Joanna, you certainly have a wealth of knowledge from living through the successes and failures of mixed-use zoning. You should really consider showing up to the next stakeholder meeting for the specific plan in order to share that point of view with staff and the other stakeholders. I was somewhat aghast at how many people in my focus group during the last meeting pointed to the development at Jack London Square as what they would like to see happen in the central estuary(or as one of them put it “just continue the trend, all the way down the estuary”. *shudder*).
A lot of people called for “mixed-use” in the last meeting. I’ve got the sinking feeling that no two people would actually agree on what “mixed-use” is supposed to be. While we can’t change oakland’s mixed-use zoning code in this process, we can use the specific plan to more minutely address some of the ways in which oakland’s mixed-use planning falls down.

I do know that it has been a tough sell for that building, mostly because the ground floor units in particular are not of interest to most people that do like that building. They thought they’d be able to sell those units to architects or artists, but the reality is that many people don’t want to live on the ground floor. They don’t work as retail spaces because of the access, and no ADA access from the street side.

I’m fine with leaving the buses at Broadway or the train station. I walk to Broadway regularly.

As for the size and layout of retail spaces, YES, the SUCK here. And I have one of the better spaces that I’ve figured out how to make it work for me (until I close in 307 days). But I will give props to Margot Lederer-Prado (sp? sorry) who worked with an intern to show the other planners what works and what doesn’t work. My store was one of the case studies. They showed the lack of signage, the poor windows not meant for retail, the funky exposed ceiling (which ironically I like, but few others can stand it), the parking, etc. No bathroom, no second exit, and most units only have a single door. I was lucky to get a double door opening, which has saved me for some of my bigger shipments.

I’m sure this all comes off as my beating the dead horse, but my point is the same with future mixed-use development areas as it was when working with developers to build the best that they can so that they don’t say in 10 or 20 years that they built the wrong thing and have to do it all over again. We need to learn from our mistakes and figure out how to make lemonade out of the lemon mistakes that have been made already. I give ideas all the time, but so far my own landlord has refused to listen… add plants, add color (which they did) to the building itself, add painted on warehouse names like they used to, etc.

I think neighborhood input allowed 288 Third to be significantly better than it was originally approved just by adding a recycling area in the trash area and by adding the roof garden and making it an awesome space for their residents. I think they also added bike storage, which wasn’t in the original plans.

For future buildings I’d like to see them find a way to allow green waste (compost), because if the City can pick it up from the residents in the Hills, why can’t we figure out a way for that to happen in these larger buildings where we’re filling landfill with the wrong refuse.

The answer to more bus service is mandatory bus passes bundled with the HOA/rent instead of mandatory parking. The city hands over the money via a contract with AC Transit mandating X level of bus service in the neighborhood, or contacting with someone else for a neighborhood shuttle.

Imagine, requiring new development to improve transit rather than adding to traffic (via more parking). If only it would be so…

In the you can’t be all things to all people, I would have preferred that residential JLS have less bus service. Force it to Broadway. I actually prefer less bus service and easy access to BART which can connect you to bus hubs. More coordinated transit.

Growing up and even when I first started working, it was all about the car. It wasn’t until I moved to DC that I first went without the car. I realized just how great it was to walk, bus, or metro to wherever I needed to go. This was pre-ZipCar and CityShare. I knew then I wanted to live without the car. Fast forward 14/15 yrs, I live in Fremont, I went an entire year w/o owning a car.

I own a car, and with just over 10K miles on it over the last 3 yrs I wonder why I own it. Had my bldg had some type of car share, I probably would have sold that bad boy. But even with car share, some part of the bldg is going to be designated for parking, so that is why max 1 space per unit is not unreasonable. Space can also be utilized for storage.

As for JL, right now it just strikes me as a warehouse district. Despite living at 3rd & Jackson, I walked 3rd to Broadway once. Too many warehouses, too much funk, too many nimrods at that one club…I am disappointed that storefronts were not bigger. Small size essentially limits what will locate there. Oakland CC seems to think that all retail is created equal. Someone needs to wake up and smell the coffee and stop approving plans that don’t provide sufficient retail space to be attractive.

You say, “Retail follows population 90%+ of the time, first you need the population (preferably captive) demanding the retail, then the store comes.” First, they don’t come quickly! Second, so many people have moved in and moved right back out because of the lack of convenience just of a grocery store.

I thought the general rule was 1.14 parking spaces per unit, although 200 Second Street was allowed to be built with .9 spaces per unit with the agreement that they would include a careshare program in their building. Every time I’ve asked if that condition was met, I get a blank look or no response… I did used to get the “we’re working on it”, which I equated to “the check is in the mail”.

I don’t mind less parking, but don’t create less parking in new buildings and at the same time reduce bus service! It doesn’t make sense. But then I don’t make sense because I don’t take the bus as a general rule. I prefer walking…

I calculate the acreage of the Jack London District to be about 250 acres. (very rough estimate, mostly using Google Earth to figure it out) We certainly don’t have 31,250 units. I then used the key residential and most dense area of Broadway/Freeway/Embarcadero/Oak + Fallon/Embarcadero/Alice/Estuary and got roughly 90 acres. Even within this area we don’t have 11,250 units. I got closer to 21 units per acre.

I then looked at the Oak to 9th project which is 3100 units on 64 acres, and I get 48.4 units per acre. That makes me wonder whether the 125 units per acre is reasonable, especially in an area of unstable ground (landfill) and earthquakes.

I then looked at grocery stores and what density they look for, and although I couldn’t find much other than this Emeryville general plan update steering committee report:
http://ci.emeryville.ca.us/archive/General_Plan_Update_Steering_Committee/2535.pdf

And this Sept 2003 EPA Report on Creating Great Neighborhoods:
http://www.epa.gov/dced/pdf/density.pdf

The latter is interesting, but I can’t help but feel that it’s a little out of date, because I think transit oriented development has exponentially became more important over the last five years.

If a portion of the population does not want to live where they don’t have off-street parking (or free abundant on-street) they CAN live elsewhere, suburbia. Thanks not the point, the point is how to make JL work as an urban neighborhood with urban amenities. Having new building that make the neighborhood better is the goal. The goal is not maximizing absorption rates, or per unit prices, by having every unit be all things to all demographics, no matter the impact on the neighborhood.

Retail follows population 90%+ of the time, first you need the population (preferably captive) demanding the retail, then the store comes.

@Joanna/ShopGirl
Actually you make a great point I left out, putting a price on on-street parking is important too. It makes parking available to shoppers (who will pay because they are there a short time, to spend money) and those workers/residents that MUST have cars, and are willing to pay. By clearing out all the cars whose owner are not willing to pay anything for parking, it “freed up” as you said parking for those who actually value it.

I am not pure myself concerning cars and parking. My family has a car, actually two recently, that we park on the street. The ease with which we do it and the price (Free! 100% subsidizing by the City of Oakland!) contribute to that. If we had to pay for permits or a space in a lot a few blocks away, we would rethink having two cars. But for now, why leave that subsidy on the table? The City is begging us to have more cars by subsidizing it.