By Maureen Nandini Mitra Many of you may not be aware, but our blog updates are being run simultaneously on the SF Public Press website. A few days ago a reader posted a comment on the Public Press website. Here’s a copy of his comment as well as our reply:
“Dear Ms. Nitra;
You raise some interesting points in your article, but also make some assertions for which you offer no supporting facts. The most glaring is your assertion that the land upon which this proposed project would be built is unstable. For greater credibility, this assertion must be backed up with geological facts.
Also left out of this essay is the impact of creating housing for 30,000 people on transportation systems in this area.
As a real estate professional I am a strong advocate for home ownership for as many people as possible. From that standpoint I also support this project and watch it's progress closely. I believe that the elected officails of Redwood City, and the Redwood City Planning Commission must, in concert with our U.S. Senators and Congresspersons, become strong advocates for such things as a BART extension that will connect the entire Peninsula with the South Bay and the East Bay."
James L. Somers

Alain Pinel Realtors

Dear Mr. Sommers,
Thank you for writing in and I’m sorry for the delayed reply. I didn’t see your comment until today. First, I’d like to clarify that our blogs are updates from the field as we go about reporting the story. It’s not the final story. Hence, there will be gaps in information.
However, since you brought the matter up, here’s a info-graphic based on the US Geological Survey's liquefaction susceptibility map highlighting the project site. The property falls within a moderate risk zone. Dr. Thomas L. Holzer, research geologist with the Earthquake Hazards Team of the US Geological Survey in Menolo Park, says though liquefaction is probably not a high risk because soils in the South Bay tend to be clayey rather than sandy, the clayey soil can amplify the level of ground shaking, especially for more distant earthquakes.
The Saltworks site is about six miles from the San Andreas Fault that caused the massive 1906 earthquake. Ilt is one of the higher risk faults in the Bay Area. The 2008 Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast predicts there is a two-out-of-three chance that the Bay Area will experience another earthquake of a 6.7 magnitude or greater within the next three decades.
If an earthquake of say, 6 to 7 magnitude originates in the San Andreas Fault, the earth on the Saltworks site would shake with an acceleration of a 0.3 to 0.4 g-force, Dr Holzer says. If it originates in the Hayward Fault, the acceleration would be about 0.2 g-force.
“The primary concern one would have is the area is protected by levees, so if the earthquake occurred during very high tide you might have levee failures,” he says.
Regarding transportation – right now Highway 101 separates the site from downtown Redwood City. There are three access roads, one four-lane road which acts as the main thoroughfare to and from the site and two minor two-lane roads, one of which runs for two miles along the bay-side of highway 101 through trailer home parks and away from downtown.
The builder, DMB Associates, says the project will provide a transit loop that will link the site to downtown Redwood City, including the Caltrain terminal and the light rail station (if and when it comes through) as well as a proposed ferry terminal on the bay end. How the existing infrastructure and mass transit systems will operate under the load of 30,000 additional residents in Redwood City hasn’t been studied yet. But it would certainly help if the light rail comes through or the BART line is extended to Redwood City.
19 September
Some figures from the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) to chew on:
Jason Munkres, ABAG regional planner last week, says the figures are their “best professional guess at what’s going on” and could change with time. “In the plannning profession figures change. They are constantly in flux. We have new information, we have new laws coming in all the time,” he says.
Munkres says the Bay Area had the capacity to absorb the projected population increase. “It might not be easy and a lot of local jurisdictions don't agree with our forecasts. But we think it could be done with a lot of effort,” he said. Munkres didn’t think that a combination of building housing on existing infill as well as on open space was required to address the needs of a growing population, but that’s what is going to occur.
Posted by Maureen Nandini Mitra on 09/20/10
On Friday (Sept. 10) we met up with architect and urban planner Peter Calthorpe at his Berkeley office. A founding member for the Congress for New Urbanism, an advocacy group that promotes green building practices, Calthorpe’s a big name in the field of modern urban planning. His vision of smart growth involves high-density, walkable, energy and water efficient communities, connected to each other by mass transit.
Calthorpe is also the proposed Saltworks project architect.
He told us that at the most basic level, smart growth in the Bay Area meant that, “once and for all we need to start housing our own workforce instead of pushing them out into the Central Valley and beyond.”
The Bay Area has one of the largest jobs-housing imbalance in California. Right now over 200,000 people commute to the Bay Area every day. Calthorpe believes only a mix of redevelopment on infill and new development on open space will help address the regions’ growing housing needs. Adding housing in the south Bay is especially important since that’s where all the job growth is. That’s why a huge development like the Saltworks project makes a lot of sense, he says. Especially since the plan proposes leaving 56 percent of the land as public open space.
“I think this kind of both-end approach is really the right approach,” he says. He accuses environmental groups like Sierra Club and Save the Bay, who are against the Saltworks project, as having a single-point agendas that don't leave room for compromise between competing and equally valid agendas.
Spot.us community members, readers, Bay Area residents, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Do write in.
P.S: After consulting with our editors we extended our deadline as we figure we need more time to report this story out
Posted by Maureen Nandini Mitra on 09/13/10
Yesterday we went back to Redwood City and met with officials from DMB Associates and heard their thoughts on smart growth and how the proposed development would be energy efficient, water efficient and would address the Bay Area’s growth needs in a smart way by reducing long commutes and hence, carbon emissions.
They told us that not all salt ponds are made alike and the ponds at the Saltworks site were different because Cargill had been making salt for industrial use out here. They said the land looked like a “moonscape” and was not going to be easy to restore to marshland because the site was “very heavily engineered”
After a visit to the spot we have to agree, that the land did look a lot like barren lunar terrain – with water, mind you. However, regarding restoration to wetlands – apparently similar salt ponds once owned by Cargill in Napa are actually in the process of being restored. The land is now owned by the California Fish and Game department. You can read about it and compare our photo here: http://bit.ly/9e4JuY
They also said the land is 1 to 2 feet above sea level at most places. Though it's been previously reported that some of the land is actually below sea level (again, something we need to double check).
Regarding the levee height question we asked in our blog yesterday, DMB plans to build the levees about 7.2 feet above sea level, which more than takes care of the 4.58 feet (55 inch) standard the state recommends, with “whatever material the state specifies.”
Later in the afternoon we met with people at Save the Bay, an Oakland-based nonprofit which has been leading the charge against the Saltworks development proposal. David Lewis, Save the Bay executive director says there shouldn’t be any question of developing the site since the land is technically still a part of the San Francisco bay (it was leased to Cargill by the Army expressly for salt-making purposes, he says) and state and federal authorities have jurisdiction over it. Need to confirm this with the Army Corps of Engineers. In April this year, the Army Corps reportedly sent a letter to DMB and Cargill saying that the Redwood City project was subject to the federal Clean Water Act. But Cargill denies any such jurisdiction.
Posted by Maureen Nandini Mitra on 09/09/10
We are heading out to Redwood City tomorrow to get a lay of the land, talk to local residents and meet with the developer, DMB Associates, if possible. In the mean time, we’ve been reading up about the San Francisco bay. It’s fascinating stuff. Here’s a run down of some facts that might help us understand the region and the ecological context in which this development debate is playing out:
