The Burlingame Voice

Fake Grass: Millbrae issues a ban worth following

I don't like artificial turf--fake grass.  Never have.  I don't like how it looks or how it wears.  I don't like how hot it gets in direct sunlight when it can burn a dog's paws.  None of that really matters much, BUT gather evidence that it is bad for the environment and political gears start to turn.  Two years ago Millbrae began assessing the damages from fake grass as we noted here.  Back in 2021, some of the stated concerns were:

increased heat, reduced water absorption and toxic runoff from disintegrating plastic.  “That means not only is there no worm or bee activity, you have no runoff capacity, you have no water infiltration capacity, you have no carbon sink that you would have with grass.”  Additionally, artificial turf is 30% to 60% hotter than ambient temperatures on a warm sunny day, Conway said.

Recycling fake turf is probably about as effective as recycling most everything else these days which is to say not very effective as we noted here two and a half years ago.  Now the Millbrae city council has unanimously taken the plunge as reported in the DJ

Millbrae City Council passed an ordinance that bans the installment of artificial turf and synthetic grass and mandates proper maintenance of existing turf if it was installed legally.  “We’re concerned about the health and safety of synthetic materials. There’s plastics, nylon, different kinds of materials in there,” said Community Development Director Andy Mogensen. “And we are concerned with its impact on our stormwater, aquatic life and things of that nature,” he said.

County Supervisor candidate Ann Schneider weighed in with the broader picture

“I strongly believe that there will be legislation coming down federally and state wise that holds cities accountable for microplastics entering waterways, because it's entering into our food system. And then these highly carcinogenic — full of PFAS, or forever chemicals — are getting into our food supply, so it’s a ticking time bomb,” said Mayor Ann Schneider.

I await B'game making the same move.  Millbrae wanted to give people five years to replace it but relented due to homeowner costs.  It doesn't really matter since a lot of it will wear out by then and need to be replaced anyway.  Let's join Millbrae in being responsible!

BSD: Caught between two parcel taxes

As the B'game School District trustees look at options for more funding, the same fatigue I wrote about here three-and-a-half years ago is still lingering.  The story gets more complicated by a competing proposal as reported in the DJ.  The first proposal extends the old 2014 Measure L (not the recent SMUSHD L) that you see on the property tax bills that arrived this week.  You see all of four current school-related line items on the bill.  The other proposal is different.

During a meeting Tuesday, Oct. 10, trustees discussed their options for possibly extending and increasing Measure L, a $256 per year per parcel tax passed in 2014. The measure is set to expire by 2030 but the board can decide to ask voters for a renewal ahead of time.

Also up for consideration was whether the board had an interest in endorsing a parent-led movement to pass a citizens’ initiative and whether doing so would be legal. That effort is being led by John Wood and Bryant McLaughlin, parents of Roosevelt Elementary School students, and if passed would charge property owners about 8 cents per square foot per parcel or $80 per vacant parcel, generating about $2 million annually. Someone with a 5,000-square-foot parcel would pay $400 a year.

Per some consultant

While a citizens’ initiative needs a simple majority to pass, the district would have no control over how that citizen measure was crafted. Meanwhile, a district measure would need a two-thirds vote for approval but it would get to use its resources to poll the community before developing ballot language, he said.

The city and district would likely need to develop a memorandum of understanding regarding the citizens’ initiative including a possible reimbursement plan for the city fronting the money for the ballot measure (Ed: $330K-448K) were the citizens’ initiative to be put before voters and other oversight grounds if it were approved.

The moving parts are what sort of tax format to use (rates, sunset clauses, etc) and who manages and oversees the monies (the City or the District).  Back in 2020, the bond Measure O passed with 60.17%, well above the 55% needed, so there is already $25 per $100,000 of assessed (not market) value per year in place.  And then there is the issue of getting it passed

Trustee Florence Wong also suggested the study look into whether the public would support the district’s measure with or without changes if another tax measure was on the ballot. Reflecting on previous failed attempts by the district to pass a tax measure, Wong said incremental or smaller changes appear to be more appealing to voters.

