Council, Planning Commission shape ideas for toxic site
By Todd R. Brown, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
BRISBANE — Reconciling the public's desire for open space and a developer's need to generate revenue sets up a quandary for transforming the blighted Baylands:How does Brisbane balance ecology and economy?
"It is possible to have architecture as art and at a human, community scale, through imagination," Tom Heinz, 57, said Monday night at a joint City Council and Planning Commission meeting.
The agencies pondered the project objectives for the Baylands Specific Plan's environmental impact report.
Heinz championed green architect James Wines, who told residents on Friday that European cities during the Renaissance spent as much of their budget on plazas and buildings as the United States devotes to the military.
Monday, Brisbane city staff stressed the theme for developing the 659-acre site: sustainability in economic, environmental and "social equity" terms.
That means the city wants "excellence in architecture,"according to the project objectives, to ensure that businesses move in and stay there, as well as designs that complement San Bruno Mountain and the Bay.
The city also wants to use a "green-building" approach that uses recycled building materials and incorporates alternative energy. And it wants to offer residents cultural and educational opportunities and "significant open space."
Universal Paragon Corp., the site owner, has objectives that mirror the city's, according to a letter included in the meeting's staff report. For example, the company wants to ensure that the project can handle changing market conditions and preserve wetlands along the Brisbane Lagoon.
One young resident seemed particularly sympathetic to that idea Monday.
"Last year, you could look around the Baylands and count 17 jackrabbits," said Erin Perry, 12, of Lipman Middle School.
This year, she said she's seen none.
Yet UPC's vision of the Baylands includes less overall open space than residents would like, emphasizing instead the potential tax income from 5 million square feet of office and retail space between the Caltrain line and Highway 101.
"They're too fixated on the site-specific uses," resident Lori Liu, 29, said at the meeting.
She offered instead the idea of creating gathering places like the Chinese parks she has visited that reflect the nation's character and let people "interact with cultural ideas."
Liu and others praised the recent lecture about brownfield redevelopment by Wines, who said development done on a human scale is the heart of sustainability.
"I was driving along 101, and I saw one mall after another," Wines said from the New York office of his firm, Site. "The people are a little afraid of that. I think Brisbane would lose phenomenally if that kind of development came."
On the other hand, the cleanup cost for the Baylands means building enough commercial space to bring in a healthy profit and make the project financially feasible for UPC.
The company, which must allot 25 percent of the development for open space, recently estimated the total cost to seal off the toxic waste at the former railcar yard and dump at $200 million; so far it has spent $20 million on cleanup.
"Once you have somebody hooked like this, you don't want to discourage them," Wines said.
At the same time, he said green building — which would add to the project's initial cost with pricier recycled materials but would save money through solar power and other conservation ideas — can't be left off the table.
"In the 21st century, the umbrella over everything is the environment. If we're not going to take care of that, nothing else matters. You basically destroy the possibility of survival."
Besides deciding what to build and how to do it, UPC has to figure out how to get people there.
Brisbane's objectives emphasize walking and biking access from the city's downtown, but getting people from elsewhere to choose Caltrain over their cars is another challenge.
At the meeting Monday, resident Amy Dondy worried about traffic pouring off the freeway and into city streets.
"You don't want to have gridlock 24 hours a day," she said.
But that's not such a bad problem to have; as Wines put it, "If you have a good idea, people will show up."
On the Web: Brisbane's project objectives, http://www.ci.brisbane.ca.us/html/Documents/doc—center.asp?d—id=240001400
Reach staff writer Todd R. Brown at (650) 348-4473 or tbrown@sanmateocountytimes.com.