San Ramon Facing Downtown Envy Disease

The Antiplanner Perspective On The San Ramon City Center

From The Thoreau Institute, a non-profit organization that seeks ways to protect the environment without big government.

The following quotes are from an article written on The Antiplanner website looking at the San Ramon City Center plan.

But the city is suffering from an acute case of "downtown envy," a disease the strikes many Sun Belt cities. Many people, including most urban planners, think that a city can’t be a real city unless it has a distinctive downtown or city center. But in today's automobile age, developers no longer build distinctive city centers, so cities that have grown up since 1945 often feel they have to subsidize them.

The article goes on to ask the tough question. Why does San Ramon need a downtown?

At the city council meeting that first heard Mehran's proposal, someone testified that San Ramon "needs a downtown." Why? San Ramon is not a pedestrian-oriented city like Berkeley — yet it is hard to really find a downtown even in Berkeley. It is not a streetcar city like Los Angeles — yet Los Angeles only has a downtown because of huge subsidies and lobbying from downtown property owners.

Anyone that has gone through the intersection of Bollinger and Alcosta Blvd. in the morning or evening commute has to wonder, do we really need more density in this particular area?

Yet I have to wonder if San Ramon needs more density. Thanks to environmental demands that all available greenspaces be kept green, San Ramon's population density has already increased to 4,400 per square mile, which is pretty high considering all the land that is in office parks. Mehran's proposal will just add to the density, which will add to the congestion. Mehran himself lives in San Francisco, so he probably doesn't mind density, but many San Ramon residents are not too keen on the idea.

Alex Mehran, of Sunset Development Company, is the developer that is leading the charge on this downtown center plan. Accordingly, "Mehran's vision in 1978 was that San Francisco was too expensive and too congested and so many companies would want to locate in a suburb that was relatively free of congestion." Now, Mehran and the City Council want to turn that San Ramon vision into a nightmare of congestion, and high rise densities like that of Concord, with eight-story office high-rises. Furthermore, Mehran wants to have a major upscale shopping anchor for the downtown center. But, no upscale department store has yet committed to the downtown plan. What happens if no upscale department store is found to anchor a downtown plan?

Maybe, the San Ramon Council needs to step back and really ask themselves if this "downtown envy" is good for San Ramon. The questions that must be addressed are: Do we want more traffic? Do we want higher densities? Do we want 8-story office high-rises?

Read the complete article:
Anti-Town Planning #2: San Ramon City Center

Would also like to thank The Harper Team for forwarding the article to us.

Feel free to email us information or links that might prove insightful to this topic or other city topics.

By-the-way, read the San Ramon News Introduction.

San Ramon Mayor Refuses To Listen To Citizens' Concerns

Mayor H. Abram Wilson and the San Ramon City Council have already made up their minds about making San Ramon be like Concord.

Three Eight Story Office Buildings

The Mayor wants over 100 feet tall office buildings that are 8 stories in height. He and the City Council want to increase the traffic congestion in the intersections of Bolliger Canyon Rd. and Alcosta Blvd., Bollinger Canyon Road and Camino Ramon, and the on ramps and off ramps to Highway 680. He and the City Council want to give away approximately 15 to 20 acres of city property in exchange for a small 3.5 acre parcel that is too small to house the City Hall, Police Department, Library, and Transit Center. The Mayor wants to increase the traffic hazards for people crossing Bollinger Canyon Rd. at the Iron Horse Trail. The City Council thinks this is the best thing since apple pie. Their taste buds are salivating so much that they refuse to even consider what the ultimate cost of a Downtown Center is going to cost the citizens of San Ramon.

With recent traffic accidents that have happened on Bollinger Canyon Rd. even one involving a Highway Patrol Officer in the middle of the day because of traffic congestion, a Downtown Center, with a super concentration of development, with a major increase in traffic to and from this Downtown area, and a Dougherty Valley that will have four times the number of people currently living and commuting on Bollinger Canyon Road, it will only exasperate the situation.

SAN RAMON - A California Highway Patrol officer on a motorcycle was injured Saturday afternoon when the officer's motorcycle collided with a vehicle on Bollinger Canyon Road just west of the Interstate Highway 680 under crossing, according to a statement released by the CHP.

The incident occurred around 12:50 p.m. when CHP Officer G. Garcia exited I-680 going south on Bollinger Canyon Road. Garcia entered the intersection at the end of the off ramp and had almost cleared the intersection when the officer's motorcycle collided with a 2004 Honda vehicle.

This is ridiculous, for the Mayor and the City Council to be so blinded by their egos, to ignore the concerns of the citizens. What are we doing here? Why is having 8 story office buildings good for San Ramon? Why would we want to have to spend millions on new firefighting equipment, just to be able to handle 8 story office buildings? Why is this good for the City to give away land that we own, for something that puts the City into a little corner?

Places The City Into a Little Corner

The price tag for this Downtown plan is pegged at the $750 million mark, and climbing. Sunset Development has agreed to foot the $750 million price tag in exchange for what? What happens when there are cost overruns? Who pays for these? Oh, but we hear revenue sharing with the City. What happens if the rentals are not filled? Will the citizens have to foot the bill in higher taxes? If the City is an owner of commercial property, does that mean the City is going into the leasing business? This plan has not yet been fully exposed. It is wise to hold off giving a yes or no vote on any plan until all the facts are in.

But, maybe this Mayor and City Council know something the citizens do not. Who knows, maybe they have had back room dealings with Sunset about the new City Center and have not shared that information with the public. Maybe all the public input meetings are just for show, and they have already made their minds up. If this is the case, and the San Ramon City Council has already made up its mind, then we have much bigger problems in San Ramon, than lack of a downtown center.

Signed San Ramon

PS By-the-way, read the Introduction to San Ramon News.