The Burlingame Voice

What's a Dwelling Unit?

I attended the November 19th City Council meeting to add my two cents to the discussion about the General Plan update that was on the agenda.  I will get into more about my comments about water supply adequacy and security later.  For now, let's just marvel at the sense of confusion about "dwelling units" that was on display that night by several council members.  The Daily Journal Austin Walsh piece about the meeting didn't quite capture it with this mention 

Though they stopped short of determining a suitable unit-per-acre ratio, some councilmembers shared an interest in reducing the amount of parking required in a development to accommodate more housing development.

Constructing parking can be expensive or consume space which could otherwise be used for housing in a development, and builders often seek reduced parking requirements in projects near transit stations to maximize their unit counts.  “I want to use parking to encourage affordability,” said Councilman Ricardo Ortiz.

Watching the discussion live, it was apparent to me that the basic idea that "dwelling unit" is an inadequate measure of the intensity of use of a piece of property was just starting to dawn on several council members.  That's why they "stopped short".  The General Plan update is moving in the direction of allowing 140 DU/acre in the north end of town--a proposed increase from 120 DU/acre.  Yet when presented with some photos of recent, rack-and-stack developments in Redwood City that hover around 70 DU/acre, there was sort of a stunned look on several faces.  Only then did the discussion move to the mix of studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom units in a development.  I've been espousing using bedrooms/acre for a long time, including at the Anson Apartments and Residences under construction on Carolan Ave.  Now is the time to dump DU/acre and talk about a real metric that will guide planning in the future.  It ain't DU's.

P.S.  Check out this DJ piece about the Millbrae project near the BART station with its 444 DU's for another example of the lack of transparency.

Mural Mural on the Wall

When your family and friends come to visit B'game you now have a new destination spot to take them downtown.  And it's convenient while you wait for a table a one of the local revolving restaurants.  The Historical Society has been working diligently with the developer of the old Radio Shack building (Dewey Land Corp.) to incorporate a tile mural on Hatch Lane that enlivens a really boring space.  They have succeeded.  Wander down the alley and check out the newest addition to the B'game scene.  Here is a photo of the Historical Society board members at the Friday unveiling event that featured tasty bites from Cheese Please!, fun emcee commentary from my Voice colleague Russ Cohen who loves to give away raffle prizes (nice fedora) and about 75 of the movers and shakers in B'game.  #greetingsfromburlingame is the placeholder in the non-Voice social media, but why bother with that when you can see and discuss it here?

 

Avenue Woes

Austin Walsh at the Daily Journal has latched onto the concerns about rents and parking on "The Avenue" in this piece in today's paper.

The former homes to J. Crew, Anthropologie, Kara’s Cupcakes, Baby Couture, Aida Opera Candies and Gymboree are among the locations remaining unoccupied on the core commercial corridor.

Juan Loredo, president of the Downtown Business Improvement District, attributed the empty storefronts primarily to the inability or unwillingness of some companies to continue paying the high cost of doing business.

Juan makes the case for variety in the stores around the downtown and that certainly has been an issue as well.  The utter lack of any after-dinner entertainment is a glaring deficiency vis a vis Redwood City, Palo Alto and even San Carlos!   The ongoing parking issues also get mentioned but not analyzed (which is fine for a pure news piece) so we'll add some insight here.  Austin writes

Officials recognize parking constraints, and are planning to redevelop an existing surface lot into a garage offering 100 more spaces. On a neighboring lot, officials are seeking to construct an affordable housing development.

Business owners concerned about the loss of parking through the construction period have lobbied for the garage to be built before the housing development.

I'll bet there are more than a few business owners who also think adding a big chunk of new housing will only exacerbate the business-available parking.  They may be feeling the political-correctness pressure to not say so, but I bet they are thinking it.  With 220 California nearing completion and PAMF apparently pulling out of being the anchor tenant, we may see the impact of that under-parked monster building kick in long before any additional city parking even hits the drawing board.  We must also ask, "Where will the money come from?"

I felt that we had reached a tipping point when Anthropologie couldn't make it--and that pretty good, sizeable space is still available months later.  Keep the window paper handy.

10 lbs of Vehicle in a 5 lb Sack

The Wall Street Journal has a piece on the dissonance between Americans love of ever-larger vehicles and the ever-shrinking parking spaces they hope to squeeze into.  This has been a pet peeve of mine for sometime so indulge me for a moment while we look at the Journal's facts

Many downtown garages and parking lots sprouted in the late ’70s and ’80s when sales of smaller cars were on the rise. The standard parking spot in the U.S.—about 8 feet to 9 feet wide and nearly 18 feet deep—has budged little since.

