Biking Across Hayward Is Catching On
Join me for a Council Meeting Feast! Enjoy flavors of Bicycling, Design, Social Justice, and Police Investment. It's a generous meal, so bring your appetite.
Apéritif: Gin and Public Comment
Several people spoke up about the recent death of Chris Pena, who was struck by a car and killed on Orchard Avenue and Mission Blvd on September 6th. People spoke out about the incident and implored the City to do something. Ideas ranged from traffic calming (good) to increase police presence (problematic). Hayward Concerned Citizens didn’t miss a moment to push for more police funding, despite the fact that changing the built environment would go a much longer way toward changing behaviors (Orchard is a long, straight, 2-lane street with no stops between Joyce and Mission) and be less expensive in the long term.
Kelly McAdoo noted that police are investigating the incident and that traffic calming measures for Orchard Ave. will come to the Council Infrastructure Committee soon.
Consent Item Appetizer Sideboard
Consent items are put up for approval without debate or presentation because they’re generally considered not worth it. But there’re always good things hiding in there if you take a look.
Feel Good Investment Dip
The Animal Services Bureau gets a lot of animals, especially dogs post-lockdown, that they rescue from bad situations. They’ve got problems and, because of it, it’s quite difficult to find folks to adopt them. So GoodPup is donating $3,000 (enough for 20 dogs) in training for dogs and their adopters so that they’ll actually find homes instead of being euthanized. Only wins here, friends. Savor the good news wherever you can. :)
Task Force Reduction On Toast
The Keep Hayward Clean and Green Task Force was never really meant to be what it’s turned into. My understanding is that it was an initiative that was supposed to get folks together to clean up and then… be done (though apparently it also brainstorms policy, which sounds nuts on a 20 person committee). It’s called a Task Force, which are usually time delimited.
For better or worse, it’s hung around for years at a huge size: 30 people. Especially now that capitalism has dragged everyone back into the mill wheel of work, it’s tough to fill that many spots, so Council is going to decrease the number of people. It sucks that it has to happen, but it’s overall a good idea considering they meet and have to make quorum and all that stuff. When 1/3 of your committee can’t even fill the seats, let alone get everyone to come to a meeting, that’s a big problem.
Charging Station Sliders
The City is going to get some fast charging stations up and running with the help of East Bay Community Energy, the same folks making sure that residents can get access to fully renewable energy (yes, I know it’s more expensive for some folks, but at least it’s an option for those of us with the means. To whom much is given, much is expected, y’all).
Anyway, this is where the publicly available fast-charging hubs will be located.
1. Cinema Garage – 22695 Foothill Boulevard
2. Municipal Lot 1 – 919 A Street
3. Municipal Lot 2 – 1042 B Street
4. Municipal Lot 4 – 1147 B Street
5. Municipal Lot 5 – 22456 Maple Court
6. Municipal Lot 6 – 1164 A Street
7. Northeast Corner of Mission Blvd. and Fairway Street
Staff is also hoping to get a hub set up at the Stack Center when it’s all said and done. Each hub will have 22 parking spaces, are nearby high-density residential, and are on City owned property so they don’t have to get anyone else’s permission. Did I mention that EBCE is covering the cost of the electricity for the first 15 years*? Also, more locations will be added (or taken away) as needed.
Look for the first hub at the Cinema Garage by September 2024.
*Though it looks like they’ll still be able to charge folks who plug in, so who knows what the cost will be when it’s all said and done.
Police Investment Patée
Right now, HPD already has a contract with the company AXON for body-worn cameras, Evidence.com, and TASER products “all of which are essential to operations”, according to HPD. So, why not go all in and get even more stuff from the same vendor? Items like “auto transcribing functions, redaction assistant, AXON Performance, virtual reality training aids, and other accountability tools.”
Keep an eye on the idea of accountability and transparency, because those show up a lot in conversations like this. They even showed it to the incredibly opaque Community Advisory Panel (CAP) which is missing half of its members, meets in secret, and each of the 5 or 6 members who are left pinky swear to share whatever information they get with the entire community. If you’ve ever heard of a report out from CAP that wasn’t from the City, please reach out to let me know.
The story from HPD is that this will allow them to be more transparent, more accountable, and do more crime fighting. The thing is, auto-transcription and redaction assistants are likely going to rely on some kind of AI to work which definitely has no risks or problems whatsoever. On top of that, this appears to continue in the proud capitalist trend of all-inclusive subscription-based models so we’ll be paying this amount (plus up to 5% increases every year, I’m sure) for the next… eternity? This will round out to, according to the report, about $1,000,000/year, every year, until 2033, or $11,200,000.
What I worry about is that we are putting more money into what is already the most heavily funded department. For a department that has a $93,000,000 operating fund, $300,000 is very little, but for any number of other departments/agencies, that could go an awfully long way. I’ll also just drop this comic here, because it feels mighty relevant given recent events (though no tanks are to be purchased with any of these funds):
There was no council comment on any of these items.
