Preserving Albany's Small Town Character

By Brian Parker

I will use my 20 years experience as a city planner to insure that we do all we can to protect Albany's small town character from inappropriate development.

When the city presented its plans the neighbors became alarmed. The original city plan would have allowed 4 and 5 story buildings on San Pablo with the likelihood of parking structures and big box development rear entrances damaging the character of surrounding neighborhoods.

I worked with a large group of citizens to get the city to hear a more balanced point of view. Due to our effort the city is talking about 3 and 4 story buildings and protecting the surrounding neighborhood from the deleterious big boxes/parking garages backing onto residential areas. The citizens who participated were disappointed that the city was simply not as responsive as it should be. Rather than ignore the valuable ideas and experience thoughtful citizen groups offer, the city should welcome and encourage citizen participation in the planning process.

I support high quality projects in scale with the community. We need positive examples for others to follow. Projects such as Albany Commons, which are out of scale, only serve to energize opposition to new development. The brand new Target project is another example of poor design standards. The city allowed Target to build a low grade industrial appearing structure along the freeway, just at a time when the access to frontage road has recently been opened. The city should be working to bring attractive development to that area, development that will be a credit to Albany and will draw people to the area to support our businesses. At a minimum any new development there should be put through a design review process where it will have to show how it will improve the area. Albany deserves better than the Target design. I promise to promote higher standards for new development in Albany.

Protecting Public Services

• We need to maintain our three-minute emergency response time. Lives are saved by this level of response. Our three-minute response time means that someone having a heart attack will be reached and treated while there is still time. It means that a burglar can be caught in the act. We should be strengthening community oriented policing to maintain strong bonds between our peace officers and our community.
• I support improved City/School District cooperation. We need to explore city assistance in maintaining/improving school recreational facilities to better serve residents and students. We need to look for opportunities for better cooperation between police and the district to safeguard our students. This is an area that deserves much more attention in an era of seemingly ever decreasing resources.
• Lastly, we need to do all we can to protect city senior programs in times of budget cutbacks.