A discussion arose on a neighborhood group about a proposed development to turn Grocery Outlet into mixed-use residential with apartments over retail space. Next to the highway. Beside the railroad tracks. Next to the various industrial uses. The comments in reply included some of the usual BS accusations of NIMBYism or naivite. Here is what I wrote: ------------------------- I think there are quite a few people who believe permitting developments of that type in that location is poor policy. Adjacency to the railway, highway, and industrial use makes the location a poor choice. It is an environmental mess by many measures. It juxtaposes heavily conflicting uses. Reduced parking requirements harm the neighbors, as you note. They are premised on a fantasy that our public transportation system will sharply improve any day now. They are premised on green-washing environmental claims that range from extremely misleading to simply false. The units themselves tend to be more chrome, so to speak, than solid chassis. My opinion is that these kinds of developments are one prolonged economic downturn away from turning into run-down slums. When developments like this are bolstered by supposed contributions to affordable housing we should note the subtle classism of concentrating new affordable housing development in undesired areas and substandard buildings with required amenities, such as parking, waived. The notion that Berkeley owes the region a certain amount of new housing based on population growth and growth projections is a legal and policy fiction constructed precisely to help overcome home rule objections to developments like this. Our mayor in his capacity as a powerful Democrat and regional politician has actively helped to to construct that fiction. Proponents of this kind of development sometimes argue that the increase in housing supply from developments like this will bring down housing prices. The empirical evidence is to the contrary. It is easy to understand why: The only thing that can force landlords to lower rent is excessive vacancies among competitive units. When there are high vacancy rates only in developments like these it is because they cannot compete. There is no evidence that anywhere near enough competitive units can be built to lower rents. I have to say Im perpetually disappointed when proponents of projects like these resort to trying to shame neighbors into accepting them. They do this by calling neighbors NIMBYs, by calling them narrow minded as happened in this discussion, by making more-know-it-all-than-thou statements about how opponents are just naively standing in the way of inevitable progress .... The advantages of developments like this to land-owners, developers, and financiers are apparent and immediate. If one cares only about the bottom lines of those groups then much in Berkeleys planning outcomes and questionable developments makes perfect sense: they can make those groups a lot of money. In that light it is easy to see how some career politicians become boosters for these groups --- those groups pushing these developments make hefty campaign donations and are well positioned to horse-trade all kinds of favors. I think Berkeleyans should resist these kinds of developments. Our planning and policy should contemplate a multi-generational understanding of Berkeley: What will these places look like 50 or 75 years from now? How will future Berkeley reflect our choices here today?
Posted on: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 22:48:38 +0000
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