Development Bookends

Today's Daily Journal covers our bookends -- San Mateo and Millbrae going a bit nuts.  The Millbrae piece reports

Following hours of detailed analysis and passionate discussion, (Millbrae) officials ultimately accepted the proposal to build 444 housing units, more than 270,000 square feet of offices and up to approximately 30,000 square feet of retail space in three towers up to 10 stories near the BART and Caltrain station.

Well, the analysis couldn't have been that "detailed" or it would have noted the mess this will make of Millbrae Ave. (which is already a bit of a mess) and it would address where the water is supposed to come from.  It would appear the EIR process is a joke in Millbrae.  On our southern exposure, San Mateo just can't seem to get enough as the DJ reports here

How a 935-unit residential development proposed to replace the Concar Shopping Center in San Mateo will affect the services and stores members of neighboring communities use was among the concerns residents aired at the Planning Commission’s Tuesday study session.

Though the project, dubbed the Passage at San Mateo, is set to retain a Trader Joe’s and 7-Eleven on site and also provide a dining hall, park space and a transit hub open to residents of nearby communities, Sunnybrae resident Barbara Niss found the loss or relocation of well-used amenities like Rite Aid, Trader Joe’s and the nonprofit Peninsula Ballet Theatre to be disheartening.  For Niss, new projects like the 12-acre Station Park Green project — which will add 599 housing units, 2 acres of parks and open space, as well as 25,000 square feet of commercial space and 10,000 square feet of office space across the street from the project — already promise to affect the area.

An just for kicks the hacks at the SF Chronicle editorial page try to take to task all of the candidates to replace Jerry Brown as governor for not supporting the abusive SB827

The leading candidates have plenty of proposals to ramp up government spending on housing for the needy. What they generally oppose is any threat to sacrosanct “local control” over what may be built. And the fact is that local control caused the housing crisis and will perpetuate it in the absence of courageous leadership.

Since when did local control deserve to be in quotes?  Only in the mind of socialists and myopic thinkers.  At least the gubernatorial candidates appear to have some sense of right, wrong and responsibility.  Let's hope it stays that way.

Comments

[Dan]

Since the negative externalities of Burlingame's prominent NIMBYism hits neighboring communities so hard. Everyone has to adapt. That Burlingame wants to sit it out is shitty and means that Burlingame is worthy of scorn.

[resident]

We revel in scorn from self-serving idiots like you.

[Peter Garrison]

We’ve already lost a view of the hills from the flatlands near the train station due to the new higher buildings. We are losing a sense of place. This afternoon I was in Mountain View along El Camino. Strip malls, hotels, traffic jams, more strip malls.

Mountain View, hmm.

[hollyroller]

Zero Trees.
Zero Community.
That environment only increases the stress of living there.

[Bruce Dickinson]

Burlingame should sit it out and proudly point the middle finger to the poop fest in Millbrae and San Mateo.

Bruce Dickinson would be remiss if I didn't say that it looks like Dan is not the man when it comes to owning Burlingame real estate. Too bad, as the points of differentiation of Burlingame are the very reasons for its high real estate values. Same with Hillsborough.

Looks like Dan is having a bad case of real estate envy! Woulda, coulda, shoulda made the smarter decision like so many on here and bought Burlingame real estate!

[Cassandra]

Noted today (in San Mateo Daily Journal) that an Oyster Point development wanted to put in housing, but Genentech said, “No,” and it’s not going to happen!

Why does Burlingame have to do this forced housing thing when other cities figure out ways to take care of their stressed infrastructures and citizens?

[HMB]

The Millbrae project is a mess, but people have already forgotten that there were were a number of huge apt bldgs on that site that were razed for the BART project. There were so many families in those apartments that when they closed it was such a hit to Millbrae schools that they literally took ads in the paper to recruit San Bruno kids to transfer to save the district from collapse. Things have changed and the new apartments won't be for low income families like those old ones were. And property values are such that schools are not getting money based on attendance like they used to.

[Cassandra]

May not have to worry about development in Bgame: J Crew gone. Anthropology to leave May 28...

[Joe]

Wow, if Anthropologie can't make it we may have reached the tipping point on commercial rents--or not :-)