Consider Establishing an Implementation Plan for Creating the Shoreline Ecological Park on the West Side of Seaplane Lagoon at Alameda Point, Commonly Known as De-Pave Park. (Councilmembers Oddie and Daysog)
Clerk. Consider establishing implementation plan for creating the Shoreline Ecological Park on the west side of Seaplane Lagoon and allow me to come clean on a city paved park because that it was placed on the agenda at the request of councilmembers Odie and Isaac. Three speakers. Okay. And we have speakers, right? Yes. Um, could I possibly suggest that we hear a speakers first? Because we've kept for so long? I think the referral explains itself. So let's hear. It. Richard Banger, Linda Carr Loney and Marjorie Powell. Yeah, sorry about that, folks. Thank you, Mayor, members of the Council City staff for staying alert this late and continuing on to finish the agenda. Thank you, Councilmember Odie and Councilmember De Saag for referring this. We've had a lot of progress and success with the redevelopment of Alameda Point so far site, a very terminal groundbreaking and I think now is a good time that we break ground to repurpose some of our shoreline. And the scale of this project, as you can probably see without any estimates, is going to be a big project. And it's it's big enough that it's probably not going to be tied to any mega project, mega redevelopment project that's going to absorb the cost of this deep park project. So that's why we shouldn't be waiting for some some big, big project to come along that's going to pay for this. We need a separate track where we seek grant funding and we need to start now. There's no no need to wait anymore. It's it's called out in our Climate Action Plan. There's all the reasons have been spelled out in the in the referral. And so the only $0.02 I would add is if you decide to go forward and create an implementation plan, including a with a proposed request for qualifications that the qualifications need to include some experience with floating wetlands, which is mentioned in the description of the EPA park in the town center plan. This isn't an untested idea. It's it's it's a tested idea. And it would be something we could implement here. And I would hope we would find somebody with expertize in that. And also, of course re purchasing that shoreline to meet the goals spelled out in the Deep Park plan. Thank you. Thank your next speaker. Linda Cardone, and then Marjorie Powell. Hi. Thank you again for staying to listen to to listen to us. I live in Alameda. I am also the president of the board of Golden. Get out of my society. We go and get out of Bonn and it's Alameda Conservation Committee I strongly support starting to plan for D pave park it's it would offer great recreation benefits great wildlife benefits and it would absorb carbon which and provide a living shoreline buffer. It has all kinds of incredible benefits and it's been five years since it was first planned. So I don't know, we just feel like it would be really a good time to at least get the planning started because it's going to take a long time to raise the money and build it out. So thank you. We urge you to make the referral. Thank you. Next, Speaker Marjorie Powell. Hello. Good morning, you hearty souls. Thank you. It's actually been interesting to sit and listen. And I appreciate the time and energy that you all put into this week. But my name is Marjorie Powell. I am in Alameda resident, a member of the friends of the Alameda Wildlife Reserve and it's in part because of the Reserve. But I am urging the Council to move quickly with finding a team to put plans together and do some grant writing to get some funding to actually implement this part. There are a couple of additional reasons. One, Linda mentioned the sea level rise and the need for wetlands. If you look at any of the reports of projected sea level rise, that end of Alameda will be clearly impacted. It's also given the number of recent reports about declines in birds, it's really important that we make sure we have plenty of green space, appropriate green space for birds. And as Alameda urbanized and that land that was once naval air station becomes more urban that we include parkland and wildlife areas. For the not just the birds, but the other animals in sea life there. And I also urge you to consider very seriously removing both of the buildings that are currently in that area. Thank you. And thank you very much. Thank you to all our public speakers and for your stamina. Okay. So Mr. Desai, Councilmember Desai, Councilmember Odie, this is your council referral. Yeah. Yes. I'm sure that you're. Aware, Mayor, that Amy Wooldridge is here to answer any questions you have on this. Yes. Of our park. I assumed it wasn't just an exercise in stamina, but thank you. Yes. A recreation parks director is out here. People, we have 7 minutes. Who wants to say what? Quickly. Quick. I'm not going to repeat the referral because I think it's pretty obvious. Thank my colleague for for joining me on it and Richard, for working together with me on it. I've been very passionate tonight, so I'll try to rein it in. But if I do, I'm still passionate about this. It's in our in our waterfront plan. This is in our climate action plan. We restructure our leases around doing this park. So I will just read from one of the public letters that came in and our former colleague, Mr. Matarese. It's all well and good to talk about the idea of these parks again. But the time the time for this kind of talk is done. Council needs direction and include deadlines. So I think we need to have our staff bring back a plan and give us a commitment on when they would bring us back this plan. And we can discuss this plan so we can get moving on this because like one of the speakers, that is going to take a long time for this, but we can't wait. Sea level rise is happening. We need carbon sequestration. So I hope we can we can find a place on our priority list for this. Thank you, Councilmember Desai. Well, thank you very much. Weekly Councilmember Odie asked me to join him in supporting