“People still remembered when the parcel taxes they tried to pass didn’t, so that’s a stinger when it doesn’t pass. There’s a lot of thought and anxiety about trying to add more taxes,” Wong said. “I feel very confident people would be supportive of continuing what we have.”

She's right.  When the four flavors of tax already total to two grand per year, there is uncertainty about adding more.

State home insurance slipping down the slope

While the retreat by home insurance companies in California hasn't been top of mind for Bgamers, I watch it also as a Tahoe homeowner where it is very much top of mind.  The retreat is real--the public statements from insurance companies match my anecdotal evidence from Tahoe.  The local retreat might start in Hillsborough since the fire danger is greatest there.  With the Legislative session ending tomorrow for the year, the ball is back in Insurance Commissioner Richard Lara's court.  He has to navigate the insurance industry and the "consumer watchdog" industry.  Good luck with that.  The Merc has more details:

“I have always been clear, legislation is one of many options that we have been pursuing,” Lara said. “We also are moving forward with a package of regulatory solutions that will streamline the department’s rate review process, opening it equitably to public input — not just the entrenched interests that have benefited materially from the status quo. We will continue moving forward. Together, we can create a sustainable and resilient insurance market to protect Californians, our communities and our environment.”

While consumer advocates cheered the collapse of a “half-baked bailout” of insurance companies, no deal means no relief yet for consumers, especially those living in wildfire-prone regions who either can’t find an insurer or can’t afford escalating rates. Participation in the state-sponsored, last-resort FAIR plan, intended to provide temporary basic coverage in areas insurers deemed too risky for standard policies, has doubled.

Do you care to guess who is covering the liabilities stemming from FAIR claims?

County revenue: Slow down now or slow down later

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

         — Benjamin Frankline, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, 1789

The art of taxation is to pluck the goose so as to obtain the most feathers with the least amount of hissing.

        --Jean Baptiste Colbert, comptroller general of finance to Louis XIV of France.

 

The SF Chronicle did a wrap-up of the effects of rising interest rates, the resulting slowing home sales and selective home price declines on County property tax collections.  July 1 was the assessors' reporting dates.   I will pluck out the San Mateo County bits:

As mortgage rates shot up last year from around 3.2% in January to as high as 7% in November, fewer people could buy homes. The rise in rates “increased mortgage payments by 30, 40, 50%,” said Oscar Wei, deputy chief economist with the California Association of Realtors.  Buyers who could afford a home found slim pickings, because people with mortgages in the 3% to 4% range were reluctant to sell.

Regionwide, the assessed value of all property subject to property tax grew at a lower rate last year than it did in 2022, mainly because of the sharp slowdown in home sales.  That means property taxes — which primarily fund public schools, community colleges and city and county governments — will also see less growth in fiscal 2023-24.

San Mateo County reduced assessments on 6,403 homes for 2023-24. That was way up from 294 last year, but far below the 34,700 properties that suffered a decline in 2011-12, the assessor’s office said in a news release.

In San Mateo County, the value of business and other personal property rose by 15.7%. It contributed $1.7 billion to the county’s roll, which increased by nearly $19 billion, or 6.9%, to $307.8 billion. Last year’s increase was 8.3%.

Since the Fed is very likely to do at least one or two more rate increases, the turnover on homes is likely to stay muted.  Inflation is finally trending downward, so the double whammy of business assets higher valuations (separate from the real estate) is likely to level off as well.  There are a lot of shovels in the ground on commercial and industrial property, but it has to be nerve wracking from these developers as tech lay-offs continue.  Our County supervisors will have to be careful with all the hand-outs, pay raises, property purchases for subsidized housing, transit giveaways and the like.  Even without a recession later this year, further plucking the goose is going to involve a lot of hissing.

