March 2, 2006

Opening Remarks
Bill Myers (Northern California & Northern Nevada Regional Head, SunCal) spoke briefly about the privately held, family business which for 70 years building communities. In the past few years, it has expanded rapidly to 250 employees, is now moving into Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Florida with 30-40 projects at a time.  It values its reputation.  The two keys for working with the community and city in shaping the design were outlined as (1) The constraints and opportunities to build the plan and (2) the process of designing standards.  SunCal gathers a team of experts to know the community.  SunCal builds the infrastructure (roads, utilities, sewers) up the curb, (and also hires architect/planners such as Calthorpe) and then later contracts to bring in 3 or 4 builders to complete the structures.  Myers pointed us to some recent Northern California projects:  Lincoln Crossing, Bickford Ranch and Delta Shores. Mindful of the history of development, they are committed to a public process.  Myers let us know that SunCal plans to close soon on the property.

Pat Keliher, the Project Manager, then spoke briefly about the bidding effort, and noted that SunCal has hired locals such as Daryl Kerry, Carol H. Williams Agency, and Peter Calthorpe.  He next described what had been done so far on site analysis, how trenching revealed no recent faults, and mentioned they are studying hydrology, traffic, Rifle Range Creek, and biological assets. He further explained that SunCal had been denied access to the site until the first down payment was made, so in effect, information gathering has occurred only over the past 3.5 months. SunCal also has established website communication channels (www.OakKnollCommunity.com) and phone hotline (877 OAK-KNLL) for information and messages.  A quick response to queries was promised.

Keliher outlined the community process as consisting of 3 meetings:
1. What we want to see today (March 2)
2. Preliminary Plan (2nd meeting)
3. (Near) Final Plan (3rd meeting)

The second meeting will be on either March 19 or 20, and the final meeting a month later. Mailings will again notify the neighbors.

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Peter Calthorpe's Approach to Community Design
Peter Calthorpe then gave a brief visual and verbal assessment of his own "philosophy and values" which he brings as a community designer, emphasizing that this is not a project but a "community."  Here are his 4 basic principles:  Diversity & Balance, Human & Pedestrian Scale, Conservation & Restoration, and Connection & Interdependence.  He noted that American cities since WWII were designed for cars, not people, and thus were unwelcoming.  Instead we need to have bikes, street trees, architectural detailing such as front facing doors and windows, and local destinations. With "Diversity & Balance" he simply argued for a wide mix of ages, income levels and housing types along with mixed use as a breakdown of past land use zoning separations. With regard to "Conservation and Restoration" he obviously noted that nature was "manhandled" here and that Club Knoll should be preserved as an historic memory of place.  Connection and Interdependence were asserted as revealed through layers of the neighborhood locally, in Oakland and the Bay area (clearly this is a more philosophical rather than practical image at this time for Peter).  But he did note that, with a shortage of housing, each open site should develop its "fair share" of housing and other potential.

Peter then drew our attention, with photos, of Issaquah Highlands near Redmond, Washington.  He showed various housing types with different price points, preserved open space, pedestrian walkways, green courts rather than cul-de-sacs, architectural detail, pocket parks, and neighborhood gathering places. He felt that open space and housing, work zones could be knitted, and made a plea for vertically developed live/work spaces overlooking arterial edges instead of sound walls.  He also noted that affordable housing townhouses were sprinkled throughout the site.  Hillsides, he asserted should not be dramatically altered, but developed in terms of a cascading housing with green spines. Finally, he observed that the Redmond site has four creeks or riparian corridors while Oak Knoll has one.

Peter Calthorpe's Comments on Oak Knoll
Peter's argument for Mixed Use at Oak Knoll (and as a desired form in general) continued with a brief allusion to the Oakland General Plan and Reuse Plan (actually, my comment--some of the reuse plans, there were four different ones). He noted that the open space was not ideally sited in these documents necessarily, and that Seneca was property not controlled by SunCal, and would be planned around.

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Opportunities and constraints for the site, according to Peter, include the 2 entry points (Mountain & Keller, to lesser extent Sequoyah Road).  Also, the Credit Union and 5.5 acres will be integrated into the site, and there will be respect for the land, not pads into the hillsides. 

"Opportunity" discussion continued using topographic maps Peter from 1959, 1963, 1977, 1994 and 2006 as portraits of enduring elements at the site--especially the creek and nearby woodland, as well as a small meadow near Club Knoll.  With this technique, he also showed when the creek was first partly paved over, and how hospital expansion resulted in more asphalting and encroachment into the riparian corridor.  He called the result an "abused character." 

