The Burlingame Voice

The Ups and Downs of Downtown Parking

Just a couple of blocks separate the largest additions to downtown parking we have seen in more than a generation.  The public lot between Lorton and Highland, just south of Howard is rising briskly while the underground parking at the old Hower Auto lot at Bayswater and Myrtle and the one next to the Dairy Boy mural dive deep into subterranean B'game.  With parklets here to stay, the public lot should prove to be popular even if it is further from the Avenue than most people are accustomed to walking.  The two deep digs for new construction have me scratching my head a bit.  I thought the building code called for only going down as far as the water table, but it looks like that restriction has fallen quietly by the wayside.  It's probably a victim of the extreme pressure for more development- residential and commercial.  When this latest drought is over it will be interesting to see how downtown drainage is affected.

Cooling center in Burlingame

We live an an unsettling time where nothing is the way we expect. Yesterday and today we've broken temperature records for this time of year. In year's past however those of us who are not blessed with air conditioning or swimming holes could rely on cooling centers like the public library. ( Why our library could not be open as a cooling center even with today's challenges is a sore point with me, but I don't want to rant and rave today, it's simply too hot.) What I would rather do is remind everyone that there is a reliable cooling center in Burlingame that is always open and can easily accommodate social distancing. It's our extensive bay front. I took my lawn chair and a cooler and went there on both days. The cooling effect was not as great as a dip in a cold pool or not akin to being surrounded by cool air from the AC, but it was a respite of sorts and somehow looking at the water in the bay had the intended cooling effect. At some points along the bay front trail there were, like me, those who just wanted to enjoy the breeze and the view, others could be seen in the water and on the beach, yes a beach in Burlingame--not a particularly pretty one,(the scene reminded me of something from behind the iron curtain,) but yeah it was a beach and it was giving pleasure to a number of people. In short, in these strange times, we can rely on something, small as it is. Consider this a positive public service reminder that we who live in Burlingame can enjoy the bay anytime we want and it's right in our own backyards.  

El Camino Flooding: Where's Roto-Rooter?

Here's one more water-related post to follow the last two on sea-levels and drinking water.  We had two nice, moderately heavy storms over the weekend and into Monday.  We needed the rain everywhere except on El Camino.  Bad flooding in a dozen spots on our main thoroughfare has been a known issue for decades.  I just don't get why Caltrans won't do something simple to fix the known hot spots.  Yes, we have a multi-hundreds of millions of dollars upgrade in the works, but with the massive state shortfall from COVID-19 I'll bet roads drop down the priority list.

In the meantime, why can't Caltrans just get into some of the drains and clear them out?  We know the drains drain--just not fast enough.  I don't want to put it back on the city's Public Works who have already stepped up on ECR maintenance beyond their remit, but it might have to come to that.  "All plumbing is local" to paraphrase Tip O'Neill.  Here's the recurring flood at the end of my street.  There's a drain right there.  The drain on the other corner drains well enough if I keep it clear, which I do.  The flooded one drains after about a day--there had been no rain for more than 12 hours when I took this photo.  Where's Roto-Rooter?

Too Much Saltwater, Not Enough Fresh

While we are on the topic of water (see last post), we have some updates on the drinking water situation.  The Chronicle is reporting

Statewide snow pack measured 53% of average for the critical April 1 survey — the time when snow levels are typically at their peak, helping inform how much melt-off will pour into California’s many reservoirs. The figure is the 11th lowest in 71 years of record-keeping.  The problems, though, are somewhat muted by last winter’s big snowfall. The 40% of the state that is flirting with drought is a fraction of what it would be if there had been back-to-back dry years.

“For a dry year like this one, it’s nice that the preceding year was a wet one,” said Mike Anderson, state climatologist with the California Department of Water Resources, which conducts the snow surveys.  Snow typically provides nearly a third of the state’s water.  San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy was at about 68% of capacity last week, slightly more than average for the time.

The question on Anderson’s mind, and the minds of other weather watchers in California, is whether this winter was a one-off or if it is the beginning of a multiyear drought, along the lines of what the state experienced between 2012 and 2017.

The city of B'game is in the midst of updating our Urban Water Management Plan, an every five year exercise, that will for the first time estimate the impact of a five-year drought.  Prior plans were only required to account for a three-year drought.  I'll be watching for the update especially regarding total consumption vis a vis all of the building that was going on before the pandemic.

I'm still enamored with Ben Franklin's writings--one of which says "When the well's dry we know the worth of water."

Update:  Here is the chart tracking just how dry this season has been and indicating how bad the fire season might be.  Only 1976-77 was drier year to date.

Arrivederci Fattoria e Mare

For some in town the Fattoria e Mare property will always be the "Velvet Turtle".  Visitors often ask me "What was the name of that restaurant right by the freeway and Broadway"?  But those days are long gone as will be Fattoria e Mare after a six year run -- another relic that provided memories, music and comraderie.  In it's place:

The Hanover Company is proposing a six-story building replacing the restaurant and adjacent parking garage and tennis court. The development would include 35 studio apartments, 74 one-bedroom apartments, 38 two-bedroom units and three three-bedroom units. Of the 150 units, 15 would be set aside at a moderate rate.

