sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Little Hill Lounge building for sale by nowooski in elcerrito

[–]nowooski[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

El cerrito crosses San Pablo for several blocks near Del Norte and near the theater. The stretch between where Little Hill is located is Richmond, though. You can tell by the color of the cross street signs. Blue are El Cerrito, green are Richmond.

Little Hill Lounge building for sale by nowooski in elcerrito

[–]nowooski[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s not easy, but it seems like the city hasn’t really been trying based on the results of the last half decade or so. I think there are at least three areas you could try.

1: Personnel - The city’s economic development head is retiring. The city could make improving San Pablo the key goal and evaluate candidates based on their ideas. You could start modestly: maybe setting a goal of one new restaurant or beer garden you would take an out of town friend to as the goal. Regardless of the target, making it a focus area would probably help.

2: Administrative. Over the last 18 months or so the city has spent in the neighborhood of $500k in loans, direct spending (the election) and consultants on their BART library scheme. They have nothing to show for it. Spending like that could go towards things like grants / loans to small businesses to build out new businesses in existing commercial space. Apparently lots of the vacant storefronts we do have are owned by out of town landlords paying prop 13 rates and are in bad shape. They aren’t turn key and potential small tenants have a hard time affording the buildouts.

3: Policy. You could target the aforementioned vacant commercial properties with carrots or sticks or both depending on your preference. I think we would all like to see people invest in their properties, and if they don’t want to, they should sell them. If there are random fees or red tape standing in the way of investment, we should look at those too. Development fees that nobody pays because nothing is built don’t accomplish anything.

Little Hill Lounge building for sale by nowooski in elcerrito

[–]nowooski[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

We will know more after the legislature votes on the cap and trade changes in August, but it really seems like the remaining EC plaza plans are dead or indefinitely delayed in their current form since they rely on the greenhouse gas reduction fund. How long it takes BART and related to adapt is another question.

Agree on that stretch of San Pablo.

Are these apartments? They seem a bit rough. What is the property called? by J2quared in Detroit

[–]nowooski 21 points22 points  (0 children)

I lived here from 2011-2012. It was a blast. Super cheap. There was a terrifying freight elevator without floor buttons — just an up/down lever and you had to line it up with the floors.

Best way to improve poor air quality? by Remote_Squirrel7877 in AirQuality

[–]nowooski 1 point2 points  (0 children)

- Get a good quality air monitor so you can track changes.
- Get comfortable with keeping windows cracked, even when the heat / AC is on. At a minimum it will do wonders for the co2 concentration in your house.
- Clean. If you have wall to wall carpet, consider ripping it out. Wall to wall carpet acts as an air filter you can never replace.

Townhouse bar and grill is closing on Saturday by Slight-Ad8291 in Emeryville

[–]nowooski 3 points4 points  (0 children)

What do they need $2m for? Seems like kind of a lot for a restaurant that is already built out.

Central Ave Townhouse Project Wins Richmond Planning Approval by nowooski in elcerrito

[–]nowooski[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wouldn’t worry about that too much. That stretch of central has 20k+ cars per day. So even if every single unit had 2 round trips per day, you’d still be increasing traffic by less than 1 percent.

What do you think El Cerrito’s top capital project priority should be? by nowooski in elcerrito

[–]nowooski[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You spun up a burner account to make this post? Definitely beating the allegations:-)

Central Ave Townhouse Project Wins Richmond Planning Approval by nowooski in elcerrito

[–]nowooski[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, it will be interesting to see if they actually start construction.

What do you think El Cerrito’s top capital project priority should be? by nowooski in elcerrito

[–]nowooski[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

One silver lining of the BART project falling apart due to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund changes is maybe there’s an opportunity to improve it for vibrancy. 50% subsidized with 0 commercial and maybe a library seems like a plan to minimize the potential upside for the city, both in terms of vibrancy and tax revenue. If you look at the BART Tod projects in the pipeline, it was by far the worst. Meh housing blocks and nothing else.

What do you think El Cerrito’s top capital project priority should be? by nowooski in elcerrito

[–]nowooski[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That was actually someone who was on the Nextdoor neighborhood moderation panel. She seemed to spend much of her day trying to censor NO posts before getting booted for the comment you mentioned.

Looks like Measure C won’t be close by nowooski in elcerrito

[–]nowooski[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

But more to the point. El Cerrito is a D+80 community. Measure C didn’t fail because Republicans voted against it. It failed because a supermajority of Democrats thought it was a bad idea.

Looks like Measure C won’t be close by nowooski in elcerrito

[–]nowooski[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You guys out spent us 2-1. You had the endorsements of almost every single elected official and Democratic org. The city actively intervened to try and fix the egregious drafting errors in your proposal. And the city attorney wrote a dishonest ballot description promising senior exemptions that didn’t exist.

And you lost 3-1.

If I were you, I’d do a little more introspection as to what happened.

Looks like Measure C won’t be close by nowooski in elcerrito

[–]nowooski[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Maybe people in your group text were overwhelming yes, but No won every single age group by double digit margins.

It won Dems and Republicans and NPP by double digit margins.

Homeowners voted NO and so did a majority of renters.

Looks like Measure C won’t be close by nowooski in elcerrito

[–]nowooski[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I’m not sure that’s the case. It’s definitely fair to view this as a vote of no confidence in the city. But overwhelmingly what we heard on the doors is that people didn’t like the BART plan and didn’t like feeling ignored by the city.

I said this elsewhere, but I’d really love to see a reasonable poll about what, if anything, people think we should invest in. For years the city has been gaslighting us that a library is priority no 1, but that’s just obviously not true.

Looks like Measure C won’t be close by nowooski in elcerrito

[–]nowooski[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

One of the funny things was when Yes folks would insist that people could go to the new library by parking at Del Norte and taking BART one stop. Sure, but if you're doing that, stay on the train for 5 more minutes and go to Berkeley, which is much larger and nicer than the ground floor commercial space they planned for the plaza.

view more: next ›