The Hercules Planning Commission will discuss Monday evening the project formerly known as Sycamore North. Now dubbed Town Centrale, the plan by Presidio Development Partners calls for 140 market rate apartments and 10,000 square feet of retail. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast live on the city's website.
Here are the details from the commission's agenda:
“TOWN CENTRALE” (formerly Sycamore North, also referenced previously as Sycamore Downtown) consists of the following:
1. CEQA ADDENDUM to prior Environmental Impact Reports (EIR) and Reaffirmation of Statement of Overriding Considerations
2. GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT (GPA) 12-01
3. ZONING TEXT AMENDMENT (ZTA) 12-01
4. FINAL PLANNED DEVELOPMENT PLAN (PDP) 12-01
5. VESTING TENTATIVE MAP (VTM) 12-016. DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT (DA) 12-01
Applicant: UC-BNB Partners, LLCrepresented by Mark Conroe, President/CEO, Presidio Development Partners, LLC
Location: Sycamore Avenue (north side of street, west of San Pablo Avenue) between South Front Street and Tsushima Street
As Toni stated John Muir is a 4 lane road designed to feed traffic to the transit area and to Bayfront. The city plan, as designed, has traffic dispersed for various uses. The Bayfront and ITC via John Muir, along with commercial and retail along John Muir, the eventual use of the area known as Cinema Town (a rather poor choice of titles) would bring traffic on and off the highway for medium and perhaps big box services. Then of course for now City Hall and the areas near there are served by Sycamore. So, the "center of town" is a bit of a misnomer, if city planning is followed. But the current land use deals will create a center at Sycamore and San Pablo which will serve to create congestion rather than alleviating and dispersing congestion. That congestion will impact almost everyone. My more direct answer would be that Bayfront, the ITC, bus loop, and the bay will become town central. What is left is how to access it. John Muir is designed to do so. Sycamore is not. But if we have a town center at Sycamore and San Pablo we end up with the access to Bayfront and ITC becoming a 2 lane community road. Not a particularly good idea.
I agree with your analysis. The congestion to/from Pinole, Refugio, Redwood will really back up at the two-lane Sycamore and San Pablo. Bu we have this behemoth that must be dealt with. I dislike their new name and am not ready to acknowledge it. Sycamore Gardens, or Sycamore village or something, but it is a lousy place for a town center, across from a Safeway, huge parking lot, and who knows what Red Barn or whomever owns it now plans to do with Sycamore South.
I have brought this serious safety issue up before. Any major fire up Refugio or if an earthquake caused the railroad overpass to fall down will result in all those in the hills areas with little way out other than some fire roads or winding through neighborhood streets to come out by Willow. I I have been told that when this has been brought up before, there are those, including our current Mayor, who were opposed to an access being developed for the hills area. Refugio could be a huge fire disaster. The valley combined with the eucalpytus trees is a hazard in waiting in my opinion. And developing Sycamore and San Pablo as town center will not help. The comment noted above about haphazard planning is accurate in my opinion. Politics has driven planning here, despite the community's strong effort via charettes to have it otherwise.
Last night in spite of all the planning commission rhetoric they approved a project that is woefully under parked and with only a modicum of retail and this is the best we can do? This planning commission needs to grow a pair and take seriously there role in development in Hercules it isn't about rhetoric from the dais it is about action in their votes last night was a failure lets hope that the commission takes note a helps the city grow without sacrificing the agreed upon central plan. Last night they doomed bayside with a parking nightmare that will need to be resolved before there is bloodshed. It will be ugly! They did not do their jobs last night they looked like tools for the council and unfortunately some of them are just that! Tools
Which commission members are tools? It would be helpful to know which of them serve the community, and which serve duranomero.
Regarding the parking issue, I'm going to go out on a limb here and state my belief that much of the parking congestion that the neighborhood is dealing with now stems from the fact that many, many people who live here are parking on the street, rather than in their garages. They stuff their garages so full of things that there is no more room for cars. This is in violation of the HOA bylaws, but many people seem to do it anyway. Every home in Bayside has a two-car garage and it seems that most people can only fit one car at the most. The result is that most households with more than one car park the extra(s) on the street. The streets of the Bayside neighborhood were not designed to accommodate residents parking on the street. Street parking was intended to be for visitors only. This is a New Urbanist community with a lot of density and narrow streets that are meant to be pedestrian-centric, not devoted to making sure there is a ton of street parking. When members of that community complain about the lack of parking, the first question that comes to mind is, "is their room in your garage to park all of your household's cars?" If not, then clean out your garage, sell a car or two, or move to the more typical (and hellish) suburban template with 40 foot wide streets and 80 foot wide parcels where you can find ample street parking.