Compact-car spaces, generally 7 feet to 8 feet wide and 15.5 feet deep, are becoming more commonplace in some congested cities, as builders try to squeeze in more parking.

Ford Motor Co., which recently announced it was killing off several slow-selling car models, expects nearly 90% of its North American sales will come from SUVs and trucks by 2020.  Drivers of more diminutive rides are equally frustrated by the parking pinch. Taller trucks and SUVs block views, park at weird angles and make it difficult to get in and out. 

B'gamers are susceptible to the problem in older and in newer parking lots.  The Safeway lot is a great example--tons of SUVs in "compact" spaces.  In a perfect world--or at least my perfect world-- planners would not even consider "compact" spaces.  They should just assume every space is going to be used by all sizes of vehicle and force the parking requirement to comply.  It will only get worse too as we dig deeper for more parking a la California Ave. and the other huge developments coming soon.

Roundabout Round-up

By popular demand, here is a new post on the California Dr. roundabout that is now under construction.  We discussed it 15 months ago here, but a new post is in order since the project is "in the dirt".  Here is the link to the City website for the project description, bid documents including the winning bid from Redgwick Construction that beat out the other four bidders.  If it comes in on budget this will be a $3 million dollar investment ($3,014,305 to be exact), but alas it does not have a cannon to replace the one that sat there until it was reportedly melted down during WWII.  That would have been a nice touch around Memorial Day so if any B'gamers have an extra cannon or know where we can find one, this is the place to let us know!

Just in time for Memorial Day, here is a photo of the cannon that has been provided by the B'game Historical Society.  It was apparently used as part of a promotion for the move Treasure Island showing at the Peninsula Theatre in 1934.

"Housing Advocates" Please Go Away

I am thoroughly sick and tired of the so-called housing advocates trying to pressure every City decision to add more housing.  In yesterday's Daily Journal we get two more examples.  First, the piece on redeveloping a piece of Bayfront land that is sitting mostly idle is on the docket for a meeting tonight with the State Lands Commission and the city and residents

State officials received an application from H&Q Asia Pacific in 2016 to develop a new hotel and park at the site, prompting a neighbor of the property to offer an alternative proposal to preserve the land as open space.

SPHERE Institute, a public policy research firm headquartered in the area east of Highway 101 along the city’s Bayfront, expressed an interest in leading the financing campaign to preserve the wetlands which exist on the property.

Housing advocates have also called for the site to be built into a residential development.

Really?  These clowns have no idea what it would take in city time, energy and expense to support ANY housing on the Bayfront.  There is no school, no police patrol to speak of (I know, I've done a drive-along with BPD), fire/ambulance coverage takes a lot of effort and will never be great without a new station that will never happen, and the weather sucks for the most part.  Just stop already!  Then this little gem of an idea pops up in the Rec Center article in the same edition

Under the direction from councilmembers, the architect will craft new designs and bring the issue back for further consideration in June.

While design revisions were considered, housing advocates suggested developing some residential units on top of the facility as a means of combating the city’s affordability crisis.

Stop already.  It's a Rec Center, not public housing.  The whole community is wondering where the heck the parking is going to come from for the recreation part and these clowns want to add housing?  Unbelievable.  We have a huge amount of housing already "in the dirt".  That's enough until all the other support services figure out how to handle the influx that has already been approved.   Oh, and just for good measure, we are back in a drought situation regardless of how much rain we get this week. 

Housing Manipulation: A Workshop That Worked

Regular Voice reader David Harris also contributes on occasion and has kindly provided this summary of a recent Housing Workshop held by the City.  David writes:

No matter where you stand on the issue of housing, affordable or otherwise, the city’s workshop on February 10 at the Lions Club was a well thought out and well attended effort to learn what residents are thinking and what their concerns are. Rather than a series of speakers addressing the audience, much of the meeting consisted of groups of residents huddled around tables exchanging ideas and sharing responses to questions posed by a facilitator.

“How does the housing climate affect you and the people you care about?” and “What are your hopes for the future of our community?” were a couple of the ice breakers that got conversations started.

Various housing options such as Accessory Dwelling Units (Granny units), multi-family units, live/work units and employee housing were presented, and pros/cons discussed at each table.  Residents were asked what their concerns were about each, and what other ideas they might have to create additional housing.

A few factoids that were shared and are available from the presentation on the city’s web site:

• San Mateo County has created about 79,000 jobs between 2010 and 2016, but only about 4,900 housing units.
• The median price of a home in San Mateo County has doubled and average rent of a two-bedroom apartment has increased 66% between 2011 and 2017.
• 30,000 people live in Burlingame. Nearly 39,000 people work here. Of those who work here, 38% earn less than $40,000 a year.
• Homeowners comprise 47% of the city’s population. Renters comprise 53%.

