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Gardner residents take a look at plans for area
Proposals for area could cost as much as $6.3 million
By Kate Carter
Gardner area residents struggled to sort out priorities during a Strong Neighborhoods Initiative meeting last week.
The biggest concerns of the evening centered on how to keep cars off the streets during street cleaning, how to make street repairs and how a parking lot could be incorporated into a Fuller Avenue park.
Project consultant Terry Bottomley presented tentative plans for a "Kiss and Ride" commuter drop-off area near the Virginia Street light rail station, a parking lot at the Fuller Plaza and changes to Bird Avenue, among others. He projected these plans could cost between $3.9 million and $6.3 million in total.
Meeting attendees also heard from city officials about how to apply for grants and loans to rebuild foundations, do electrical and plumbing work and have residential exteriors repainted. Representatives from a nonprofit organization spoke about their assistance programs for first-time homebuyers.
Uneven streets and clogged drains can prevent rainwater and street clutter from draining, leading to streets in need of sweeping, residents said. But, because so many people need to park their cars on the street and aren't aware of the monthly street sweeping schedule, they said the streets never get cleaned.
Norma Mendez, president of the Gardner Advisory Council, said street sweeping and the general poor condition of the streets is the biggest neighborhood problem.
"They really need to fix up the foundations [of the streets,]" she said. "It's got to start from the bottom."
She explained that temporary no-parking signs on streets near the Gregory Tot Lot last May were effective when cleaning up those streets. She said she wants that to happen in other streets in the area, as did other Gardner area residents at the Jan. 29 meeting.
But city officials mentioned that enforced no-parking needs the approval of the neighborhood and that some neighbors don't want it. That frustrated community members in attendance, who are fed up with their dirty and dangerous streets, and want to see improvements now.
"It's not the residents' choice," neighbor Dan Erceg said. "These are public streets."
Sidewalk and street repair are other pressing needs that affect drainage and safety in the area, and residents hope to see improvements soon. Terry Bottomley, a consultant working with the neighborhood on its revitalization plans, reported that areas north of the train tracks can expect resurfacing in 2002-03 and areas south of the tracks in 2008-09.
But neighbors said that their streets need more than just resurfacing. The Gardner, Gregory Plaza and Atlanta neighborhoods, just south of Interstate 280 in northern Willow Glen, are built on what used to be a swamp. The soil's instability has caused roads and buildings to buckle and created problems throughout the area that superficial patches won't fix for long, residents said.
Bottomley said that any improvements to the streets, even if they were rebuilt, wouldn't be permanent because the situation is "irreparable."
"It's something folks in this area are going to have to live with," he said.
But he added that residents should work with the city to decide if the standard 10-year cycle of street resurfacing was sufficient for the extent of these streets' problems, and if street improvements in the area should be held to a higher standard.
Twenty-one year resident Gary Jansen said streets the city rebuilt from the bottom up in the mid-'70s are now just as bad as before.
At previous meetings, Bottomley and some neighbors had proposed that part of an open space along Fuller Avenue between Delmas Avenue and Prevost Street be used for parking for the congregation at the Word of Faith Christian Center, on the corner of Delmas and Fuller. Bottomley returned to the last meeting with a tentative plan for such a parking lot that would accommodate 35 parking spaces on a nonpaved lot.
City planner Deborah Kim also reported that the lot would have to be leased by the church if it wanted to use it, and that the costs for turning the land into a city-approved lot would have to be covered by the church. Bottomley estimated his plan could cost between $180,000 and $260,000.
While the church and some residents supported using space for the parking lot, others were less enthusiastic. Resident Dan Erceg said he preferred that open space be preserved, even if maintaining it would be more difficult than maintaining a parking lot.
Bottomley also presented proposals for adding seating areas outside the Starbright Market and Ralph's Smokehouse on Delmas Avenue. Residents liked the drawings, but James Choy, who owns the market, said he didn't think there was enough space for pedestrians. Bottomley also showed drawings of a "Kiss and Ride" turnaround on Prevost Street near the W. Virginia Street light rail station and proposed angled street parking on Virginia in front of Biebrach Park.
He distributed detailed drawings of a median expansion along Bird Avenue, from Interstate 280 to Coe Avenue, and a proposed roundabout at the Bird-Coe intersection, with the caveat that such changes would require the city to agree that the street would get less traffic than for which it is currently designed.
James Stagi and Maria Ruiz, with the city's housing department, told meeting attendees how they and their neighbors could get city loans for making improvements to their homs. For more information about this program, call 408.277.4747.
Mary Reed, Hung Do and Margarita Guerra explained services their organization, Neighborhood Housing Services, offers for first-time homebuyers.
For more information about these services, call 408.272.2878.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
