Central Park South will slice right through the fault line. No homes will sit directly on top of it, which would not be permitted, but the fact the development straddles it shows little thought for what could happen, especially since the homes are designed to be three-stories tall and have a very narrow footprint.

Like I said in an earlier post, bring the transit to the community we already have rather than adding more people to transit that doesn’t even exist.

And I don’t buy the line about “affordable housing”. The homes built on the corner of Rock Ave. and Niles Blvd. are going for over $500K. Especially in today’s market, you can find a single family home for the price of those townhomes.

Sometimes I think these developers just throw the cause du jour, i.e. “transit oriented” into the description of their projects and the city council and planning commission just gobble it up.

Those closed up and were replaced by antique/old stuff stores.

Fremont seems to go back and forth between “let’s have a downtown” and “let’s develop the historic districts” all the while building cookie cutter housing and shopping developments near the city limits. And the new housing that goes into Centerville and Irvington is low income (Maple St. and where Tri-City used to be).

With the Coyote lakes right next door maybe we could have our own version of the “McCovey Cove” – what do you think of “Wasserman Wash” or “Thamasbi Slough”

There is little in the way of “planning”. So we are relegated to “quirky”. Interestingly sometimes “quirky” works – as in the phrase “Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn.”

But, this “quirky” thing that Niles has going on is no stroke of genius, and represents no plan, and is certainly not replicable to Fremont at large (even if you think it is working). . . . .

we need to get out of the business of negotiating street corners based on a developer that wants to erect more tilt-ups on another street corner. . . . .and we need to get into the business of creating a vision, and then steering developers into that vision.

Someone who possesses a long-term “feel” for the Fremont Districts – like, maybe residents therein, would be able to charcterize most of the districts and the design queues that one would want to reinforce. You make these design queues requisite for new developments within a specified area which begins to reinforce “character”.

This same character begins to lean int the kinds of businesses you’d want to attract to a specific district. . . . .

but, when all you’re interested in is blindly encouraging a developer to pour concrete onto a patch of dirt within your city limits – you end up with a bunch of individual developments disconnected by any rhyme or reason. . . . .

It’s sort of the Al Davis version of City Management – it might have worked once, but right now we need something much, much smarter.

Niles wears its badge of “quirkiness” proudly, but quite frankly, that doesn’t always attract an element that is conducive to developing the types of businesses that people in the neighborhood would use and would create a more economically viable town.

I just found it offensive that this report seemed to be using the township argument to promote more “Asian themed” shopping.

Not people with jobs…or homes.