Alameda's Housing Element and associated zoning changes were a political stress test. Alameda passed the test on paper — in late 2023 — but we've only see a sprinkle of actual new housing created across Alameda as a result:
- As of my last count, only one residential property owners has opted to split their lot using the state-imposed benefits of SB9.
- A couple more property owners are using Transit Oriented Housing Waivers added to the city zoning code in 2023.
- I keep meaning to post about 3-bedroom and 0-parking spot ADU recently permitted a few doors down from me. It looks like it could make for a great home for another family with kids to go to nearby Otis Elementary.
With interest rates so high, few developers have been proposing larger multi-family projects around Alameda. And some already entitled projects, like those along the northern waterfront along Clement Ave. sit awaiting more favorable financing.
So even if we're no longer "NIMBY island" per the Alameda Municipal Code or according to the SF Chronicle, we're still hardly closer to increasing housing supply and reducing the collective and individual burdens of our housing crisis. Too many of us still live on the street, make do in tenuous housing conditions, or are moving to the suburbs of more affordable Sun Belt cities.
Tonight's Planning Board meeting does bring a pleasant surprise: a series of 2-story office building, currently surrounded by surface parking lots, transforming into 356 apartments:
This site — which is located behind the entrance portal to the Webster Tube, and kitty corner to the rear side of Target — was called out in Alameda's Housing Element. The city learned that the owners were interested in potentially redeveloping their land, and the city rezoned the land to allow a more flexible combination of office, manufacturing, and/or housing.
Alameda's Housing Element lists a number of potential opportunity sites like this. However, this is the first of the sites to my knowledge that has actually produced a tangible development application to the Planning Board. That's a real accomplishment.
Also thanks to Alameda's zoning code changes and to state-wide laws, this proposal is being reviewed following "Objective Design Review Standards."
Instead of Alameda Architectural Preservation Society and friends endlessly critiquing minor physical details with the overt goal of making the trim and finish match some period details elsewhere on the island and the covert goal of reducing the number of floors, units, and new residents to Alameda, under objective design review standards, the applicant and city staff simply follow a pre-defined checklist.
Does that feel too formulaic for our unique island? Well, if you live in a prewar single family house, your house was probably also built by a small-time developer following a checklist of their own. This is how housing is built at a reasonable cost for everyday people. As long as we're continually allowing new infill developments and avoiding the pitfalls of large site master planning, our city will continue to evolve with a range of architectural styles, unit sizes and formats, and a housing stock that grows to meet demand.
While the correspondence packet is quite quiet, one next-door neighbor has written into the Planning Board to question the density and the height and the traffic of the proposed new project. I started searching through older agenda packets to find when a previous generation of Alamedans likely wrote in to oppose the Tri Pointe Homes complex in which this current resident is now enabled to live — and to take for granted to the point that they can argue against more housing next door. But time is short, so I'll let you find the video of those prior Planning Board and City Council meetings...
The owner of this site is Mash Petroleum, a business owning a range of commercial real estate and gas stations across the East Bay.
Mash also owns a medium-sized office building right off Park St on Santa Clara Ave. (I toured once when looking for an office, but was surprised by how faded it appeared on the inside — and was also turned off by the rudeness of the commercial real estate agent to the building's handymen during our tour.) It will be an interesting measure of property values, real-estate earning potential, and interest rates to see if/when Mash Petroleum brings a proposal to redevelop its site on Santa Clara Ave into infill housing as well.
We may not have the power to set interest rates, or to control the waves of hiring and laying off of FAANG PMs (which also drives the ups and downs of regional property values and demand). Still, in Alameda we have been preparing our city to build new housing together with property owners, for the benefit of current and future residents. It's great to see the city's Housing Element and modern zoning code now put into practice.