this. I was very surprised because he had indicated to me that, you know, you are on your last go around on city council. This was adopted and nothing had been done since then. And in the last go around I supported this largely because there's a lot of great at that time, you know, you could see that there's was a 2015. You can see that there was a lot of great things that were proposed for the sea in and around the seaplane lagoon, starting with the at the time site A , which was in its infancy as well as the ferry terminal. And at the time I supported the Depay's part because I thought, wouldn't that be wonderful that we're doing all this great development and planning and building, but that at the same time we're doing kind of a building through the D paved park. So so I supported it back then and I was surprised when Councilmember Ody approached me and it was about two weeks ago or so and said, you know, nothing had been done since then. And that's why I said, okay, yeah, for sure. I'll definitely sign on. So I look forward to moving forward with this because I think it is part of the whole development of the Seaplane Lagoon area, even though it is a building. Council, comments. Councilmember Vella So I'm happy to support this with one caveat. We've talked about kind of looking at everything together and where it falls with that and I think we have a number of parks planned and different things. So I do want to get this plan kind of underway, but I would also like it to come back or at least I don't know, Amy, if you want to. Yeah, maybe this will do it as long as we have you here. Could you perhaps come in? I don't want you to feel that this was time wasted. Do you want to just share your thoughts on this, since you are the recreation parks director? Sure. I absolutely support do pave park. It's it's an important amenity. I do want to take into perspective and I have an updated project list of what's currently happening with LAPD, PD, and I can go through super quickly, but it just gives the scope of work of what staff is working on. And so I would be interested in looking at prioritization from this council and maybe I bring that back as a separate item, not at, you know, 1230 at night, but but as an item. So you can see the scope of what's being worked on. And it's not a lack. Of desire, it's a. Lack of staff time. Everything from the City Aquatic Center to Jean Sweeney Park, Estuary Park, Enterprise Park, the pathways is short for inside. So just to name a few. In the in for the sake of time, perhaps part of the direction is that it comes back along with a full report from. The president and vice mayor. So I have two, two questions. First point number five is about the VA. Is the intent to actually for us to have a planning process for VA land. You wouldn't recommend that. Working with the Department of Veterans Affairs? I think the intent was to find ways to collaborate, considering the ideas, to dig up cement, to reuse and recycle instead of like discard. So it's not limited to the VA. I think you know that inside AA they took a lot of cement and reused it and you know, and stop waste. That's one of our main goals is to kind of look at the entire lifecycle. And it doesn't include the wetlands that are planned for that kind of area on the VA land as well. We're not you know, I think number five is just the recycling payment thing, if that's an option. Right. There's a whole different issue about wetlands. Okay. So I'm passionate about happy happy to see this moving forward. I was very involved with it, with the planning of it when I was at the planning board. I, I am concerned, given just the list of and not completed parks that we are already looking for funding on that we're going to start planning and fundraising for one . But I think it's a good opportunity. I like the idea of a prioritization discussion, but I actually would suggest that maybe that starts with, I reckon, Park Commission. I think that's the reason they exist in that we have asked them to add this to that conversation. I'm also just going to flag there are actually the there were never plans for taking down Building 29. In fact, that was a specific part of the discussion at planning at the planning board and the city council and both parties decided to leave it there. It's a huge chunk of cement that is very expensive and problematic. And I would be very uncomfortable, including that we're going to start moving, look for plans for moving people and ripping it down. I think that there's a lot more discussion before we could start there, but if we have a motion to. You would separate that? I would separate I would separate that out. I think it's something that can always be discussed, but I wouldn't want it to be specific. Okay. In the one minute we have remaining. So the recommendation I'm hearing is to actually have this item start at the Recreation and Parks Commission and then come back to us updated. I mean, as long as there's a date and I mean, I'm fine with that. I'm not sure I would like six taken out, but maybe you can see potential demolition instead of, you know, committing. But at some point, when would we think we would have this part priority type session? Would that. Uh. Um, I think I'm thinking of what we have on the Recreation Parks Commission. I can probably bring it to them in December. And then that means to, based on how that conversation goes to council in January, February, where they have a very full November agenda for the commission. I think that's a date. That's a date certain, I guess. I think a date certain. Great. So is that sufficient direction to start? Because it is 1230 and we only voted to go to 1230. Yeah. Yes, I'm fine with that. But I also would just like to say, if there's a community group out there that wants to work on this, there's that parallel track exists. Yeah. And we're. Into it. And they should probably reach out to the Recreation and Parks Commission and director. Okay, everyone, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you all for your time. And effort to. Good one. Oh, yeah. Okay.