Dublin as a blemish on the Tri Valley (Stockton, Modesto: townhouses, neighborhood)

[roadwarrior101]

Originally Posted by WizardOfRadical

I look at the dusty picture you show of North Livermore Valley and can help but laugh. You know damn well no body is hiking around there enjoying the "nature". That place looks like a cow's arm pit, if a cow had arms. It looks no different than the hills near Tracy on the other side of the Altamont. People just want to protect the value of their hyper-inflated, cheaply built, generic tract homes.

That probably wasn't the best picture to use. It looks like it was taken on the absolute smoggiest day in the middle of the summer, perhaps when there were a lot of nearby forest fires. I can tell you that having moved to the tri-valley recently from the Silicon Valley, the air up here is clearer 90% of the time. Yes, we don't have the redwood forests but the hills are beautiful and green half of the year. Even when they're not, it is still quite pretty, except for the few smoggy days per year. During those times, I don't think it looks very nice anywhere in the Bay Area.


I personally live in a newer tract home and I like it. Our developer did a good job in providing contrast in the homes (e.g., they don't all look identical) and lots of green space. This area has great schools and a much better sense of community than I experienced in the Silicon Valley. Don't get me wrong, if I could've afforded a renovated home in Palo Alto, I would've done it. However, I didn't have $3-4M to spend on a house and living in a cheaply made Eichler or in a less desirable part of the valley/peninsula didn't appeal to me.

[HockeyMac18]

I think I'd rather see significantly denser infill before I see building in the hills anywhere in the Bay Area. We keep squandering so much opportunity with these new developments...building townhouses, or 2-3 story apartment buildings.

We should be really re-considering how we build new in the Bay Area, especially around transit centers. The BART station in Dublin should have gigantic apartment complexes (10-20 stories, at least) next to it. The developments in San Mateo near where I live (Bay Meadows) is another example of squandered opportunity...2-3 story townhouses/apartment buildings when what they should have been aiming for was multiple high rises, turning that area into a new hub (and then I read in the local San Mateo paper that they're considering raising the height limits on El Camino...but people in the area concerned about ruining the "small town" feel - come on, we're not a small town!).

We should be trying to build mini-downtowns around each transit hub, incentivizing sustainable growth/lifestyles (that don't rely on driving a car on 580/680 or to a BART station). From these hubs, we can see natural/organic growth outwards.

Instead, we get half assed efforts that really do nothing for the long-term future of the area. No one's going to tear down these new developments any time soon, so essentially the most valuable empty (and developable) Bay Area land is already gone, used up in an inefficient way. I get that some development is better than none...but we can't keep pretending we live in some rinky dink town in the middle of no where. We have to accept our demand and try to at least accommodate some of it.

And if we do that correctly, we don't have to build in the hills or over farms (and oddly enough, building small/low density puts more pressure to build over the hills/farms than building densely).

[HockeyMac18]

And for what it's worth, I think the hills around Livermore are quite nice and worth saving (if possible).

There are many better pictures out there:

[Dave Coe]

People here seem to have a bias in favor of green hills. I appreciate both but find the intense golden hills in late summer to be the most beautiful. They tend to turn grey around October and November. The phenomen is less pronounced by the coast than in the Inland parts of the Bay Area and Central Coast.

[sav858]

Originally Posted by HockeyMac18

I think I'd rather see significantly denser infill before I see building in the hills anywhere in the Bay Area. We keep squandering so much opportunity with these new developments...building townhouses, or 2-3 story apartment buildings.

We should be really re-considering how we build new in the Bay Area, especially around transit centers. The BART station in Dublin should have gigantic apartment complexes (10-20 stories, at least) next to it. The developments in San Mateo near where I live (Bay Meadows) is another example of squandered opportunity...2-3 story townhouses/apartment buildings when what they should have been aiming for was multiple high rises, turning that area into a new hub (and then I read in the local San Mateo paper that they're considering raising the height limits on El Camino...but people in the area concerned about ruining the "small town" feel - come on, we're not a small town!).

We should be trying to build mini-downtowns around each transit hub, incentivizing sustainable growth/lifestyles (that don't rely on driving a car on 580/680 or to a BART station). From these hubs, we can see natural/organic growth outwards.

Instead, we get half assed efforts that really do nothing for the long-term future of the area. No one's going to tear down these new developments any time soon, so essentially the most valuable empty (and developable) Bay Area land is already gone, used up in an inefficient way. I get that some development is better than none...but we can't keep pretending we live in some rinky dink town in the middle of no where. We have to accept our demand and try to at least accommodate some of it.

