MEASURE DD COMMUNITY COALITION MEETING

APRIL JUNE 19th, 2006

SAILBOAT HOUSE

 

Agenda Committee:  Judy Johnson, John Sutter and Ron Bishop

Minutes by Kathy Raymond, Executive Director, Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation

 

In Attendance:

Butters Land Trust – Jesse Roseman

CALM – James Vann

Chabot Park Highlands Homeowners – Ken Benson

East Bay Bicycle Coalition – Rick Rickard

East Bay Regional Parks – John Sutter

Essex HOA Board Member & Residents – Joe Matera

Friends of the Cleveland Cascade – Jim Ratliff, Barbara Newcombe

Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation – Kathryn Raymond, Judy Johnson

Garden Center, Inc. Anne Woodell

Greenlink Task Force – Nancy Rieser

Interested Citizens –David Mix, James Yow, Ron Scrivani, John Wilson, Jim Blake, R. Dean Galloway, Cayren King

 

From the City of Oakland:

Office of City Administrator – Joel Peter

Council Member Kernighan’s Office – Jennie Gerard

Council Member Reid’s Office – Pat Mossburg

 

The meeting was called to order at 7:10 P.M. by chair Judy Johnson.  The attendees introduced themselves.  There were no changes to the previous minutes.

 

12th St., 10th St and 7th St. Traffic Study and projects:

Joel reported that Rajappan and Meyer did a traffic study for the 12th Street project, and the model included surrounding neighborhoods including the 10th and 7th St. areas.  There will be no changes to the lane configurations at 7th St. and 10th Street once the project is complete.  Also, during construction of these areas the traffic will continue to go through.  They will do one side at a time, allowing traffic to cross on the side not being worked on during construction.  It was noted that Jose Martinez should have a copy of the traffic study.  The design work is just beginning on the 10th St. and 7th St. projects; they are about a year behind the 12th St. project.  Most likely construction would begin in late 2008 on these projects, construction should be about a year.  There is $25 million in the bond for both projects (10th and 7th), they hope to complete 10th and 7th St. for this or less.  The 12th St. project will include road changes.  Lakeside will become a cul de sac turn around and the major flow of traffic will go through on 1st Ave.  The 12th St. project is $35 million and will take about 2 years to complete.  As the 7th and 10th St. projects are designed additional traffic study work will be performed.

 

There was discussion on the multi-use pathway. Nancy Reiser wondered if so large a pathway was really needed and was concerned, as she believes most people would rather walk along the lake and not so close to the road.  She also wanted to know how much grass the jogging path portion of the trail was taking up.  Joel Peter, did not know specifically how much grass this would take up but mentioned that as they are going into the street with this that most of the area should be where street is now.  He did say that no trees were being removed due to the path.  Rick Rickard stated that as a bicyclist the biggest trouble with multi-use paths was that they were not designed wide enough, so he liked the large pathway.  David Mix wanted to know about the current paths by the lake and if these were going away, Joel Peter said they were not being removed that there were 2 paths still next to the lake and the path along the water’s edge would stay.

 

PARKING ISSUE AT MUNICIPAL BOATHOUSE

Joe Matera, from the Essex, presented their revised plan for parking that would save the meadow north of the Boathouse.  There are two plans being presented to Council on June 27th.  Option 1 is what the City proposes as the compromise plan.  Option 2 is what the Community represented by Joe prefer.  Joe believes that the Staff Report being presented to Council is misleading and doesn’t fairly represent the community’s opinion.   He expressed discontent that the community wanted to be involved in creating the staff report but were left out of the process.  Their had been three prior meetings with the Community and the City reached Option 1 based on those meetings, but that did not go far enough with the Community.  David Mix also wanted it noted that he was not allowed to attend those meetings and was specifically told by the City he could not attend.  (Side note, apparently that was later retracted and Mr. Mix was able to attend the meeting.)

 

Option 2 calls for creating a median with two parallel parking areas along the meadow.  It would go into the existing meadow about 10 to 11 ft for about 3 blocks but would save the large grassy meadow area.  It would have one crossing path and the bike lane would be on the outside of the meadow.  The Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Council did prefer Option 2 at their meeting on Thursday, June 15th by an 8-0 vote.  It also moves the Garbage to over by the Camron-Stanford House out of site.  Also, Joe spoke with Waste Management and it is not problematic to pick up in that location as the City indicated in their staff report, according to Joe.  He feels the advantages to his plan are numerous, it is cheaper, it is safer for bicycles and pedestrians and they save the meadow and parkland as the bond stipulates.  He also believes that it is on-site parking and that the restaurant if needed can restrict the street parking area.  He also stated that in his plan they move the crosswalk to the corner where it is safer, though the City rendering of his plan did not make that change.  He indicated that their architect did not think the City plan’s turning radiuses were wide enough and that the true number of parking spaces in the City’s plan was really only two more spaces than their plan provided.