The project would also provide 195 parking spaces, 175 of which would be accommodated through a stacking system while six would be provided in tandem spaces and 14 would be standard spots. Most of the parking would be in an underground garage.

Parking concerns were raised at the Planning Commission session along with neighborhood compatibility of a six-story building.  But it passed 4-2.  There's no indication of discussion about where the kids from Anson Apartments (Summerhill), the Adrian Rd. development and now this Hanover project will go.  Hanover adds 194 bedrooms to the mix.

I'm also wondering which of these Big Four projects (counting the delayed Howard Ave. at Bayswater project) will trigger any major additions to the projected water deficit in town for a three-year drought.  The five year old Urban Water Management Study predicted on page 72  that supply available to Burlingame in multiple dry years is estimated to be reduced to 1,628 MG (year 1) and 1,376 MG (years 2 and 3).  I'm still hunting for why is a third consecutive year is estimated to be the same as the second consecutive year.  Table 6-4 shows demand exceeding supply in such a multi-year drought situation by 21% in 2020 and 30% if it occurs in 2040.  But these estimates predate the latest building boom here and in the rest of the SFPUC water service area.  And that is only for a three year drought.  At least the revision to these plans that is due this year includes a new 8 1/2 year drought scenario.  I'm betting the numbers will be scary to environmentalists and people who drink water.

Santa, I Want a Swimming Pool

Another long-running B'game saga is coming to a conclusion in the next two weeks as the BHS pool is ready for swimsuits.  Here is your personal invite to the Grand Opening courtesy of the Trustees:

Be among the first to dive in when the San Mateo Union High School District and City of Burlingame celebrate the Grand Re-opening of the Burlingame High School Aquatic Center: 

Wednesday, January 8 at 5 p.m.

Burlingame High School 

 With strong financial support and through a partnership with the City of Burlingame, the San Mateo Union High School District has just completed renovation of the Burlingame High Pool including a new shell, deck and substantial sustainability upgrades.

It's likely to be chilly at 5pm in two weeks, but go for it anyway.  You can click through to here for what it looked like in January and this is what $6.4 million can do

B'game (and H'borough) Are #9 in Real Estate Value

Remember the days when a healthy and growing real estate market was viewed as a good thing?  Before the envy merchants started hogging the headlines?  Me too.  So let's just note that 94010 is healthy and growing.  The Chronicle piece on Bay Area median prices puts our burg and the one "up the hill" that we share 94010 with at #9 in the Bay Area and #19 in the nation.  The median price thus far in 2019 was $2.63 million and the article notes we get a boost from the H'borough prices, but from what I've seen many sections of B'game are on par with sections of H'borough as people appreciate the walkability and bikeability of being close in.  But somethings don't just go up all the time though.

Although the Bay Area continues to dominate the PropertyShark rankings, it hasn’t been immune to a slowdown in housing prices. Of the 46 Bay Area ZIP codes that were on its list both this year and last, 25 went down in price, 19 went up and two were unchanged, according to a Chronicle analysis.  In a separate report issued Monday, the California Association of Realtors noted that the Bay Area has posted year-over-year price declines for nine consecutive months and 10 of the last 11.

Linking two rankings together we can also look to the San Francisco magazine annual Top 100 realtor rankings by sales where B'game is well-represented:

1            Stanley Lo        $304M

8            Phil Chen            $169M

30            Raziel Ungar        $100M

38            Jim Arbeed        $93M

39            Sandy Camaroto    $93M

67            Mike Bohnert        $72M

There is no telling what 2020 will bring, but with interest rates staying quite low, but not dropping from here and demand up, up, up the real question remains "Where will the water come from to supply all the new construction?"

 

Hetch Hetchy Kvetching

Leave it to the SF Comicle and one of its travel editors to write 54 column inches about "weighing the value of Hetch Hetchy" and then burying the lead in the last two paragraphs.  A long, tortured description of some arcane study about the tourist value of draining the Hetch Hetchy came up with $178 million per year.  The travel editor does finally track down an SFPUC Deputy General Manager who notes in the last paragraph

But when asked to indulge in the thought exercise of comparing hypothetical economic outcomes for Hetch Hetchy, Carlin obliged. “The value of that watershed to the Bay Area in general is worth billions and billions of dollars a year, if not tens of billions,” he said.

But my favorite part of the article was the response from the group that wants to drain our main reservoir, Restore Hetch Hetchy, when asked what would replace the storage capacity that is already overtaxed by prodigious Bay Area growth

Rosekrans maintains that the public would be better served if the water in Hetch Hetchy were allowed to flow downstream and be stored elsewhere — the idea being that the valley could be emptied without compromising a cornerstone of San Francisco’s water supply. Where the water would go, whether a new reservoir would need to be built, and other pertinent logistics would have to be determined by lawmakers, Rosekrans says.

Good one.  Instead of building net new reservoirs, which we haven't done in more than 40 years, we should dismember the one we have that is almost 2000 acres and let the lawmakers figure out what else to do.  I hope the SFPUC guy was chuckling when he spoke to the reporter--if not he was probably crying.