And if we do that correctly, we don't have to build in the hills or over farms (and oddly enough, building small/low density puts more pressure to build over the hills/farms than building densely).

ABAG and MTC have that vision for the Bay Area but unfortunately they don't really actually have a lot of say in what and how much gets built, local jurisdictions do. So there is always this disconnect between planning/vision and reality. And even if you have a city that actively wants to build dense and smart, you have NIMBY's doing whatever they can to prevent, delay, or reduce whatever is proposed.

[HockeyMac18]

Originally Posted by sav858

ABAG and MTC have that vision for the Bay Area but unfortunately they don't really actually have a lot of say in what and how much gets built, local jurisdictions do. So there is always this disconnect between planning/vision and reality. And even if you have a city that actively wants to build dense and smart, you have NIMBY's doing whatever they can to prevent, delay, or reduce whatever is proposed.

+1 can't rate you positively - so I'll just respond.

Yea, it's rather unfortunate that the vision of the MTC and ABAG never get realized.

[RMESMH]

Originally Posted by roadwarrior101

That probably wasn't the best picture to use. It looks like it was taken on the absolute smoggiest day in the middle of the summer, perhaps when there were a lot of nearby forest fires. I can tell you that having moved to the tri-valley recently from the Silicon Valley, the air up here is clearer 90% of the time. Yes, we don't have the redwood forests but the hills are beautiful and green half of the year. Even when they're not, it is still quite pretty, except for the few smoggy days per year. During those times, I don't think it looks very nice anywhere in the Bay Area.


I personally live in a newer tract home and I like it. Our developer did a good job in providing contrast in the homes (e.g., they don't all look identical) and lots of green space. This area has great schools and a much better sense of community than I experienced in the Silicon Valley. Don't get me wrong, if I could've afforded a renovated home in Palo Alto, I would've done it. However, I didn't have $3-4M to spend on a house and living in a cheaply made Eichler or in a less desirable part of the valley/peninsula didn't appeal to me.

I think Dave may have used that picture in response to my unclear previous post, which could easily have lead the reader to believe that I believe that there were previously barren hills in 'East Dublin and stretching beyond' that have now ALL been developed. I was discussing previously barren hills that have now been developed, which I later realized is essentially saying the same thing twice....redundant and thus open to confusion .

IIRC, you live in Danville. IMO, Danville has done a better job (than Dublin) re how more recent construction has been integrated into the community. Better as in less conspicuous, less visually jarring.

[RMESMH]

Originally Posted by sav858

ABAG and MTC have that vision for the Bay Area but unfortunately they don't really actually have a lot of say in what and how much gets built, local jurisdictions do. So there is always this disconnect between planning/vision and reality. And even if you have a city that actively wants to build dense and smart, you have NIMBY's doing whatever they can to prevent, delay, or reduce whatever is proposed.

I also think the affluence and high education level of significant segments of the population in the Bay Area can foster individual residents banding together and 'digging in their heels' (the NIMBY effect mentioned). Another challenge, beyond the bureaucratic hurdles, is that so much of the Bay Area is so hilly. A less restrained environment re bureaucracy makes development in the Houston Metro easier, but so does the nearly pancake flat terrain.

[WizardOfRadical]

Originally Posted by Dave Coe

Orange County is an example of a place were they build over everything and it's still overpriced. I disagree about places such as North Livermore Valley. It still feels very rural. It's not barren at all. There is golden Grass in the summer and its green in the spring. In LA you have to drive all the way to the Santa Inez Valley if you want to be in the country. If the Bay Area has to increase housing there are still opportunities for infil such as the massive parking lots around the Dublin and Pleasonton BART stations, Dublin's Camp Parks, and Concord Naval Redevelopment. At some point whether we build over open space or not we will reach a point were building single family homes is no longer an option.

Not really. You can move to some where like Fullerton in Orange county where the median home value of 575K and less than a 1 hour train ride into DT LA.

I know when bay area people watch TV, they think OC is all Laguna Beach.

It's not.

[WizardOfRadical]

Originally Posted by sav858

They did save much of the cow pastures of Chino Hills (surprisingly), ever hear of Chino Hills State Park? Does this picture make you laugh too: https://goo.gl/maps/b8fNsaq51ht

Who's "they"? The state park existed before the city of Chino Hills was even incorporated. If anything, home builders ended up carving into the hillside much more AFTER the park was established.

Don't get me wrong, the Chino Hills are far more spectacular than anything found around Livermore.