Letter to the Council regarding the October 2016 Public Works Meeting

Dear Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council Members,

I wanted to take a moment to share with you the current public sentiment surrounding the possibility an underground sewage storage tank will be placed below Fiesta Meadows Park.

First and foremost, I thank the people who spoke at the October Public Works meeting.

To summarize my beliefs and findings from that night, I do not have objections with an in system storage approach to fixing the City’s Sanitary Sewage Overflow (SSO) problem. In terms of accepting the findings of the staff, I agree it will provide a beneficial function with relative ease once installed. However, I have extreme reservations about accepting any proposal for this strategy if it means interrupting one of our city parks for an extended period of time, especially one so close to an elementary school.

Parks mean quality of life, and that is something San Mateo has come to represent. Quality elementary schools, another hallmark of San Mateo, function best without close proximity to major construction projects even if the duration is limited. Let us uphold what we stand for and find another place.

Public Comment

This is not just my opinion. Over and over at the meeting I heard the same testament – this park is the heart and soul of our community, a place to play, grow up and meet the neighbors, the only place they can go without driving through the painfully long slog of cars and buses already isolating Fiesta Gardens from the rest of the city. The locals love it dearly and many go there almost every day.

While four years may mean little in terms of a grand infrastructure project, to the citizens of Fiesta Gardens and the students of adjacent elementary school it means a tremendous amount of irreplaceable time with their families. Further, several hundred more children and adults rely on Fiesta Meadows Park for organized sports including AYSO and Abbott Middle School. These children deserve the opportunity to grow up playing sports locally.

Questions and concerns mentioned include:

·          In a time when we are regularly disconnected from our physical environment how can you take away a badly needed athletic field for so long?

·         How are you measuring the impact of the diesel exhaust and particulate matter from all those trucks [one every 5-10 minutes during peak construction] on Fiesta Garden elementary school students?

·         Where will local children go to play when they are virtually trapped in their neighborhood during peak traffic hours?

·         Have you considered the idiopathic risk the project presents to Fiesta Garden residents?

·         How can you account for the daycares in the area which will lose a valuable resource for so long, perhaps destroying their businesses?

·         Why select a construction site in an area already struggling with horrendous traffic?

·         Who will compensate the Fiesta Gardens HOA for the effective loss of their recreational resources, an adjacent playground and pool, throughout the project’s implementation?

Finally, I want to highlight the contribution of the children who sat through the drudgery of a commission meeting and overcame their shyness to speak on behalf of the park they love, as well as the mother who bore the cost of a babysitter in order to defend the park she and her children use nearly every day.

However

There was only one point made during public comment to which I feel a rebuttal is in order.

One speaker characterized this problem as being us (longtime San Mateo homeowners) versus them (people moving into new developments such as Bay Meadows and the future Station Park Green), blaming new development for the SSO problem. This, I believe, is incorrect.

Let’s do the math:

Based on what we learned from the staff presentation, the current sewage system maxes out at 60 million gallon a day (MGD). According to the figures shown and taking population growth into account, the projected demand on the system on heavy flow day will be 98MGD in 2035. 16MGD of this will be baseline use on a dry weather day (up from 14MGD in 2014). The excess water inundating the system on wet water day represents the remainder, or 82 MGD. At our meeting the staff offered that most projections for the state of California indicate half of this can be directly tied to the failure of lateral (secondary) lines. Under this assumption, after an aggressive process of fixing laterals (which would not address the other needs of our aging sewage plant), our full capacity demand would be 57MGD, or 3MGD below the limit of our current system. New developments have the latest technology, as opposed to the major problem, old and broken terra cotta piping dating back to the 1950s or before. For this reason, residents in brand new buildings will not be expected to make more than perhaps minor contributions to the problem of SSO in San Mateo. One negligent homeowner in an established neighborhood can do far more damage in terms of water infiltration than people residing in newly built multi-family housing.