One can’t help but notice the imbalance between new jobs and new housing that seems to playing out each day as we watch a lot of commercial development (e.g. 300 Airport Blvd, north of Coyote Point) move forward lately and traffic congestion keeps growing.

After the meeting, one official told me that one of the reasons for the meeting’s format is that Burlingame has some big decisions coming up in the years ahead. It’s easy to know what residents are against, she said. But figuring out what they will support is a tougher challenge. Hopefully, this meeting helped provide some useful insights and perspective. Another, planned for April or May, is to focus on prioritizing options.

I appreciate David's recap of this workshop.  I am quite worried that some of the Big Decisions are being made without consideration to the quality of life in B'game.  This Monday night is a prime example of that with city parking Lots N and F on the slate for development of the "Village at Burlingame" affordable housing.  I have been hard pressed to find any current residents who think this is a good idea or that it will make a dent in the "affordability problem" with several thinking it will actually make things worse.  More than once I hear people ask "We can't afford a new, seismically safe Rec Center, but we can build affordable housing?".  Maybe we need a workshop on that trade-off.

A Time for Leadership

Last Wednesday's Daily Journal covered the proposed office development on the parking lot next to the Avenue train station.

Burlingame officials offered largely positive reviews to plans for a large office building proposed adjacent to the downtown train station, despite concerns the project may worsen the city’s transportation struggles.  The Burlingame Planning Commission unanimously agreed to push forward the proposed redevelopment of a car lot at 250 California Drive into a four-story office building.

The revealing part of the article and the meeting was in the quotes

Before voting in favor of the proposal and making it clear he supported the developer’s interest, (commission chair Peter) Gum shared development criticism he commonly receives from residents.

“What I hear on the street is please stop building and please stop the traffic congestion,” said Gum, according to video of the Monday, Feb. 12, meeting.

Gum acknowledged though the commission is required to consider projects according to the city’s zoning code, which allows for redevelopment of the property, so he voted in favor. He also made his preference for the site clear.

“I would suggest building nothing there, or keep it significantly smaller,” said Gum.  “It overpowers the most important building we have, which is the downtown train station,” said Gum.

So even Planning commissioners who hear the concerns--and there are lots of them--and seem to agree with them, apparently feel powerless to do anything to rein in over-development.  The public is not happy.  Last weekend I got talking to someone I had never met before and who had no idea who I was nor had she ever heard of the Voice.  The first sentence out of her mouth after hearing that I also lived in Burlingame was "Can you believe that building?"  Of course, she was talking about the monster on California Dr. across from this new proposed office building.

It's time for some leadership from the City Council.  If there are no zoning code terms in place to slow things down then it's time to enact them.  I'm not talking about spot re-zoning targeting an individual project--that is clearly illegal.  We need a general change.  It needs to address height, mass, trees (or lack thereof) and water availability.  We're well into drought conditions but no one seems to think that is a problem until restrictions are imposed.  With the Summerhill project now in progress and several more well along, it's time to take a breath, take stock and slow down.  Here is the Carolan Ave. claw as a visual reminder of what is already approved.

A Bit of Music on Our Quiet Avenue

The lack of entertainment on the Avenue continues to plague our otherwise vibrant downtown.  We have no lack of eateries and we seem to be able to attract bakeries even when the newest one (Panotiq) barely lasted three months--Dynora is coming soon.  But without any regular clubs or bars hosting frequent music, we have to get out and support those that offer something for the ears.  I was pleased to hear the semi-regular Thursday night gig at Barracuda with Sam Peoples on keys and Lynne Billig singing.  They were joined by guitarist Michael Sims from L.A. to provide a but of music for our entertainment drought-stricken Avenue.  Lynne told me they would be on the Avenue proper busking under the pergola next month.  In meantime, wouldn't it be great if the City put one-one hundredth of the effort on development to include some entertainment development?

Here's the Thursday night band.

Wurlitzer Fountain Returns

There is a small ray of hope that not all of Olde Burlingame will be lost in the rush to overdevelop our downtown and residential neighborhoods.  The Winter edition of the B'game Historical Society newsletter verifies early rumors that the Three Dancing Maidens water fountain that has been "out for repair" will actually return and be placed behind Malouf's.  If you aren't a Historical Society member, you should be.  I won't try to repeat the lengthy history of the fountain that Joanne Garrison wrote for the newsletter, but I will repeat the credits she mentioned.  Fred Shifferle of the Wurlitzer Trust and local realtor Greg Terry and Sam and Gloria Malouf were key to getting this bit of Olde B'game back in one piece.  Here is the photo from the newsletter.