Large Plate Items
Protein Course: Points-Based Rack of Bicycle Braised Zoning
This is the big item on the agenda this week and I went over the main points when I covered it at the Planning Commission meeting. The main recommendations from the Planning Commission were leaning into a points-based system to meet the objective requirements, pushes for higher-use amenities (amphitheaters are nice, but who is going to organize these People’s Fora?). There was also focus on parking and Transit Demand Management, which is a short way of saying that developers can reduce parking requirements if they incentivize other ways of getting around.
There was a lot of discussion about biking and incentivizing biking. So if you’re interested in knowing what the City has in mind to support these future people on bikes, check out the Bicycle Master Plan. Some caution, though: the bike lane master plan is a long way off (the majority of the plan is “proposed” and doesn’t exist yet). Also, none of this addresses how far people have to go to get things. Someone in by Tennyson still has to bike halfway across town to get to any supermarket that’s not Monarcas (not to disparage them, just that other options would be nice).
Planning Commissioner Robert Stevens stepped up to rep for the points-based systems. He also wanted Hayward to follow the example of Los Gatos, a city where the median home value is $1.89M and the median household income is $166,000/year (for perspective, Haywards is $653K and $98,800/year, respectively). He also is big into the small parcel subdivisions so… single family homes really close together! He also pushed for MORE parking (6-8 cars for a big house). He’s also against tandem parking (I literally have a tandem garage, they’re fine). Why am I giving so much space to this guy? He’s been on the Planning Commission since 2019 and Council gives weight to his comments. As you’ll see, he set the tone of the conversation out the gate.
Francisco Zermeño and Angela Andrews really harped on parking and cars and Zermeño asked if there was a way to limit the number of cars people can own. Staff did explain that we can’t do that (obviously). Staff also explained that despite people complaining about traffic and too many cars, nobody wants to reduce the number of parking spaces, either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe designing/zoning for walkability might help, but that’s out of scope of this project. Not that that stopped people talking about it, thankfully.
George Syrop asked about bundled parking, seeing if we could push it so that it’s an opt-out (to save money) instead of an opt-in (as an extra cost of car ownership). Staff is modeling it off of Oakland and requiring posted notice of cost since it doesn’t require too much active enforcement. Syrop also pushed for more bicycle incentives in the TDM which a lot of council latched onto. He also pushed back on Stevens concerns about parking, tying overcrowding to high rent and said the City has an obligation to do more than just add parking.
He further asked about mixed-use by-right, which I’m a huge fan of, and staff said they didn’t want little things popping up all over (to which I say, why the hell not?) and that they might consider things with an administrative use permit. However, that’s one more hurdle and still gives the City the final say on whether or not people are allowed to walk to a shop. Staff also mentioned things like game rooms or community rooms, which, if you’ve been in a complex with these before, you know they’re usually empty. Syrop also mentioned the issues with overly large storefronts remaining vacant and I’m just really stoked that we have at least one champion for walkablity around here.
Ray Bonilla Jr., recently from the Planning Commission, just played around with the points system. Julie Roche pushed back on the Transit Demand Management (TDM) plan and wanted it to be more aggressive, as prior things haven’t worked much. She then pivoted into parking structures which is just the wrong direction. Make it walkable and people won’t need a car. Parking structures just enables people. Though off-site parking isn’t the worst idea to create walkable areas.
Andrews also pushed mailbox safety, dipping her toe into pushing a direct conflict with federal law, but Staff pushed back that mailbox security is likely out of scope as there’s no way to really craft a design standard that’s not overly onerous. I’m disappointed she wasn’t as moved by the walkability of Portuguese cities, but neither was Salinas, to be fair.
Dan Goldstein pushed for mixed-use and also a requirement of occupancy for ground-floor commercial space. He also pushed for walkability and bikeability to make the TDM plans work.
Mayor Mark Salinas spoke about a potential program from the Alameda County Transportation Commission about giving bicycle vouchers to all kids. He further pushed the idea of bikeability and incentivizing bike use as a way to reduce parking and car dependency.
To their credit, if we really do that and it becomes a Thing to bike places, we’re really going to have to invest in our bicycle transit infrastructure. My wife and I are trying to bike more and we both know it’s terrifying to bike in Hayward. The City has big plans, seen above, but they’re a long way off.
I go into this much detail because I want you all to know where Council is thinking in terms of how our actual built environment should be. If we can keep a focus on biking and walking infrastructure, that’d be great. But I know someone will have to keep an eye on them because actually making Hayward a great place to bike and walk will take serious change, and so far Council has been too eager to take the middle path where everyone is universally unhappy. Council usually just OK’s anything Staff puts forward, but if we have a really ambitious Council, we could honestly see some real change.
But, as I mentioned before, in the short term, this isn’t going to mean much to folks. Given the hilariously long development process, we won’t see any outcomes from this for at least the next few years. To say nothing of the complicated issues around land speculation and upzoning. Most of these are for the benefit of developers to try to make their lives easier and take some of the vague discretion away from the City and Planning Commission, though I’m cautiously optimistic about how much the conversation included bicycling.
