public Service.
Police, Fire, Public Works.
There has to be some City of Burlingame Elder that has the ethics, and foresight to tell every all that enough is enough.
Even a Major Corporation-Safeway Inc. is not able to keep up with the demand for services.
The drive to "shoehorn" in more housing is driven by investors that live in Hillsborough/China part time.
WAKE UP all you who want to keep Burlingame a place to raise families, walk down a sidewalk, and be able to have "some sort" of relationship with the Educators who will have a huge impact on all of our Futures.
PS Hillsider...
Happy 4/20
We have a great community with the population we have-barely.
Posted by: [email protected] | April 20, 2017 at 02:29 PM