Candidate for
Council Member; City of Fremont

My Vision for Fremont

Fremont has been accused of being a boring city with no 'there' there. We need to build on our unique strengths to create a special place whose amenities and attractions drive economic development.

I first moved to Fremont while I was studying City Planning at UC Berkeley. Instead of the visionary planning that I was learning about in school, I saw piecemeal development; a small tract housing development here, a new strip mall there. There did not seem to be any vision guiding Fremont's development.

This lack of visionary planning is one of the long-term problems facing Fremont. It's not just a question of aesthetics; a lack of vision impacts us in many ways. A well-planned city gives us a sense of pride in living here. It can foster a sense of community. And studies have shown that one of the key factors in economic development is building an interesting place to live. Employers want to know that their employees will be happy living near where they work.

Building a great city takes years of good planning and a commitment to carry out that plan. I would argue that this is the kind of leadership that Fremont has been lacking.

How did we get this way?

Fremont's first growth spurt occurred in the 50's and 60's. This was when cities were planned for the automobile; streets were wide, land uses were usually segregated into large uniform areas (i.e. huge tracts of housing separated from shopping areas), and pedestrian and bicycle traffic was not well planned for.

The City of Fremont has acknowledged this problem and even talks about sustainability in the latest General Plan. However, the Council's actions speak louder than their words. They approved a massive residential-only development at Patterson Ranch well away from the center of the city. They've touted Pacific Commons, with all of its big-box chain stores, as the focal place for new retail development. And, despite having 40 years to work at it, they've failed to develop a well-planned, transit-oriented downtown near the Fremont BART station.

What does Visionary Planning Look Like?

Modern planning efforts around the country are largely designed to re-engineer cities away from their auto-oriented origins. These efforts seek to establish mixed-use areas where jobs, housing and retail are all within walking distance of one another. They try to revitalize their original downtown areas. Instead of big box retail and large office buildings surrounded by massive parking lots, they create central, pedestrian-friendly areas where people can shop and gather, or as the expression goes "live, work and play." Modern planners understand that large auto-oriented malls filled with chain stores are no longer what the public demands. These kinds of malls are sitting half vacant all over the country. The only really successful retail areas are those that contain unique special businesses in an attractive, pedestrian-friendly environment. Examples include Third Street in Santa Monica, Castro in Mountain View, downtown Livermore, etc.

What type of development should we be promoting?

There are basically three different types of development that the city could be pursuing; residential, retail and commercial (i.e. office or industrial space).

Residential development is the easiest for most cities to attract since it is the most lucrative for developers. Housing generates property tax, but usually not enough to cover the costs of city services (i.e. police, fire, road maintenance).

Not surprisingly, given that it has been a cash cow for developers, Fremont's City Council has approved more residential development than the city needs. Fremont has basically become an oversized bedroom community without the supporting amenities of a larger city.

Many people complain about the lack of decent retail areas in Fremont. They look at 'downtown' areas such as Pleasanton, Livermore and Mountain View and wonder why we can't have something like this. Developing such an area takes visionary planning and can take many years to properly fill out. Fremont has simply never made a commitment to such a project.

Fremont's only "vision" with respect to retail development seems to be to just try to build more of it. They fail to realize that a City's population can only support a finite amount of retail. If you build a new retail center next to an old one, the old one will undoubtedly suffer. I spoke at one Council meeting and called this a "failure to recycle at the largest level".

Fremont has existing 'downtown' areas such as Centerville, Irvington and Niles that could serve be robust retail areas. However, Fremont's recent retail efforts are largely focused on Pacific Commons, a completely auto-oriented mall on the edge of the city. Pacific Commons works to drain sales from our existing retail areas like the Hub and our historic retail districts, which are doing quite poorly.

In summary, we should be looking at developing local, quality retail areas in our existing downtown areas as opposed to building up competition that will ultimately kill these areas. This could result in retail areas that people would actually enjoy visiting.

Of Course More Jobs, but What Kind?

The discussion of how to bring more jobs into Fremont is largely discussed in my position paper on Economic Development . However, I can make a few points here about how job creation relates to my vision for Fremont.

To be a truly vibrant city with many amenities for our residents, we'll have to develop strong, robust job centers. Fremont is starkly lacking in these despite the fact that we have a diverse, well-educated populace. We should be open to any opportunities that should arise and work to bring in jobs for all levels of our residents.

As I've discussed elsewhere , the loss of NUMMI and Solyndra created a dearth in manufacturing jobs. These losses had a huge effect on much of the City's economy. Manufacturing is critical to the country as a whole. We are lucky that Tesla decided to take over the NUMMI plant but they will provide only a fraction of the jobs that NUMMI did.

Manufacturing / High-Tech Employment Center (Research)

I mention in my paper on the Warm Springs area that we should focus development in this area on manufacturing and high-technology. I have consistently argued that we need to work to create this area as an employment hub, not another opportunity for developers to put in thousands of homes as many have proposed.

With the Tesla auto plant in place, Fremont has a chance to become an incubator for clean-tech firms. I firmly believe this area of the economy will grow significantly in the future. We could make this area a clean-tech business incubator with solar companies, battery research firms, and other firms that would focus on clean-tech research and manufacturing. If we can do this, we would surely make Fremont a place that businesses, and employees, want to relocate to.

With development that is focused on the success of Fremont's residents as a whole, and not on what is most expedient for developers, I believe Fremont can be a place where people truly enjoy living in their city, and the economy is strong because of it.