First of all, there is nothing disrespectful about asking a developer why they are not respecting the law of our community and offering a plan allowed by our laws. Nobody said anything to anybody at that meeting Wed night in a disrespectful manner. You just don’t like the obvious truths that were brought up. Nobody was disrespectful.

You are entitled to your opinion, but sadly you see your opinion as the only perspective worth considering, which is what makes conversation with you, in a word, “pointless”. For you it is your dialog, or diatribe only, that you will consider.

At the beginning of the meeting Peter Calthorpe asked for a show of hands of people who were not at an earlier meeting. There were enough that he made his presentation a “replay” of the previous meeting.

Most of the Alameda Task Force was not even present for the meeting Wed night; perhaps you had not been told it was going to be a re-run of the meeting on the Hornet. It is very easy to understand why many of us want to know why there is no plan presented that would be considered “legally acceptable” for our community. Measure A is our law, and from the last Planning Board mandated Measure “A” community meeting held at Kofman Auditorium, you should realize the community is still strongly supportive of this law, despite your opinion. Granted you want our laws changed to meet your world view, and the developer wants our laws changed to build on a grander scale to create more work, greater numbers and higher density residential units, and mostly, more profit, but the law still stands, and the only “Development Concept” City Council has approved for Alameda Point is ‘Measure A’ compliant.

I thought the questions asked by the public were clear and to the point, and I was terribly disappointed that neither speaker from the developer nor the designer, even attempted to answer the pointed questions concerning traffic, or the steady climb in proposed density and housing numbers. He was clear that the designs presented were very ‘urban’ compared to the rest of Alameda, (more like San Jose’s ‘Santana Row’ was his description), they are non-MA compliant, and they did not take into consideration parking for the ferry terminal except as an afterthought which is why ferry parking was situated several blocks away from the water. (Much farther than the spacing between bus stops is supposed to be in Alameda)

Several speakers did want to know more about historic preservation, including Ms Cook of the Planning Board. This was intended as a community meeting John, not just a TC meeting where we would have to hear your constant diatribe of how you think the world should be. Ms Cook, and the developer both were asking for community input, this was part of the purpose of the meeting. Likewise the community wanted to know which of the historic structure the plans could or would preserve.

Your bullshit throw-out line “However it’s time for the discussion to move beyond “Save every building plus a couple of others”- is terribly dishonest, because nobody expressed or expects anything close to that. You just continue to manipulate reality which shows your deceptive nature. It is common sense that people were there to ask about the plan, and preservation and reuse are important considerations as has been repeatedly expressed by the community.

Calthorpe and SunCal kept admitting these presented plans were “high level concepts”, which is ‘developer-speak’, for wild-ass ideas they are just throwing out there to see what the response is…
Well, in their words, it means what he stated – “the plan is very conceptual, and details haven’t been determined”. (Especially the details that most of the audience would oppose.)

The developer did not have answers for which structures would be the ‘chosen few’ to remain. He did include all the ‘Big Whites’ but was unclear others. It seemed he was implying that all the large hangers would be destroyed, but the Bladium as a business might be relocated. I was wondering about the flight control tower, and it looked as though all the deep water port support buildings would also be destroyed. I hope all those massive lumber beams get reused. He stated the museum building would go but maybe there would be a historical center somewhere… All vague concepts.

There is nothing wrong with spending a long time on this decision making process because despite the already decade long process; we still don’t have an agreeable plan any developer still wants to build, and the land has not yet been “detoxified” – the Navy has yet to make good on their promise to clean the land, it would still be unhealthy to construct a development there now.

Also I don’t know why you say we never had a PDC that worked, we do have an approved one, despite many of us thinking 1800 additional homes on our Point is too many. I know your view of the world is different, but we see the increase of that number as less attractive, though I know I am wasting my time posting these views to you because you only recognize the value of your own views.

True, the community did not approve of “Sun Cal’s MA compliant PDC”, but that is because Sun Cal did not want to design a MA compliant plan that people would like, that would not be to their advantage, they want to change the laws to increase their profits. The community and City Council still do have the APCP PDC that is approved

By the way, at the meeting, I did not say “What if we do it wrong?”; I said what if we “get it” wrong? The Transportation Element you are presently advocating calls for no expansion to our roadways except for mass transit lanes, yet we could have a 25 – 30% increase in the number of cars and car trips on our island and thru our tubes/bridges, if that proposed TE is accepted despite the glaring traffic problems stated in the EIR.

This Draft EIR clearly states (pg 192) that if this TE is approved then the “Cumulative Traffic Impacts” will be “Cumulatively Considerable” and “Significant and Unavoidable”. Together this is the worst rating the EIR process can give. See page 50 for the definition of these ratings. The EIR also points out 9 or 10 major intersections at our tubes and bridges that will also be negatively impacted to a degree considered “Significant and Unavoidable.” This is exactly what we want to avoid on our island. People get frustrated, irate and angry in heavily restricted traffic flows. It makes people stressed, erratic and more dangerous. This is what we want to avoid getting in Alameda as a by-product of over development. You say it should be understood and accepted as a by-product of development. That is the crux of the opposing views, simplified as clearly as urban vs suburban.

http://www.ci.alameda.ca.us/tmp/pdf/DEIR-TMP.pdf

Obviously increased development will bring more cars in significant numbers; in fact the # of cars per household is increasing even without any new development so we will have more cars on our island regardless of development. A 20% increase in homes may yield a 25% – 30% increase in automobiles.

The TE solution as approved by our TC, chaired by John K White, is to help development along by allowing terrible traffic snarls and traffic delays in the hopes that the added inconvenience will get people out of their cars and onto public transit. This course of action is damaging to the environment of Alameda. This strategy has been proven completely ineffective all over the BA where hours-long traffic delays are everyday routines, with horrible effects on the environment and people’s lives and productivity.

Mr. White, we want to prevent these effects of development on our island. Don’t you get it?

It was pointed out Wed night that people prefer to have long commutes to live in single family detached homes with large yards than to move into the mixed-use multi-storied condos presently available in all cities of the Bay Area. Strange that the developer did not respond to the suggestion of moving employment opportunities to where people are choosing to live, instead of building more of the dwelling styles they reject closer to where they work.

Also the developer did not respond to questions of why present Alameda residents are not considered as part of the community to benefit from solar or wind farms, water reclamation systems, retail and entertainment areas – things they stated require a “critical mass” of residents. We are already here – why aren’t we included?

The very same traffic conditions you aspire to avoid is what your ideas are likely to bring to this community, yet “your” Transportation Element removes ‘corrective measures’, and the “policies” of your TE are unattainable because they include new estuary crossings and new public transportation systems that cannot be funded.

JKW, your dream is not realistic, and while you may have liked your lifestyle when you lived in Manhattan, we who moved here to Alameda have different opinions, and it is a shame you can not learn to listen to the majority of the community where you now live. You must have a narrow tribe of friends who only associate with the same special interests.