Thursday, July 9, 2009
Oakland Prays for Tall Buildings
Business / Politics Robert Gammon — Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 10:30 AM
The Oakland City Council approved a new downtown plan that essentially represents a giant prayer for tall buildings and a huge influx of upscale residents. The new zoning plan allows skyscrapers to be built throughout most of the downtown area. But as we noted last week, the plan threatens to stifle dense development because it could artificially raise land values and encourage property owners to demand high prices -- thereby discouraging developers from buying property and erecting buildings. And then even if developers decide to build skyscrapers, there's no guarantee that they will be able to attract residents.
That's because tall condo or apartment towers are expensive to construct, so they demand higher prices. As a result, the high rises will require wealthier residents to pencil out. But the question is: will they actually want to live in the downtown area?
The council should have looked more closely at the lessons learned by other cities, including San Francisco and Seattle, and attempted to encourage more mid-size buildings, while still allowing for some high rises. Mid-size buildings, those 55-feet to 75-feet in height, can house huge numbers of people, and because they're cheaper to build, they can accommodate the less wealthy.
Comments (6)
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First, let me just say that I think downtown Oakland needs to grow significantly and I would love to see it happen. As for Seattle’s decision in 2006 to allow taller building heights in its downtown, that does not obviate the significant amount of mid-rise development that occurred in that city’s downtown area in the 1990s and the first half of this decade. Anyone who has visited Seattle in the past fifteen years knows what I’m talking about. Yes, the city council desired more high-rises, but it also was concerned that those taller buildings would only serve the wealthy, because the buildings are so expensive to construct. That’s why, according to the Seattle Times, the Seattle City Council also attached a fee of about $19 per square foot for buildings that exceed height limits. The money goes into an affordable-housing pool. Developers also have to meet energy-efficient building standards to get the extra height, according to the Times.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think any of the critics of this blog post would want similar inclusionary-zoning fees or green-building requirements for Oakland. Moreover, those are just the types of restrictions that threaten to stifle density in downtown Berkeley. And even though it’s too early to tell whether Seattle’s plan will actually work, since the housing crisis struck after the council approved it, those restrictions appear to be just more barriers to getting the density needed.
As for the criticism of Mike Pyatok, I have yet to see or hear a convincing rebuttal to his basic arguments:
1. Zoning for too many high-rises results in inflated property values, and provides a barrier to mid-rise development. That’s just basic logic. If you zone land for skyscrapers, property owners are going to think their property is worth more money because the city says you can build tall buildings on it. As a result, they are going to demand higher prices for their land, making development of mid-rises less likely. San Francisco and other cities have recognized this phenomenon and have successfully monetized it in something called transfer development rights. That program allows property owners to sell the space above their low-rise and mid-rise buildings to others so that they can build taller. It’s a smart program, and Oakland should have examined it more thoroughly.
2. Mid-rises are preferable, because they are cheaper to build and because you can sell or rent them to middle income folks. Let’s face it, rich folks aren’t clamoring to live in downtown, and won't be any time soon. But that’s exactly what you’re asking for when you zone for high-rises, because they are so expensive to build. Why would Forest City, one of the shrewdest developers around, build mid-rises in Uptown when the city wanted them to build high-rises? It’s because they can build mid-rises more cheaply, because they can use wood framing, and because they’re more likely to rent or sell to people who actually want to live in downtown Oakland. In fact, I would argue that the only realistic spot in the downtown area for high-rises is along Lake Merritt. I can see wealthy folks wanting to live next to the city’s jewel, and that’s why I think the Emerald Views project actually has a chance of being successful once the market turns around. But an Emerald Views on Broadway, near City Center? I just don’t see a demand for luxury housing there.
As for Chris Kidd’s complaint that I should have brought this stuff up earlier, he’s right. I should have.
-- Robert Gammon
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Mr. Gammon,
The main source in your article who suggested we needed more low-rise zoning downtown was an architect named Pyatok. Mr. Pyatok designs low-rise housing developments. He also provided you with a number of incorrect statements of fact that could have been easily verified.
When your source has a conflict of interest, it's up to you as a journalist to do some fact-checking. You didn't.
When a journalist writes about local politics, it's appropriate for them to attend public meetings. You don't. (Well, OK, you went to one and watched the victim of one of your hit pieces get exonerated. Haven't seen you at one before or since).
Journalism FAIL.
For good local reporting, turn to abetteroakland.com and oaklandliving.com
What type of journalism can you expect from bottom of the barrel style of writting, prostitution funded East Bay Express!
This paper suck!
Totally unreliable....
The only lesson learned by Seattle was that the zoning Gammon and Pyatok suggest doesn't work. Seattle saw an enormous drop in building permits after they adopted restrictive zoning many years ago. Determined not to further stifle growth, the city adopted new zoning regulations in 2006 that is actually very similar to what Oakland just did, except that the building heights allowed in Seattle are higher. It's pathetic that Robert Gammon couldn't even look up this very basic fact before he repeated it in print. Yet another example of why newspapers are failing - they're completely untrustworthy.
And of course, if Gammon or Pyatok had gone to any of the twenty plus meetings about this over the course of the last year, they would know that the comparative zoning in Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, and other cities has actually been discussed in great detail.
If Gammon had done even the tiniest bit of homework, he would know that what the city council adopted actually downzones downtown, putting in place height limits where there were none before and reducing permitted density in most areas.
Pathetic.
If you really wanted the city council to look more closely at other cities, maybe you should have suggested that at any number of the meetings held for the CBD over the past year and a half. Or maybe you should have published your article earlier in the process so that all the parties involved could have encorporated its viewpoints into the final plan. But if you were simply looking to pull an 11th hour stunt that would give you the cover necesarry to click your tongue and bewail the failures at city hall while not making any meaningful contribution yourself, well "Mission Accomplished".
If the EBE won't do there homework, then at least someone will....
http://www.abetteroakland.com/are-we-downzoning-or-upzoning-downtown-oakland/2009-07-07
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