If you have articles, web site information, housing research or any other resource you would like to share dispelling some of the public relations rhetoric that is being foisted on nearly every American city to get residents to gladly accept overcrowded urban environments in the name of "smart growth", send this to BANA via email: mariebowman@pacbell.net
Residents in affected redevelopment areas where "smart growth" development is most aggressive continue to research, write and try to educate, but the task is extraordinarily difficult when the local media ignores their efforts.
I read with interest Patrick Hoge's May 10th article about preservation in Berkeley. Developer and Piedmont resident Patrick Kennedy is quoted as saying: "I think it's time for a new generation of buildings in Berkeley". I believe that every building Mr. Kennedy has completed since 1997 (except Acton Courtyard which is less than one year old) is suffering from water intrusion problems (i.e. they leak).
The monumental Gaia building required complete restoration of its south side (a 10-month project) beginning when it was less than 2 years old. Just five months after the scaffolding was removed, it went up again, and repair work began anew. Apparently 10 months of labor was insufficient to correct the flaw.
By contrast, the historic buildings of Berkeley are still standing after 80 to 130 years despite, in many cases, decades of deliberate neglect by owners who wish to profit from the land underneath them. Perhaps they should simply be clear-cut to make way for more leaking edifices, eternally enveloped in scaffolding and undergoing repair-a new generation of buildings indeed!
Patrick Hoge, San Francisco Chronicle, Page B - 1, 8/26/2004
What effect is "smart growth" having on urban housing markets? It is beginning to look as though Berkeley and Oakland are creating a housing glut - a precursor for falling rents and falling property values - particularly for multi-family housing.
In Tampa, Florida, when the University of South Florida campus was being constructed, developers swooped in like vultures on a warm carcass and built up the surrounding neighborhoods with acres of multi-family housing in anticipation of the incoming student population. The surrounding region was so quickly and drastically overbuilt that ten years later, many of these apartment neighborhoods became drug invested crime dens that students shun. Rents plummeted because of the vast housing oversupply, the hastily constructed buildings are dilapidated and neglected, and many apartments have been boarded up because the owners were never able to keep enough tenants to make the investment viable.
Is this the future for Oakland and Berkeley? Read on and remember that the developers are nowhere close to finishing building up our cities with high density, multi-family housing. In Oakland alone, there are over 20,000 new units that have been constructed, are being constructed, or have been approved for construction, yet the vacancy rate is already hovering near 10%.
by Amber Parry, Daily Californian, 9/1/2004
This article discusses the disparity between rental prices of three of the Patrick Kennedy's developments and rental rates in Berkeley's current soft rental market. Kennedy builds his properties with a set-aside of 20% affordable, as defined by HUD, and as required by the City of Berkeley in order to receive state bonds for construction subsidies. The Fine Arts building, with representative project rents, will charge $1,495 for a one-bedroom and $1,850 for a two-bedroom unit. The current average price of a market rental in Berkeley is $917 per month for a one-bedroom and $1,200 per month for a two-bedroom unit. The important point to remember is that on the subsidized units, Kennedy will receive up to $997 each month on each of the one-bedroom units and $1,233 on the two-bedroom units rented to Section 8 tenants with choice vouchers.
This report, published in 2000 by SprawlCity.org, U.S. Bureau of Census data on Urbanized Areas, shows how Smart Growth is not a solution to urban sprawl. The only viable solution to solving urban sprawl is to decrease the pressure of population growth in a region. Smart Growth encourages the opposite.
Note that in the Bay Area, sprawl is overwhelmingly caused by the pressure of population, and that per capita land use is relatively small. Since population, not per capita land use, fosters urban sprawl in the Bay Area, it is safe to assume that smart growth, which encourages regional increases in population densities, will serve to worsen sprawl in the Bay Area rather than to alleviate it.
One of the legal requirements for "smart growth" development is that the targeted area have adequate existing infrastructure capable of accommodating the additional population load expected by high-density transit oriented "smart growth".
Is it a coincidence that Oakland's aggressive high-density, transit oriented redevelopment implementation matches the time period mentioned in this article documenting a dramatic increase in sewage leaks?
Is it "smart" to add more than 10,000 new high-density, clustered residential units without assessing the effects on a 70-year old municipal sewer system designed to handle waste from a fraction of the anticipated future population?
Read on . . . Anne Wellington
OAKLAND -- City officials have six months to develop a plan to unclog Oakland's decaying sewers or face massive fines from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Between January 1998 and September 2002, the city reported 1,330 spills, 43 of which contaminated local waters with raw sewage, the EPA said. Oakland officials have until November to submit plans detailing how the city will reduce the number of spills or face fines of $27,500 a day.