Salad Course: 880/Whipple/Industrial Interchange Design Mezclar
So, it’s a little unclear from the Staff Report, but this will have to do with two different interchanges: the Whipple/880 Interchange and the 880/Industrial Interchange. Expect it in 2024 or 2025 at the earliest to begin.
So, for clarity, the thing going on here is adding an actual off-ramp to Northbound 880 at Industrial (where the drive-in used to be) and improving ramps all over. They’ll completely rebuild the overcrossing at Industrial and add bike lanes and pedestrian paths (not that it will ever be pleasant to have to use that), and add Class I bike paths to both sides of the Whipple undercrossing. Though getting past the on/off ramps will never be pleasant. This meeting was mostly about what all that is gonna look like. (You can scope the pics here. It’s a big file with all the presentations in it, but start at slide 45). There are 3 different “themes”: Art Deco, Oak Leaf, and Hayward Hills. They all look good, though I think I prefer the Art Deco theme throughout (though quercus agrifolia will always have my heart). And on the lighting, I prefer option 2. Though I hope the white lighting isn’t too white.
One thing I noticed from the consultants was the reasoning behind the steep embankment on the Whipple undercrossing: “that’s been designed to limit or preclude or abate any unsanctioned long-term use of that area” which is a long way of saying that it’s designed so the unhoused don’t sleep under there. Hostile architecture knows no bounds.
Overall, Council really seemed to want to go hard on branding (especially Salinas and Andrews). Their choices were generally gravitated toward the Hayward Hills design, with some suggested changes. Overall council gravitated toward lighting scheme 2. Syrop brought up an idea of just making it utilitarian and putting funding elsewhere (“this is like putting lipstick on a pig”), but the money has to go to this project, so no dice.
Soup Course: Calpine Environmental Justice Bisque
Calpine’s Russell City Energy Center is the local Natural Gas Power Plant conveniently located in the industrial part of town, right near our water treatment plant, and where we’ve decided to plonk down the Housing Navigation Center. For those who don’t know, in May of 2021, there was a big explosion at the power plant sending shrapnel for hundreds of yards (and into the Navigation Center! Though nobody was hurt). Because of the disaster, Calpine settled with the City of Hayward for about $2.5 million. About half of that money has already been allocated to a bunch of different projects (including the Russell City Reparative Justice Project), and the other half was up for discussion/approval this week.
This pot of about $1,250,000 (care of Senator Aisha Wahab and Assemblymember Liz Ortega) will be split into two projects: $922,000 will be spent on adding enough solar panels to the shiny new Fire Station 6 and Fire Training Facility to make it 100% self-sustaining on renewable energy. The rest of the money, $328,000, will be spent on getting heat pump water heaters to residents in the Census tracts nearby the energy plant who are on PG&E’s subsidized low-income plan (~90 homes/1,600 eligible households or 5%).
Public comment came from one person pushing for labor standards and another putting in a pre-emptive informal bid for the project. Labor looking out for itself, to be sure.
Council generally supported using local labor with labor standards in the eventual Request for Proposal (RFP) and tied it to social justice and accountability. Most of it was to sound good to labor, with 4 councilmembers up for election next year. It sailed through the vote, as expected.
While I can’t say this is a bad use of funds (it is objectively good, overall!), it feels a little bit self-serving to plunge 72% of the funds into solar panels for a single fire station and then leaving the last 28% to the people who actually have to live with a natural gas power plant upwind of them. Shouldn’t City buildings, including the Fire Department, be on the Renewable 100 (100% Renewable) plan anyway? The Fire Department already got $150,000 from Calpine for a new Hazmat vehicle. Maybe it’s mostly for the batteries?
Dessert Course: Hand-Churned Refinancing and Credit Ratings
The general gist here is that the city is refinancing a loan, just like people do. The main part that should be fun for capitalists everywhere: Hayward has a S&P Rating of AA. So… our city could likely take a lot of loans at good rates. The City is refinancing to save a lot of money in the near and long terms (around $11 million over the life of the loan).
Coffee Course: Sister City Roast from Arandas, Jalisco, México
Hot on the heels of getting Faro in as our “newest” (re-official) Sister City, Councilmembers Francisco Zermeño and George Syrop brought forward a referral recommending the city of Arandas, Jalisco, Mexico as our newest Sister City. Apparently Zermeño is on the Arandas-Hayward Sister City Committee and some folks have been helping to develop a relationship with them for a while. During the discussion, however, Salinas kind of took Zermeño to task about how he’s handled relationship building so far (not well). Salinas also let slip the power of the Rotary Club in Hayward since apparently that’s where Council is expected to be and where foreign representatives are brought to see them sometimes. Hmmm.
I’ll be honest, I’m surprised and a bit concerned that it took so long to have a Sister City in Mexico. Again, this mostly brings about some warm fuzzies, and staff still has to draft a resolution for a later vote. That being said, I’m all for it. If nothing else, it can help move us toward a more Municipalist framework, which I’m all for.
No meeting next week because basically all of City Council will be at the League of Cities meeting in Sacramento.