Share your comments on the Draft Moraga Canyon Specific Plan.

I want to draw your attention to what the CEQA review already tells us: Moraga Canyon is one of the worst sites in Piedmont to build a large housing complex. CEQA doesn’t give letter grades, but it does issue the harshest designation possible: “Significant and Unavoidable Impacts.” That’s the verdict this site has received in multiple categories.

1. Wildfire & Evacuation
The Housing Element EIR admits wildfire evacuation delays could be 8 to 40 minutes. That is not a minor inconvenience, it is a life-threatening risk. No amount of lane striping or landscaping offsets the reality of funneling hundreds of new residents into an already narrow canyon during a fire. CEQA was blunt: this impact is unavoidable.

2. Traffic & Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT)
The traffic and VMT studies were conducted over two years ago, before the large-scale return-to-office movement. At that time, commuter patterns were far lower. The reality today is heavier, faster traffic on Moraga Avenue. Relying on outdated traffic counts undercuts today’s reality. This is not a safe corridor, and adding nearly 1,000 new car trips a day makes it worse.

3. Climate Impacts
CEQA already concluded that greenhouse gas emissions and VMT cannot be mitigated here. And the Specific Plan itself offers no meaningful specifics on how development would be environmentally friendly.Will the project be all-electric, with no new gas pipelines?Will there be adequate EV charging for residents, or just token stalls?Will solar, storage, or energy offsets be required?Right now, the answer to each of these questions is no. A plan without enforceable commitments is not in line with the city's climate goals.

4. A “Specific Plan” Without Specifics
This is called a “Specific Plan,” but there is very little that is specific about it. Key issues such as traffic, infrastructure, fire evacuation, and sustainability are all kicked down the road with vague promises that they’ll be solved later. Piedmont deserves better than a placeholder plan that locks us into unavoidable risks without real mitigation.ConclusionWhen CEQA itself says a site has significant and unavoidable impacts across wildfire, traffic, climate, and infrastructure, the message is clear: this is the wrong site for large-scale development. Approving the MCSP as written would mean ignoring not only community concerns, but the environmental record.I urge you to reject the Moraga Canyon Specific Plan in its current state. The project needs to be appropriately scaled to the conditions of the site and more thoroughly detailed.

Thank you.

I applaud the City for its thoughtful, inclusive and transparent approach. California is way underbuilt for the demand, thus leading to greater homelessness and unstable families, all of which threaten our long term security and prosperity. So, the State has stepped in to mandate that each community does its part. I believe that building in Piedmont is necessary, including for people who are currently facing extremely expensive housing relative to their income. I am encouraged by the studies that say the roads may be safer, adding stoplights and actually reducing the speeding which is currently so prevalent. This is rarely used space, not a valuable nature preserve. We all live on land that has been subdivided over years and building density is key to creating the amount of units we all need.

I have lived near Templar Place & Harbord Drive around the corner from the proposed development site for the past 30years. While I applaud the commission’s desire to deliver affordable housing, I strongly object to the location and density of the planned apartment complex under the Moraga Canyon Specific Plan.

My major concerns are general traffic safety, pedestrian safety, and emergency evacuation routes. Thanks to WAZE, during commute hours, there has been a considerable increase in the number of people who now leave the traffic jam on Hwy 24 East drive down Broadway, come up Broadway Terrace, turn right on Clarewood Drive which becomes Harbord Drive and then exit onto Moraga to go South on Hwy 13. The backed-up traffic on to Harbord during commute times because of all the cars trying to make a left on Moraga can extend as far as Maxwelton Drive. Placing nearly 200 units on this narrow, high-risk, high-traffic corridor would not only incease this problem but also completely block the exit of all the people who live past the end of Clarewood Drive in the event of a fire.

After the Palisades Fire, one thinks more of their planned exit to safety. Moraga Avenue is a designated emergency evacuation route for both Piedmont and Oakland. Directing hundreds of additional residents through this corridor during a fire which could easily ignite in that canyon is reckless and irresponsible and puts us all at unnecessary risk.

It’s my understanding, from information given after the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire, Moraga Canyon was designated a high fire-risk zone. Adding hundreds of units in this fire-prone canyon will increase this risk considerably. Additionally, it is very likely to make obtaining insurance coverage worse than it already is as many of my neighbors have had their policies dropped in the past two years.

How does the city plan to pay for and implement the infrastructure needs for this 197-unit proposal? Considering the exorbitant costs likely to unfold, other options need to be more urgently explored. Namely:
• Freeing up excess land from the Piedmont schools which are not currently effectively utilized.