By contrast, he alluded to his own approach as being framed by the principle of "retaining the character of place by nature."  Importantly, he firmly stated that slopes greater than 25% will not be touched by development, and later alluded to a tiny hidden valley on the site, clearly a remnant of natural character.

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Hurrying his talk, Peter summarized in this manner:  Rifle Range Creek and the hillsides above and ringing Oak Knoll will be preserved and restored.  The open meadow near Club Knoll will be retained, and Club Knoll (if it found to structurally sound) will be devoted to a public purpose.

Key to the meeting he said, however, was community discussion around designing a community center for Oak Knoll.  This might include retail, local-serving business, and places where people would co-mingle.  The center he noted would preferably be located near the Mountain Blvd. entry but another possibility was Keller. The kind and quantity of housing was open and variously linked to estate lots, standard lots 5000-6000 SF, and small lots that carry the driveway along a side alley. He also made a pitch for large "tuck under" multi-family housing, townhouses, senior houses, attached mansion homes, live/work, housing over shops at the village center.

Community Discussions
The next part of the meeting was structured around small community discussion groups focused on the following prearranged topic areas:  overall impression of the approach discussed, site analysis & questions, village center location and activities, retail, housing types, open space/trails/Club Knoll/meadow, traffic and circulation hot spots both vehicle and pedestrian, and off site deficiencies in the community. After a long period of internal discussion, guided by facilitators, representatives from each group were to deliver an oral summary to the entire audience.

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Since the topics were so delineated, the discussions were largely pre-shaped, and some of the facilitators were a little too controlling of what went onto the summary sheets.  [Few facilitators seemed to realize we already had an EIR with plans for the site and had participated in earlier planning sessions of this type years ago.] Yet, neighbors were provided with a large conceptual land use-topographic view on which to add comments. Unfortunately the room was so packed that some folks were squished against the walls and had difficulty with the format.

With the final summaries presented by the various table representatives, it became clear that community members strongly supported the following:  (1) restoring the creek into a wide riparian corridor with walking trails (and possibly a bike path) and (2) preserving a large open space (at the top of the site) and along some of the perimeter [as developed in the Base Reuse Plan]. Neighbors also supported having the open meadow (some wanted active recreation there) and restoring Club Knoll. Many neighbors encouraged buying the 15-20 acre wild canyon parcel near Sequoyah/St. Andrews Rd. as a green buffer.  Strong support was also given to extensive walking trails throughout the site.  My group (and it wasn't from me, at first) argued for a 300' creek buffer to accommodate a bike and hiking trail.  We also delineated various trail routes that could lead to the Leona Canyon East Bay Regional Park, Chabot Stables and Regional Park (at Skyline), King Estates Park (across the freeway), and Zoo/Knowland Park near Golf Links Road. My group also deleted the small housing island in the midst of the upper hill open space area.

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Most folks supported a variety of housing densities and types, senior affordable housing, and (acceptance of an "upscale" grocery store such as Whole Foods or Andronicos. Indeed, "upscale" was oft-repeated adjective attached to all descriptions of neighborhood retail, along with the notion of avoiding chains. Questions pertaining to the local of the retail/commercial area were prefaced by the questions “Where do you want this to be located, at Keller Avenue or near Mountain Boulevard” rather than “Do you support retail/commercial development and if so, where should it be located, at Keller or Mountain?”

Traffic came out as a big concern, especially regarding the freeway interchanges.  Other suggestions were for solar or renewable power sources, eucalyptus removal from the upper open space hillsides, tree preservation, developing drought tolerate landscapes in place of lawns, adopting a more Mediterranean architectural style, no rental or section 8 properties. There was also an undercurrent of dismay about the city declaring the site blighted in order to propose a merger with the East Oakland Flatland redevelopment area and thereby drain incremental taxes away from Oak Knoll for at least 30 years. 

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Notably, one group seemed to have a feeling that SunCal was forthright, but was concerned that no density numbers, or housing stats, were offered as a guideline.

There were well over 200 and possibly 300 people there from different communities near Oak Knoll. The earlier Base Closure Meetings seemed to be about the same in number and intensity, but this was a well-dressed and serious crowd. 

Still, some people left the meeting feeling that the new site plans were already quite developed (apart from the current community efforts) although I suspect some of these folks were also aware that these new ideas were reflective of our own earlier base reuse plans.  Clearly a number of old-timers were so vocal and perceptive that they probably surprised SunCal with their hearty understanding of what was transpiring.  In fact, the SunCal people and Calthorpe seemed stunned by the "articulate" (Peter's term) outpouring from the community. In some respects, the community may end up supporting some SunCal proposals, even those that the city may find suspect.

The meeting lasted from about 6:00 - 9:45 PM.

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