City Actions and Activities in Barron Park – Page 9

Lynnie Melena and Art Liberman

At the October meeting of the Barron Park Association Board, the Board voted to host a community meeting on the proposed redevelopment of the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park (on Los Robles near El Camino). The purpose of the community meeting would be to have the developer present his proposal and for the City to provide information on the zoning regulations and review process. The meeting would also address issues related to closing the mobile home park—which would be necessary for the redevelopment to go forward.

On Monday, October 29, we met with the two representatives from Prometheus Development, Jon Moss and Nathan Tuttle, to discuss the idea of a community meeting in Barron Park—which Prometheus is generally open to. However, the mobile home closure process, which they are not directly participating in, comes first.

According to Jon Moss, and as confirmed by Planning Director Curtis Williams, Mr. Jisser, who owns the property, has just recently filed an application with the City to start the mobile home closure process per the City ordinance. Williams said that the City will be sending a (bilingual) letter to the residents informing them of the application and the next steps, and that the applicant intends to schedule a few meetings with the residents to respond to questions (reportedly “in the next month”). The meetings are not required by the ordinance, but City staff will attend the meetings.

Since the meetings with tenants are likely to be held in November, and could answer many questions about the mobile home ordinance closure process, the BPA-sponsored community meeting will not be held until after the first of the year. We are hoping that the City will not schedule its planned study session until after the community meeting.

The City Council passed the new Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan a few months ago and design work on one of the recommendations, the “Matadero Ave Bike Boulevard” is planned to start within the next few months.

http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/7293

The objective is to create a bike network that connects Matadero Ave and Margarita on the other side of El Camino, the Bol Park bike path and the proposed “Castilleja/Park/Wilkie Way Bike Boulevard.” Also in the plan is the recommendation for an “El Camino Way/Maybell Avenue/Donald Drive Bike Boulevard.”

The Transportation Division, part of City’s Planning Department, is now gearing up to design the “Matadero Ave Bike Boulevard.” Chief Transportation Official Jaime Rodriguez said the City intends to hold meetings with the Barron Park community within the next few months in preparation for starting design work on this Bike Boulevard project in early 2013, with implementation scheduled for 2014.

What is a Bike Boulevard?

According to the Comprehensive Plan, a bicycle boulevard is a low volume through street where bicycles have priority over automobiles, conflicts between bicycles and automobiles are minimized and bicycle travel time is reduced by the removal of stop signs and other impediments to bicycle travel. The removal of STOP signs is especially important in Palo Alto due to the large number of stop signs on local and collector streets.

The key words in this description are “a low volume through street where bicycles have priority over automobiles.”

Matadero Avenue is a collector street, one of only a few in Barron Park that provide entrance and egress from the neighborhood. There are a few questions that come to my mind.

– How would the Matadero Avenue roadway be changed to create a street where bicycles have priority over automobiles ? How would this affect traffic flow? Mr. Rodriguez mentioned adding some traffic calming measures, such as a “rubberized median island at Josina Avenue and Matadero Avenue.” This suggestion is on the ” Draft Barron Park Recommendations ” map that is on the city’s website : http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/31613

– Is this bicycle boulevard concept appropriate for such a narrow collector street in our neighborhood? Matadero has no space for bike lanes, no space for pedestrians. White lines along the edges help motorists stay on the route but some say they endanger pedestrian safety and bicyclists are wary of utility poles that are in or very near valley gutters.

Stay tuned and stay involved. We’d like to hear your thoughts.

The old Matadero water well site has been getting a complete makeover thanks to the City’s decision to use this well as part of the system that would provide emergency water to the public in the event of a natural disaster and a cutoff of the Hetch Hetchy supply. The project has required the BPA to put on hold its plan to beautify the area adjacent to the well site that included placing some benches.

The site along Matadero, near the intersection with Josina, is currently an eyesore. A photo taken today shows some very large white pipes and associated plumbing systems, surrounded by construction forms where a concrete pad is about to be poured. Once in place, the pad will support a number of large electrical control cabinets, and the entire site will be enclosed by a new wire fence.

Matadero Well Site – July 30, 2012

However, the appearance of the pipes and pumps and cabinets will be enhanced once all equipment is in place, thanks a group of determined BPA Board members, led by President Lynnie Melena. Continue reading »

A report by Doug Moran..with his updated Map of Proposed Towers (July 2012)

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=209482381320120716761.0004a3aa50f14ecb36fa0&msa=0

Report from the AT&T Open House June 20 on proposed DAS cell phone antennas for Barron Park (and elsewhere). Barron Park attendees included me, Art Liberman and Bob Moss (and possibly others).

AT&T had two engineers there who could answer the sorts of questions mentioned in the earlier messages (one that we had asked over a year ago). The engineer we were talking to said that this was the first time anyone had asked him about these sort of details, so apparently Barron Park _is_ different. Below is the info gathered.

1. The City’s database of cell towers had multiple errors. The relevant one was that it didn’t show AT&T using the tower at the VA Hospital (I have updated my map to reflect this). This tower provides coverage for much of western Barron Park. The proposed DAS antennas in BP follow the contour of the limits of the coverage of that antenna. EXCEPT, the antenna at the top of Matadero is intended to provide coverage for the nearby section of the Research Park. For the small coverage areas that DAS is intended for, AT&T prefers to put the antennas on telephone poles because those poles already have the high capacity link (optical fiber) to their network node, whereas adding an antenna to the roof of a commercial building involves significant costs for the additional cabling. I didn’t get an explanation for the Chimalus site (because we had already monopolized the engineer too much).

The Barron Park Association

The Barron Park Association

Update on Buena Vista Mobile Home Park

Matadero Avenue – Bike Boulevard and/or Collector Street?

Barron Park will be seeing green along Matadero

AT&T’s proposed DAS cell phone antennas in Barron Park