• Supporting infill development closer to Grand Avenue and Lakeshore Avenue better supporting low-income residents rather than attempting to force dense development into a narrow, fire-prone canyon with no sidewalks or crosswalks for these residents.

I hope you will reconsider this plan and explore alternatives that make more sense for the residents for whom you are trying to accommodate.

Many thanks for your consideration!

Statement to City Council Re: Moraga

To: Mayor Anderson and City Council
From:Patty Siskind, 198 Maxwelton Road, Piedmont
Subject: Request for Further Study and Community Engagement

The purpose of this memo is to persuade you to reconsider passing the proposed housing development plan for Moraga Canyon. There are several points that I would like to make for your reconsideration.

Safety - Everyone should know by now that safety is a major issue. There has been a great deal of discussion about sight lines and speed of traffic on Moraga, making it unsafe for additional traffic or installation of traffic lights or signs. I think the easiest way I can illustrate the dangers of traffic on Moraga is to let you know that my car was totaled on Moraga and my son-in-law and daughter were injured when another driver plowed into them on Moraga Avenue. The second driver was not only speeding but also didn’t have the sight line to see they were turning left with enough advance notice to avoid them. I think there should be greater study done on the sight lines.

We were told by the previous Fire Chief that the evacuation plan for Maxwelton in the next emergency is to walk down our street (because Maxwelton is too narrow and would immediately be blocked by cars if we attempted to drive) and continue down Moraga to the Corporate Yard. Moraga is the major egress out of town with one lane and pedestrians walking to the Corporate Yard. To this situation, you want to add another 200 homes. I think emergency evacuation plans should be studied in greater detail… perhaps for the existing residents impacted by this development.

Night Sky - In previous meetings I have expressed my concern about the impact of Night Sky with this large development. I was assured that this was accounted for and would meet the required standards. It’s my understanding that those standards refer to street lights and don't include light emitted from the additional 200 cars in the neighborhood or any light emanating from the 200 residences. Lights for Coaches Fields were never installed because of the impact on the Night Sky. I feel this development should be studied to see if it would have the equivalent impact as the game lights.

Noise Abatement - Currently we are able to hear batting practice on Coaches Field. With the addition of 200 residences, and at least 300 inhabitants, cars etc. the natural amphitheater qualities of the site would make this a cacophony of sound flooding the air. If you think you are getting lots of complaints about the pickleball courts at Linda, with this location and this size of development, the Bachman-Turner Overdrive song of “You Ain’t Seen Nothin Yet” might apply. Seriously, this is another topic that needs to be addressed.

I wish to be reasonable. I feel some development here is a good idea. Many Piedmont residents might consider downsizing and freeing up their larger homes and lots for development with some alternative housing available. Also, our city, school and private employees working in Piedmont should be given an opportunity for less expensive housing to continue in their jobs. Young families should be able to find starter homes in Piedmont, and this would give them a chance. However, fewer than 100 homes in this location instead of 200 would reduce a portion of the safety, night and sound issues I’ve mentioned. Therefore, I recommend these issues be addressed with much more study before moving forward with the development.

The problems with the Moraga Canyon Specific plan -- including traffic safety, fire evacuation, noise and light pollution, and many others -- have been ably described by other commentators, and I will not take up the Council's time by repeating them. Instead, I would like to mention that the decision before the City Council is not either/or. To fulfill the state mandate of constructing 587 additional housing units in Piedmont, some construction in Moraga Canyon is probably unavoidable.
The crucial failing in the Planning Commission’s proposal is its wildly disproportionate approach.
The Planning Commission would locate 199 of the 587 units, or 34%, in one small, confined and congested area. If approved, this plan will not only create a host of safety and pollution problems, it would also conflict with the policies underlying the Regional Housing Needs Allocation process. The RHNA mandates a fair distribution of new housing, and requires planners to avoid segregating and concentrating the new residents. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the Moraga Canyon Specific plan, in its current form, does.
Reducing the safety and pollution problems described by other commentators, and complying with the dictates of the RHNA, do not require eliminating new construction in the Moraga Canyon altogether. But they do require a more sensible distribution. There are many others areas in Piedmont, particularly in the City center, that have somehow avoided their fair share of the new housing.
There is no magic formula for determining with precision how many new units should be built in any particular neighborhood. But imposing more than a third of the new units in one small area is an egregious misallocation.
The City Council should remand the issue back to the Planning Commission with instructions to draft a new plan that better comports with the policies of the RHNA. Instead of locating more than a third of the new units in Moraga Canyon, the new plan should allow for somewhere between a tenth (59) and a fifth (117) of them.