Stylistic Gems of El Camino Real

Jennifer Pfaff, the president of the Burlingame Historical Society, has penned the front-page article for this quarter's society newsletter titled "Overlooked Gems of El Camino Real".  It's a real gem of a piece, too.  You all should be members and get your own hardcopy mailed to you, but for those who have not yet joined I am going to pluck out just the architectural styles mentioned as "gems".  As part of the ECR project, Caltrans engaged a team of architectural historians from AECOM.  That's the source of this list:

• Bungalow Style single -- family homes found all over B'game but not nearly as many as we originally had.
• 1920 Mission Revival commercial automotive architecture - the C & D auto shop tucked away on the south end of ECR (see below).
• European Eclectic Revival - apartment building with arched windows and Flemish parapet end walls.
• Stucco Box apartment buildings - the technical term for our post-WWII flat-roofed structures.
• Podium Style - like The Viking building by Danish architect Mogens Mogensen.
• International Style - like our 8-story Burlingame Towers
• New Formalism Style - like Arcamino West on Arc Way.

This is quite a list for a three-mile stretch of historic road. It seems AECOM might have missed the Art Deco Adeline Market on the list.  Wouldn't it be nice if some of these had some historical protection?

The next Historical Society walking tour is August 6th when the Willborough neighborhood gets the spotlight turned on it.  Learn about the 22 Tudor style homes by joining tour guide Joanne Garrison at 1pm where Palm Dr. meets Willborough Rd.  Here's our Mission Revival shop

"Western White House" goes up for sale

Every Friday the Wall Street Journal has a separate section about high-end real estate around the world.  As soon as I turned to page M2 and saw the photo I knew we were looking at the Western White House in H'borough.  It has just been listed at $38.9 million.  Here are some fun aspects about the house

Newspaper heir George R. Hearst never held public office. But around 1930, the oldest son of William Randolph Hearst commissioned architect Julia Morgan to convert his Hillsborough, Calif., home into a replica of the White House.

Morgan, who designed Hearst Castle in San Simeon, added columns, wings, Palladian windows and a circular driveway, according to the book “Julia Morgan, Architect.” The resulting structure contains replicas of the Oval Office, East Room and White House Rose Garden.

The house was originally built around 1878 for businessman William H. Howard, who later sold it to railroad scion Charles Frederick Crocker, according to the San Mateo County Historical Association. The original design was a four-story Swiss chalet with 36 rooms, according to the book “Here Today: San Francisco’s Architectural Heritage.” In the 1900s, a local contractor jacked up the house and moved it with horse-drawn rollers about a half mile across San Mateo Creek to its current location, the book said.

My local historical sources, which are quite good, tell me that the horse-drawn move was featured in Popular Mechanics magazine back in the day.

Shortly after its arrival, however, the chalet caught fire and two of its four stories were destroyed. Hearst acquired the property around 1927, according to the historical association. 

(The current owners did extensive renovations and) said they tried not to deviate from Morgan’s vision. An oval-shaped library has the same dimensions as the Oval Office, he said. They even sourced period-specific furniture, he said, but didn’t end up buying it because they decided not to move in.

I've left out a lot of the owners' information, but if you are a prospective buyer Alex Buljan of Compass has the listing!

Civil Grand Jury bumps up against reality

It must be a slow session of the San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury if they have time to commiserate about how cities cannot track the incomes of people who occupy ADUs jammed into neighborhoods by the state housing requirement numbers.  No kidding.  Here are some of the specifics from the DJ piece titled "Civil grand jury targets cities' focus on ADUs".

Hillsborough, Woodside, Portola Valley and Atherton are leaning heavily on accessory dwelling units to address the state’s affordable housing requirements and has no way of verifying tenants' income, according to a report by the San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury issued Monday.  “For every accessory dwelling unit that gets a permit and is counted as an affordable unit, equals one fewer deed restricted affordable unit,” civil grand juror Spector said.

Of course, neither does any other city or town without a heavy investment in tenant-snooping snitches.  Even with a snitch army, how do you do it?   Here's the source of the issue:

Each jurisdiction is assigned a number of units for varied incomes: very low, low, moderate and above moderate. Most cities follow a 30-30-30-10 format, meaning 30% each for the very low to moderate income categories and 10% for above moderate. The categories are based on the county’s average median income, around $116,000 for a one-person household, according to the county.