I understand your view on parking. Yep, the folks that live there could park in their garage if getting a parking space is difficult. But, I don't think is is reasonable to assume that the Bayside residence should park in their garages so that the folks at Syc N will have their street side parking available. Every development should accomodate its own parking, be it garage or street. If there is overflow for any number of reasons then, so be it, it is urban and you have to just take what you can get. But that should not be a rationale for the Syc N development to be underparked and not be required to accomodate its own.
Regardless, the Bayside victims bought into the New Urbanist design, a design that obviously was not intended for the dumping of outsiders. Proponents of this New Urbanist design should defend the Bayside residents from the stupid encroachers who had no design whatsoever, instead of telling Bayside residents to keep sucking it up for the good of our city.
A commenter in this thread says this is a New Urbanist community. If you corrected him, then you never would have had to correct me. Be consistent. By the way, do you own the market for inflammatory?
"This is a New Urbanist community with a lot of density and narrow streets that are meant to be pedestrian-centric, not devoted to making sure there is a ton of street parking." Toni, my wife and I almost bought into the Bayside development. Please do not make me feel, that as a citizen, that I do not have a right to speak.
No not make statements about something you do not understand.
There is little to nothing about Syc N that represents "new urbanism". The Central Plan does, the General Plan does, the Bayfront/ITC does, but the plans for Syc N, Syc Cross, Parcel C, and Victoria Crescent do not represent "new urbanism". The deals being pushed by city hall on these parcels might be considered parts of a TOD (transit oriented development", or perhaps urban density within a suburban plan, but they have little to nothing to do with "new urbanism"
2) The HOA management does not enforce parking or anything else. 3) bayside residents and their guests will park on sycamore once it is open. 4) 140 units at SN or TC is equal to 40% of bayside 5) we discovered is that "staff" mislead (lied) to the developer and now we have another debt of $700k to pay to the Ed fund. The Ed fund fees are based on the number of units. 6) the only solution to all of these problems including parking, garbage, Ed fees, noise, and unrentable dark studio apartments is to raze the building or reconfigure the entire first floor. 7) it is clear that the planning commission is not able to negotiate on behalf of the citizens. 8) These are difficult times and we need leadership and highly skilled negotiators. intead we have political appointees with out appropriate skill sets.
You jump to conclusions with no facts and then make statements or more actually proclamations that are erroneous.
2)Shouldn't the City of Hercules have a parking plan especially when planning high density apartment complexes and neighborhoods that does not rely on citizens to "self police"? Why is enforcement left to the HOA? Where can I file a complaint? 3)What will prevent the existing parking overflow from taking up the spaces on Sycamore? 4) Shouldn't we demand mixed use at SN/TC that would provide needed services to the city and more potential revenue than a bunch of tiny apartments in an expensive shell meant for retail, paid for with public funds? 5) where will the Ed fund money come from, is it/will it be in the budget? is this adding to our fiscal crisis? 6) what do you you do when "staff" are misleading in negotiations ? Say good job? Is that in our best interest? Really? 7) what has our council accomplished with this sale if all we get is a lot of residents, noise, traffic and congestion on a street that is mostly dead and no parking plan? Again, why isn't the city taking any responsibility for developing reasonable parking plan? Live/work was an obvious solution for less dead space on the street and a better use of the shell. The developer should have presented this alternative.
Perhaps a more long term and infinitely better solution would be to improve public transportation within Hercules and the East Bay so that families who live here don't feel a need to own multiple cars - and their guests don't feel that they have to drive here to visit them.
City planning is a discipline taught at many Universities. Maybe we should recruit a City planner. It could save $$ and heartache in the future. We need to bring vitality to our town.
You have a tough job. Try to get it right or get out!
So, whose fault is that? Whose fault is it that the citizens are married to their multiple vehicles as a result of the need to drive to everything? Don't forget that many of the residents have more than 2 cars. Bayside has 3 and 4 bedroom homes with extended family living there. Extended families are a cultural norm and an economic necessity for many here. So, it is not just garage pingpong tables taking up the space. Not everyone lives the same life style. Their neighbors will not police them and some do not know how to police themselves. Many of our neighbors come from other cultures and do not have the same outlook or concerns. The new comers may not have any idea about "new urbanism". They are not buying smart cars. Hercules can stem some of these problems by providing a) better and adequate transit b) Local educational, shopping, dining, entertainment opportunities. c) a parking plan that is enforced by trained and responsible personnel.
I agree with your points about new urbanism. Let's just hope we can set the city back on course for the plans you have outlined. But as it stands we are way off the tracks.