Three questions about the proposed plan for Moraga Canyon - has a soil report been done given the large slide on the
left side of the canyon as your drive toward Highway 13? Secondly, who is going to pay for this projected construction
of 197 homes in the canyon and all the landscape and road work? How will the committee estimate cost given the
recent changes in cost of building materials being imported?

I’m not opposed to adding housing in Piedmont, but I am opposed to the plan as it stands today. I believe other solutions (a smaller development and/or other locations) should be sought for three reasons:

1. Blair Park (and Moraga Canyon) is the last park we have in Piedmont. It’s beautiful, it’s habitat to many creatures (we had nesting bald eagles to the delight of the community), and it’s rare. We don’t get our natural spaces back once we destroy them. The fact that environmental concerns were surfaced and ignored per the CEQA law was jaw dropping to me. We live in a so-called green state, and we’re supposed to lead the way, but apparently, being informed of hazards is good enough. We can do better in Piedmont.
2. Safety. It’s simply too many cars and people concentrated in one place. Day to day is bad enough, but during an emergency, the consequences will be deadly.
3. Impact on the community at large. The studies done concerned a small piece of road, but did not consider the numerous residents above and below the development. Many don’t even know about the development. To add to that, those on the committee who would be most affected were asked to recuse themselves. Those are the people we want to speak! The planning committee meeting felt like a formality to bulldoze over the community (literally and figuratively) rather than represent and listen to the community. Answers given to questions felt flippant, procedural, and incomplete. Some consultants couldn’t even be bothered to be on camera. I get that you have every legal loophole on your side, but you should do the right thing anyway.

The current housing mandate has been a challenge for every town in California, setting off firestorms and conflict.
Our precious little City of Piedmont is no different.
Although there are myriad issues with the Moraga Canyon Plan, I want to focus on safety, the streets and the quality of life for the hundreds of families and homes on the North side of Piedmont.
I am specifically speaking of those that feed into Moraga Avenue above and below Highland Avenue, most immediately Pala, Monte, Mesa, and Bonita. The impact from this proposed development also extends well into Oakland above and the neighborhoods well below Bonita. These lovely neighborhood streets, a signature of the city of Piedmont, will become constantly congested & serve as the bypasses to avoid the wait at the Highland Avenue traffic light. This poses serious danger for our children and negatively impacts the quality of life & the value of the neighborhood homes.
The plan proposed Monday evening, September 8th went into great depth with diagrams & explanations of the traffic & road changes. The plan covered only one quarter mile of Moraga. Where is the plan for the impact of these hundreds of additional cars a day on the immediate neighborhoods and entire city?
This problem becomes unimaginable in a fire or earthquake emergency. I need not remind you of the life-threatening gridlock on Moraga in 1991. Moraga Avenue cannot and will not adequately absorb the huge volume of additional cars in an evacuation plan. A blinking light or officer attempting to direct traffic in a horrific emergency is not only magical thinking but poses a deadly safety issue.
The Moraga Canyon Plan, though convenient to drop at the North edge of town, is not safe, does not protect quality of life for the residents and should not go forward in scale or design as proposed.
I do support additional housing, however this proposal is too large, has not enough infrastructure for its residents and has not adequately studied the impact & safety on the neighborhood & the city, including abolishing the last open space in Piedmont, Blair Park.

From the public hearing, I gathered that at some point earlier in this process the commission chose to majorly expand the number of units for the Moraga Canyon development in order to fund improvements to recreational amenities (e.g. batting cages, astroturf field). For existing residents of the area who will bear the brunt of this massive new complex being shoehorned into Moraga Canyon, this is very frustrating.

Also, I was struck by how much the traffic and safety concerns dominated the public comments in the hearing. That's a very salient issue, but I'd encourage the commission to not overlook the other major concerns that have been raised by the community.

Lastly, I'd love to know whether the public will have an opportunity to stay informed and involved in later stages of this process, like when we’re talking to developers. It sounds like that will be another critical period with major implications for what's built, so the public deserves transparency and participation.

So far this has just been a giant bureaucratic exercise lasting 2 years and costing a million dollars or more. Nowhere in the mountain of verbiage do I find the two most important questions: 1. In the current adverse economic environment for multiple unit housing construction with high interest rates and construction costs, is there any reasonable probability that the market rate housing will be built. I note that fully entitled projects all over the BA are being delayed.
2. Given the requirements of Article 34 of the State Constitution, a public vote is mandated for all city sponsored or city subsidized below market rental projects. How does the city think that it can evade this requirement?