Seldom does one see an instance of social engineering spelled out with such engineer-like specificity.  One wonders if the snoopers will want the full income $xx,xxx.yy details down to the penny?  So instead of crying time-out on the whole principle and sending the CA Department of Housing and Community Development a message to cease-and-desist, the grand jury doubles down

HCD instructed the county jurisdictions to monitor and verify ADU production and affordability at least every two years but never specified what the process should look like, according to the report.  In the report, the grand jury suggests jurisdictions stop using ADUs unless it has an effective monitoring system that verifies how they will be used.

Click through to read more of this ridiculous social engineering fiasco.  As I said, it must be a slow session at the grand jury to get this far out of their lane. 

Cellblock 6 is almost done

I was driving down Rollins Rd. south of Broadway with a friend who remembers the Velvet Turtle days and the arrival and departure six years later of Fattoria e Mare restaurant after that.  As we approached the new building he said, "It looks like a prison".  And so it does.  I hope they didn't spend to much on architects for Cellblock 6.

This is the view from the bike trail along the channel at Bayside Park.  Doesn't feel like B'game does it.

B'game History thru Gabriel Moulin's lens

It was standing room only for the quarterly Burlingame Historical Society meeting Tuesday night in the Lane Room.  More than 100 people showed up to hear local historian Joanne Garrison describe photographer Gabriel Moulin's documentation of the early days of the Easton Addition as part of the effort to sell building lots around Hillside Dr.  The genesis of the presentation was a book of said photographs that was donated to the Society.  That kicked off Joanne's effort to take current day matching photos to show the similarities and the changes.  Over 50 minutes, she added details about the Mills, Easton and Howard families--the original land owners in B'game.

The crowd included 17 descendants of Moulin, some of whom travelled from as far away as San Diego, plus a number of local residents of the Hillside-Summit-Canyon area.  Ms. Garrison was able to locate several houses that still exist on Cortez and Cabrillo, but the sad news that an important one on Hillside is schedule for scraping and sub-dividing was the downer of the night.  As the saying goes, "You'll miss it when it's gone".

It was great to see so many people come out to learn about and appreciate B'game history.  Here are the tram tracks going up Hillside drive that carried potential buyers.

Housing policy: Some thoughtful ideas

We have some thoughtful council members here in Ole B'game.  I don't always agree with their priorities or their approaches, but in the case of Mayor Brownrigg and Vice Mayor Colson, there is recent evidence of thoughtful housing proposals.  For the moment, let's put aside whether or not there is a "housing crisis", whether or not the local population will return to positive growth, whether or not the RHNA numbers driving policy (and the Big Stick from Rob Bonta) are reasonable and just look at the Brownrigg/Colson proposals as shown in a recent Guest Perspective in the Daily Journal.  I will boil them down a bit or you can click through for all of it:

1.  Sacramento could waive capital gains taxes for property owners who sell land to affordable housing developers.

2.  The state could streamline eminent domain for housing on underutilized parcels and then subsidize a city’s acquisitions.

3.  The state should help market-rate builders include more affordable housing units with tax rebates or direct cash subsidies.

4.  Faster than cities can create affordable units, we are losing even more “naturally affordable” units in older buildings when they get sold.  Indeed, the state does not even count a deed-restricted preserved affordable unit toward a city’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation requirements. That has to change.

5. The state’s housing targets seek a 15% increase in Bay Area housing. Punitive and prescriptive state housing mandates should be waived for cities issuing building permits exceeding a 10% increase in units.

6.  Water allowances should be prioritized for cities that undergo a 10% increase in actual occupied housing units. (see the post directly below)

7.  Infrastructure spending should be directed to communities that are getting housing built.

8.  And for social mobility, let’s reward cities that create more affordable family units (two bedrooms or more). 

Number 2, easier eminent domain, is the only one that raises a "Hell no" from me.  That is just replacing one big authoritarian stick with another.  Missing is my number 9:  introduce a pause in commercial development to give the housing market time to catch up.  That is really the only feasible way to bring back some balance without demolishing single-family zoning and quality of life while overstressing our infrastructure.  All of the others "just take money" that the state doesn't have.