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Friday, February 10, 2012
City Council praises plans to develop alleys
by Kathleen Haley, published on August 11, 2009 at 10:05 PM
Storyline: Sacramento City Hall / Politics
Current plans to develop alleys in Midtown received heaps of praise from the Sacramento City Council Tuesday. However, Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy said that Midtown neighbors are upset that they have not been contacted about the city’s plans.
The City Council listened to an update on planned pilot projects for commercial and residential development of Midtown alleys.
The praise from councilmembers was effusive. “Brilliant” was the word Councilman Rob Fong used to describe the idea to develop the alleys. Mayor Kevin Johnson cited Midtown’s “creativity,” while Councilman Ray Tretheway congratulated Midtown on the plans.
Fong also gave credit to City Manager Ray Kerridge for suggesting a couple years ago that the city focus on its alleys.
Councilman Steve Cohn, a champion of alley development in Midtown, said the alleys are not used primarily for garbage and collection and disposal. “What we have is a wasted resource,” he said.
But Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy raised concerns. She said that she has received calls from Midtown neighbors who are upset that they haven’t been informed about the alley development plans.
“The neighbors are not happy that they’ve not been contacted to discuss this,” Sheedy said.
Sheedy also questioned why downtown alleys were not being planned for development, suggesting that downtown was being overlooked.
Two of the Midtown alleys being considered for makeovers stretch from 17th to 19th Streets between L Street and Capitol Avenue, and the third runs between I and J Streets from 16th to 17th Streets across from Memorial Auditorium.
The first two alleys would undergo upgrades intended to create an appealing pedestrian walkway connecting visitors to an after-hours parking garage in one of the city's most popular areas. The alley from 17th to 18th Streets also would get a small, alley-front condo building. The proposal for the third alley would turn that into a restaurant row with al fresco dining like San Francisco's Belden Street.
For more information about the planned alley pilot projects, please read staff reporter Suzanne Hurt’s Aug. 8 story here.
Staff reporter Suzanne Hurt contributed to this report.
Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.
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The comparison many are making is with the Thursday Night Market, which brought diverse Sacramentans downtown, succeeded to a point, had some "incidents," a resultant overkill of enforcement presence and got shut down altogether.
One "character" of the alleys that is not reflected in the boosters' plans or City Staff Reports is their function in Midtown neighborhoods as a zone of peace and quiet, gardens and trees. This is even more valuable in an area like 18th and Capitol where the streets have been overimpacted with businesses and intentionally "underparked" by the City, displacing residents and disrupting the quality of life.
Many neighbors at 18th and Capitol don't need or want their alley any more "activated." And this is not one of the more smelly and scary alleys in Midtown, no matter what the detractors claim.
However, the well-connected businesses and property owners have established their footholds and have decreed that their properties are where the City's pilot "Alley Activation" will occur.
The proposed alleys for prettification and a condo, between L and Capitol, 17th and 18th, are test case for good concepts that fit with the City's General Plan, density and Sustainability goals. They also just happen to be where the key people on the committee, recommending the pilot alleys, own property and businesses themselves.
The complaints Sandy Sheedy may be noting from existing business and resident neighbors are:
1. being completely disregarded and left out of the process.
2. being subjected to major problems regarding noise, garbage, crime. drunken bar/"restaurant" patron disruptions, parking and other issues, caused by businesses establishing themselves in the alley by not complying with laws, intended to make this sort of high density, mixed use successful.
3. being treated as if resident and business neighbors are the problem while the business lawbreakers rule.
4. That pesky aspect of cronyism mentioned above -- the same lawbreakers rule, not only the alleys, but the City's decision-making and next step in where Alley Activation will happen -- and they will directly profit from it.
There is a lot that can go right with Alley Activation. There is a lot that has been done wrong (including illegally) enabled by City leaders, in the way these alleys have already been developed in the past few years.
The City of Sacramento has already heard from residents that the City can't violate the laws, allow the new businesses to do the same, claim the results as a success and then promote it as a template for future Alley Activation in other neighborhoods. Guess what? That's exactly what they're doing.
So, do other neighborhoods roll over and the VIP marauders take over? Does the City change City codes, so what they've already allowed scofflaw developers to do becomes legal? They can't change the County and State laws that have been violated. What then?
Or does Alley Activation provide an opportunity to do things right and learn, from the illegal lessons of recent examples of how NOT to produce well-integrated mixed use, sustainable development?
I guess midtown residents must not get television, newspapers or the internet to claim they didn't know about this. But I think what they are really saying is they are used to getting their backsides kissed and talking things to death and all this although moving glacially is too fast for them.
They will get over it when the developers start writing them fat checks for rights to their backyards.
We even have a working example of a business alley downtown: Merchant Alley, between 7th and 8th and J and K. There are also residential alleys: Yale Avenue, between X and Broadway on the 1000 and 2000 blocks, with homes and apartments facing the alleys and either retail or residential on the outside streets.
Like most "new urbanist" ideas, so-called alley activation is just how we used to build cities. A lot of cities forgot how to be cities, and wiped away aspects of cityhood that were out of fashion through redevelopment and freeway construction...but now we are remembering.