Anyway, one other thing I meant to comment on when I first read this post. V says (sorry, don’t know how to do italics):

“I’m, well, pretty pro-development for the most part, and most of the arguments I hear from anti-growth types give me a huge headache and make me roll my eyes. But when they complain that they don’t trust the developers will keep this promise or that promise or that whatever condition of approval will actually be met…well, I see where they’re coming from. It’s pretty hard to argue against that when the City just lets a developer violate their DDA and stick the community with a big hunk of blight for a year (or in the case of 14th and Jackson, let properties sit shrink-wrapped for years). ”

As one that has been labeled “anti-development”, I just wanted to say that this is exactly why I go to the planning commission meetings wanting the BEST for those developers that are coming into my neighborhood. I’m not at all a NIMBY. I’m all for having the best possible project, and no, I often don’t trust the developers (Sierra Condos, Allegro). Sometimes changes are made for the better at the Planning Commission and Design Review meetings, although I have to tell you that more often it feels the other way around. But even getting these changes in writing at that stage is no guarantee that you’ll get that project.

Also, getting labeled inappropriately brings tension to the table. Ask Hal Ellis or Jim Falaschi if they can say my name without using it in vain. (they can’t) WHY?? Why can’t they listen to other ideas? Oh, that’s right, because they’re right and anyone that doesn’t agree with them is “anti-development”, “a NIMBY”, and “obviously knows nothing about devleopment”. It galls me that I still go to the construction meetings and get treated like crap. Last month it was because I poised a simple question about palm trees, and boom, “you’re the only one that hates them.” I never even said I hated them. I just asked why they weren’t planted at ground level.

And wanting to keep the waterfront accessible to the masses and wanting to make it more beautiful also doesn’t make me anti-development. I think there are plenty of ways to make Oak to Ninth work, but as the current plan is, I just don’t think it’s the right way to go. But I’m labeled anti-development for not wanting Oak to Ninth as it currently stands. I think it needs more tall buildings (which those in the San Antonio area won’t like because it will block views) and more open space with more public parking. Oh, alright, I guess with the water tables as they are, going taller would be cost prohibitive.

I actually wanted Forest City and some of the other developments to be taller. These six or eight story buildings aren’t tall enough. Nor are they very interesting, imho.

I kind of like the design that Peter Wang presented and I hope that it goes through, but do you honestly believe they would build it? When it comes to money, they’ll find a cheaper way to sort of keep the design theme, but I’d bet it would end up being more blocky — the cheaper way to build.

Joanna

I’ve wondered about the palm trees in Oakland since owning a “Sunny Side of the Bay” T-shirt that featured a stylized Oakland map with palm trees.

V. Smoothe, I agree that holding developers to their contracts is a good precedent to set. It will make things easier for Oakland in future contracts.

was brunner’s 20% IZ killed officially or just by Dellum’s inaction or the market cycle?

MA, i guess you’re not persuaded by the various organized and anecdotal evidence that spreading poor dysfunctional people around, only results in diluting the problems.

-len raphael

The actual square at Jack London is a bad 80s/90s post modern monstrosity. I loathe the architecture. At least the design. I believe a while back I suggested that that blue stucco hotel could be improved by a meteor strike.

That said, the overall unfolding of pedestrian space is really good. We had a wise masterplanner, and wouldn’t you know, surprise surprise, it looks like the developers hired individual architects with faddish aesthetics. Some things never change.

The new construction at either end, however, is super encouraging. It’ll be odd to have unattractive anachronisms sandwiched between new architecture, but it’s a start. I sincerely hope that we hit an economic growth spurt in the next two decades that warants leveling most of the rest of the square and replacing it with something befitting it’s purpose.

The trees form a wall between Miss Pearl’s and Scott’s blocking much of the water view. Where before the steps sloping down to the Estuary created a welcoming sense to Oakland with an unobstructed view through the gate up Braodaway, the planter box slopes the wrong direction creating a trough.

It reminds me most of how they used the angular features of the Century City Mall in Conquest for the Planet of Apes to create a vision of a dystopian urban nightmare.

Since IZ is a dead letter, I think we can all agree on the need for higher densities downtown and more transit.