Financial Considerations

Beyond quality of life issues, there is still the matter of money. This project will have an extended negative impact on Fiesta Garden home values. People want to buy homes in San Mateo not only because they believe it will give them access to our outstanding parks but also because they trust their investment will hold value. On both account you would be betraying the citizens of Fiesta Garden to approve a storage tank under their community park.

Conclusion

There has to be a better place than an already established park next to an elementary school for an in system storage tank. The entry of the Corporation Yards on the list of possible locations is an exciting development. Hopefully this site, or one of the other less residential areas under consideration, will prove feasible for the tank our city needs.

Thank you,

Kara Cox

Vice Chair, Public Works Commission (for identification purposes only)

Dear Planning Commission,

I am writing on behalf of the PA15-031, Hillsdale Terraces. It is an ideal location for location for high density housing.

Most of this project area has been empty for decades and the continued underdevelopment of this prime space is quite frankly an embarrassment and failure on the part of the City of San Mateo. Now is the time to approve more housing for our city.

My expectation is many people who are able to attend tonight will not focus on the dire need for housing in the area. Instead, their overwhelming concern will be parking. Some homeowners, who already possess designated off street parking of their own, want to stop desperately needed new residential development because they won’t be able to consistently park directly in front of their houses. This is one of the ultimate NIMBY conceits.

I have said it before and I will say it again, proudly and apologetically, – people have a right to live more than cars should have right to a place to park.

Please consider the bigger picture, which is our housing supply is not keeping pace with our job creation, leading to urban sprawl impacting 101, 92 and consequently all San Mateo’s major thoroughfares.

Just today at my son’s school another student’s caretaker told me she lives in Gilroy. When I was writing this at 5:30 pm Google Maps says it would take 2 hours to drive the 70 miles from San Mateo to Gilroy. Even under the best of times this does not translate into an ideal commute. But as long as no housing is built in the transit core of the Peninsula the sprawl will continue with negative consequences for human health and the local environment.

This is a crisis. Please act accordingly.

Kind regards,

Cal Waters Remodel: Comments to the Planning Commission

Dear Planning Commission,

Please deny the request for a special use permit in the case of planning application PA16-027.

The highest and best use of the site in question is residential and its current zoningreflects this fact. This designation represents the ideals of our City and should not simply be disregarded because it is inconvenient for the current occupant.

Even besides the desirability of housing instead of light industrial in this vibrant downtown location, the scope of the project is underwhelming. It lacks the vision, sustainability and density City Master plan anticipates.

Please uphold the zoning standards the City has set for the property in question and do not allow such an extreme exception to be made for this decidedly unexceptional project.

Kind regards,

Letter to the City Council, Hillsdale Redevelopment

Dear City Council,

I am writing with regard to the project slated for Hillsdale Mall, PA 15-024.

While development of the Sears building into a more modern, aesthetic and sustainable gathering space is an admirable goal, there are several aspects of the project and application which concern me.

In particular, at the February 9, 2016 Planning Commission meeting when I raised the matter of why it is important to employ union labor for the project the applicant’s representative dismissed my concerns as unfounded in his response. This turns out to be misleading, at best. There have been multiple labor demonstrations against the project and no concrete commitment to employ a union general contract.

Given this misguiding presentation to the Planning Commission, the applicant should be held accountable to their claims of goodwill towards labor in a written and enforceable agreement as opposed to word of mouth. By showing this support for union labor the Council can show support for equitable business practices which do not compromise workers for the financial benefit of owner/operators.

As for the traffic concerns of the community group spearheaded by Barsetti family, I am in favor of directing traffic towards El Camino entrances. In particular, maintaining the 30^th Avenue entrance in face of increased demand should require thorough analysis. 1% seems like an incredibly optimistic projection if in fact, as the applicant purports, there is high consumer demand for the proposed project. Also, as a movie theater is planned, one can expect large batches of cars leaving at the same time which will have a different, and likely more negative, impact than if the cars were leaving at evenly dispersed intervals. In addition, a movie theater will have patrons arriving and departing at much later times than the current retail establishment. These factors should be taken into account of any traffic study which weighs into the Council’s decision on this matter.

Many thanks for your time and consideration,