OPINION: Relocate the Corporation Yard to Blair Park in the Moraga Canyon
Much of the land in Moraga Canyon is unsuitable for development.
Publicly-owned land is designated for low-income housing in the Piedmont Housing Element (HE) because it provides the City with the greatest potential to develop such housing – the City owns the land and can work directly with developers to see that affordable housing gets built on it. The publicly-owned sites in Piedmont are in Moraga Canyon, swaths of land around Coaches Field and the Corp Yard and all of Blair Park. Sixty low-income units and 73 above-moderate income units are proposed for >Moraga Canyon. A > depiction of this area shows that housing types are proposed to be dispersed throughout this canyon area.
Anyone familiar with Moraga Canyon will know instantly how unsuitable much of this land is for development. The sites east and west of Coaches Field, initially designated for low-income housing, are steep sloped and would require a massing of building to generate the proposed density and parking. The area to the west is particularly prohibitive for building; the required storm water permit is infeasible and would likely not be granted given the proximity of the site to the adjoining wetlands on cemetery property. As for the other Coaches sites, both are very steep, probably prohibitively so for the construction of low-income housing and would probably eliminate what little public parking is now available at Coaches. Unfortunately, the feasibility of these sites for housing has never been publicly addressed at the Planning Commission or City Council since the draft was released in April, 2022.
The Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) will conduct this feasibility analysis, especially for the low-income sites, and find the draft HE deficient. This is the direction HCD gave to Atherton regarding the publicly-owned sites in its HE:
“Publicly Owned Sites: The element identifies multiple publicly-owned sites including the Public Facilities and Schools District, the Menlo School, and Cal Water Bear Gulch Reservoir sites. The element must include additional discussion on each of the publicly owned sites identified to accommodate the RHNA. Specifically, the analysis should address general plan designations, allowable densities, support for residential capacity assumptions, existing uses and any known conditions that preclude development in the planning period and the potential schedule for development. If zoning does not currently allow residential uses at appropriate densities, then the element must include programs to rezone sites pursuant to Government Code section 65583.2, subdivisions (h) and (i).”
Piedmont will most certainly receive this same direction in the HCD response letter to its first draft. The highlighted text suggests fundamental considerations of the canyon sites that should have been presented months ago. Instead, between now and May 2023, as part of the Moraga Canyon Specific Site Plan study, the City will likely conclude that one if not both of the low-income sites at Coaches are not compatible for housing and conclude that Blair Park be used for the 60 low-income units and some fraction of the above-moderate units.
The City should include relocation of the Corporation Yard to Blair Park in the Moraga Canyon Specific Site Plan so as to improve the quality of low-income housing in the canyon. The Corporation Yard offers the only flat housing site on the north side of Moraga Avenue and, on a square foot basis, provides better sites amenities than Blair Park. Judging by similar densities staff assigned to the Coaches sites, 60 housing units could be located at the Corporation Yard.
But beyond the housing goal, relocation of the Corporation Yard could dovetail with General Plan goals of building walkable neighborhoods, preserving open space and others as well. There are broad planning questions that should have been raised well before the site plan analysis but the General Plan has been virtually absent during the HE process. The HE proposes three uses for the canyon – housing, city operations and recreation. How best should these be dispersed to achieve General Plan goals? Housing and recreation on the Coaches side with city operations in Blair Park? HCD does not care about these goals but our Planning Department and City Council should and, depending how they conduct the Specific Site Plan analysis, could achieve a “win-win” for Piedmont with the HE.
Garrett Keating, Former Member of the Piedmont City Council
As usual, a good analysis, Garrett. The major problem with Blair Park for high density housing is that there’s little opportunity for pedestrian access on the south side of the road because of difficult topography. The walkway is on the north, the Coaches, Corp Yard side. Crossing Moraga Avenue on foot is very risky. To me, this was the project-killer for the prior soccer fields proposal as well. Since the city needs acceptable sites for HCD, we should only be proposing sites with reasonable potential.
To meet EIR concerns, the soccer field project proposed two roundabouts on Moraga Avenue (to slow vehicle speed) and a pedestrian-activated crosswalk at the Corp Yard entrance. I don’t think either would be required were the Corp Yard relocated to Blair Park. Will the programmatic EIR for the HE address the traffic congestion issue of this design, let alone safety? Probably not – the LWC consultant said traffic congestion will not be considered in the EIR.