 

Joel Peter from the City presented why they were recommending the Option 1, he stated that this was the bare minimum the restaurateur would accept and that they were directed to work with the restaurant as well as the community.  In their plan they have the same plan as Option 2, with the street parking about ˝ way.  Then they bring the median out and create a smaller paved parking lot with about ˝ the parking that was originally proposed in the larger parking lot.  This lot they say is the bare minimum on-site parking that the restaurateur said they could live with. It keeps a grassy area, but smaller than the meadow today.  They say they need this for deliveries, the parking on the street that could be set aside for deliveries would require the deliveries to go a little further and would require a slight uphill climb from the restaurant.  Also, the garbage would be closer to bring out where it is proposed in the parking lot area.  Pedestrians would have three areas to cross over and watch for as opposed to one in Option 2.  There was general concern that the garbage in the parking lot was not a good idea because of smell and look and that the Option 1 proposal was better for garbage.  It was noted by Joel, however, that it was about twice as far to walk to bring out the garbage, which the restaurant did not like.  He indicated they planned to build it slightly into the hill so it would be less conspicuous but it would be up to the restaurant to keep the area clean.  It was also noted that there was a feeling that the lot would cost significantly more that the estimated $200,000 due to the retaining wall that would be needed and the pavement proposed.  Joel said that their estimators had been confident on their estimate.  Both options were okay with traffic studies.  Joel said in their plan their designers felt that the turning radiuses were accurate and that they were providing more like 12 or 13 additional spaces, the community feels by their count it is really more like 2 additional spaces.  The key number is 52, as the plan calls for a no net loss of parking for what is there today.  Also, Joel noted that the reason they did not move the cross walk to the corner as the community requested is that it would encroach upon an existing tree that would then have to be removed.  Joel also noted that there were some members of the community (three specific names were mentioned) who worked on the compromise that did support Option 2.

 

Couple other items, in both options the restroom is proposed to be eliminated.  They couldn’t come up with a good spot for it to remain.  There is a restroom proposed at the 12th St. area that would be new.  The plan was for two restrooms in this area where one exists today, so by removing the public one at the sailboat house and adding one by Twelfth St. there would be no net loss.  In all both plans have a net gain in open space due to the elimination of both current parking lots.  However, the loss of the meadow space is definitely perceived as a loss of overall open space.  There was also some feeling among members present that a restaurant was not needed here and that the area should be left alone with no additional parking.

 

A full unanimous agreement was not reached but the opinions came about as follows. 8 people supported the Community's Option 2 that saves the meadow and provides for all street parking though still believe this should be on-site enough for the restaurant.  4 people wanted it known that they do not support any restaurant here and feel there should be no parking or restaurant.  3 people were in support of the City's Option 1, they call this the compromise position.  There was a feeling among even the supporters of Option 1 that the garbage should be moved over to where Option 2 suggests.  Having the Garbage right next to the parking lot in front of the restaurant is problematic with both the look and the smell.  It was also noted by at least one individual that the parking should be paid parking if Option 1 passes (at least at night) if it is restricted parking.

 

OAK TO NINTH:

John Sutter presented where Oak to Ninth stands to date.  It is going before Council on Tuesday, June 20th.  John stated that the Estuary Policy Plan that had been adopted by the City in 1999 called for 40% more open space than the current plan has, 35.7 acres total versus the now 23 acres being proposed.  The developer is now presenting a plan to not put condos where the Cash & Carry is today but to move those 300 units to the East end of the project area.  This would leave Estuary Park to be a full park to the street giving up another 2 acres for parkland.  The Estuary Policy Plan called for three parks, Estuary, Meadow or Channel Park and Crescent Park.  John now believes that Crescent Park will probably be lost but they still want to get the developer and Council to push for Meadow/Channel Park.  The developer is planning for 3,100 units of housing in the project.  One disturbing thing is now the developer is saying that due to the movement of their 300 housing unit at the now Cash & Carry that the City should now use approximately $5 to $6 million of the DD funds to clean up that area, previously the developer was planning to clean this up.  There was a strong feeling this was not right and that DD money should not be used for this mitigation.  Jim Ratliff pointed out that the developer paid for the land and negotiated a price based on them doing the clean up.  The developer is saying, Oakland Harbor Partners, that they could now use the money to implement affordable housing on a faster scale.  This may be a welcome item, but the feeling is DD money should not be used to make that happen, it should be used to create and enhance the parks, not for mitigation.  Also, John Sutter pointed out that the area would be run by two new agencies, not an existing City Agency, called a Community Services District and a Community Facilities District.  He had concern over who had control over these and how they would be run.  They are also pushing to have the developer implement a portion of the Bay Trail in their first phase; currently they have it in their last phase, which is 20 years out.  Lastly, some discussion over the Ninth Ave. Terminal was had.  There is a push to have this area go out to RFP to find out if at least the historic portion of this building can be saved and put to some good use.  As nothing is scheduled to begin here for at least 2 years, John indicated that the Council would have time to go out to RFP to find some creative uses for saving the structure.   He did point out that numerous groups did support the project, such as the Oak to Ninth Coalition as they reached a compromise about affordable housing, the labor unions, etc.    It was stated that our group as a community advocacy group should not back down from our original position of sticking with the amount of open space that the Estuary Policy Plan provided for.  Also, a unanimous vote was taken on stating that the Coalition did not support now having to use DD funds to pay for the clean up at the area the developer was previously planning to do at Estuary Park.

 

WATERFRONT STANDARDS:

Joel Peter stated that Hood Design had been working on design standards for the waterfront area that would be for both public and private property areas.  BCDC had come out with a standard about waterfront trail guidelines about a year ago.  This standard would enhance that for Oakland to make our area stand out.  It will now go to Elois Thornton at the Planning Department.  Elois will be taking the draft development standards through a public process this summer to invite comment, including a public hearing before the Planning Commission.  They are fabricating one sample marker that may be put an Estuary Park to see how it works; it is currently at an East Oakland manufacturer.  This is the fine tuning of the Edaw study(?)

 

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m. and the next meeting is to take place on September 18th from 7-9 p.m. at the Garden Center’s Ebell Room at 666 Bellevue Ave.