Scott Weiner Comes to Burlingame

Two weeks after state senator Scott Weiner’s visit to Burlingame I am still marveling at how smoothly he can speak out of both sides of his mouth in a single meeting.  Weiner was invited to the Lane Room by Thrive which is a consortium of non-profit organizations.  He was invited to discuss the problems non-profits are having retaining staff as the cost of housing rises.  Weiner’s Senate Bill 50, discussed here and here, appeared to be popular with some in the audience of about 60 people.

In an interview by Samaritan House CEO, Bart Charlow, Weiner comes off as a tall, skinny, somewhat geeky attorney with a heart of gold.  He’s a man on a valiant mission.  Yet I saw in him a streak of progressive fascism interested only in consolidating power in Sacramento by any means necessary.  After describing the “carnage” that is happening in California and is “hollowing out even the middle class”, he excoriated the “No Growth” people for “adopting progressive talking points” such as “we need to build only affordable housing”.  He believes that will never happen without market-rate housing to subsidize it, but others think differently.  To him, it is better to demolish the concept of R1 zoning in the six most populous counties in the state via SB50 thus hurting the middle class homeowners who rely on their single-family homes as their largest investment.  Weiner’s claim that “this is not about getting rid of single-family homes” rang hollow after he said “single-family homes are a ban on affordable housing”.

When asked about SB50 excluding less populous counties, particularly Marin County, Weiner spoke “bluntly” about needing to do that to get the bill through a Senate committee headed by a Marin senator.  So much for principles of “fairness” that one hears so much about from progressives.

When asked about the housing quotas cities have been given (known as the RHNA formula), Weiner complained about how the formula has been gamed by some cities and two-thirds of cities don’t meet their low-income targets.  It didn’t seem to occur to him that perhaps that state-imposed process should be fixed by the state Legislature.  Better to scrap the whole idea of city zoning and let anyone build anything anywhere.  Nice leadership.

Someone other than me asked Weiner where all the water will come from?  He responded that “we have a structural deficiency” on water infrastructure and then made the ridiculous claim that “building housing doesn’t drive population growth” or water consumption.  He really said that.  After the obligatory comments on low-flow toilets and water reuse (“we are way behind Australia and Israel”), one was left to wonder how he would keep the middle-class in California without consuming more water.  It must be nice to live in the fairyland of the state senate and not have to worry about fixing “structural deficiencies” before plunging ahead with massive growth laws.

When asked about the impact that AirBnB and VRBO have on permanent rental housing and whether something should be done to limit those businesses, Weiner magically turned into a private property rights advocate.  He didn’t even seem embarrassed by the switch.  He then proceeded to say that “cities have ample tools to ban or restrict” AirBnB, yet he’s quite comfortable completely overriding these same cities’ zoning ordinances.  I almost had to admire such blatant hypocrisy spilling out in a single meeting.

The most revealing comment of the 90-minute session was buried in one of Weiner’s asides about Area Median Income (AMI) ranges and which income range was most “deserving” of subsidies.  He noted that this was a problem until we tackle “the long-term project to realign our capitalist society and socialize housing”.  There you have it.

State Water "Plan": Leading a Horse to......

It's been a week since the Chronicle published an article about the Gavinor wanting to get a handle on our "myriad water problems" and it's still ringing in my ears as we ponder SB50 over-development and his other promise to build 3.5 million new homes by 2025!

Like many governors before him, Gov. Gavin Newsom is seeking to get his arms around California’s myriad water problems, issuing an executive order Monday that calls for his administration to do nothing less than ensure safe and sufficient water for the next century.  The order directs state agencies to review and come up with plans to improve policies addressing such issues as California’s chronic water shortages, contaminated drinking water, unaffordable water rates, and the declining health of rivers and lakes.

Cue the salmon and not for dinner.  As usual for a politician aspiring to higher office, he throws in the kitchen sink when what we really need is to focus on water security from shortages before the rest of it.  But at least it's a start!  At least one bureaucrat appears to get it

“Each year we’re going to have less and less water, more and more variability on how the water comes, and more people in this state,” said Jared Blumenfeld, secretary for Environmental Protection. “We need to be resilient to a fairly uncertain water future.”  Blumenfeld is among a handful of new appointments to executive posts in the Newsom administration who will carry out the governor’s executive order. At his side will be fellow newcomers Wade Crowfoot, secretary for Natural Resources, and Karen Ross, Food and Agriculture secretary.

The exercise piggybacks on Gov. Jerry Brown’s water action plan, which similarly sought to tackle California’s never-ending water woes.

Who knew Brown even had a water action plan aside from shipping more water to SoCal?  And about those 3.5 million new homes mentioned during the campaign

Newsom declared that as governor he would oversee construction of 3.5 million new units of housing in California by 2025, amounting to roughly 500,000 units per year, were the tally to start right away.

Exactly how does that work when we already have "myriad water problems"?  I'll just keep asking the question and hope people like Blumenfeld and Crowfoot can talk some sense into him and the rest of the Sacramento cabal.