Two weeks ago, at the last Planning Board meeting (heads up, tonight’s meeting is cancelled due to a lack of a quorum), the Alameda Point Plan was presented. During the discussion, Peter Calthorpe, the plans designer, spoke to the issue of sustainability and planning, check out this 3 minute video:
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Richard Bangert has a commentary on the concerns of greenwashing in the Alameda Point plan. It’s definitely true that we need to make sure and have good solid goals, targets and measures to make sure that promises that are made end up getting the follow-through needed to make them succeed.
He’s probably got a point but his observations about suburban sprawl and price collapse is irrelevant to Alameda Point. No matter how Alameda Point is developed, Alameda’s geographic relationship to the rest of the Bay Area does not change. Prices in sprawl such as Stockton and Antioch are falling not because of the style or density of housing there, but because of where they are located relative to the places people want to live and work.
Andy, prices are falling because: 1) recent high valuations are based on FRAUD; and 2) the massive de-leveraging of credit in the global financial system.
Jack, you’re going one level too deep in your analysis. Pricing continues to be based on supply and demand. A MacMansion in Alameda will always command a higher price than a MacMansion in Stockton or Antioch.
You can argue about why demand has fallen but that’s not the point I was making.
Andy,
I believe the comment is relevant to Alameda Point in that housing in this area (Bay Area) is going to need to be built. Current projections are 50% higher than local and regional plans account for. City’s Alameda and all the others, can plan to accommodate housing here, or it gets pushed off into the hinterlands which you mention.
One could use this argument to argue for 50K households at Alameda Point. I don’t know anyone who is doing so. The question, to me, is where is the balance between the impact a given city and the impact on the region, which comes right back and impacts each city as traffic, etc.
Another of the issues with the drive ’til you qualify is that the transportation costs for the households that choose Stockton, etc are a significantly higher portion of household income. As you said, it’s because of where the housing is in relation to where people work. So the question, at least one of them, is do we continue to build the housing nowhere near where people want to work, or do we work to incorporate these concerns.