pages: CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-10-12.pdf, 14
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities | 2016-10-12 | 14 | Anto Aghapekian: I was part of the working committee, working on the guidelines of the Universal Design. And for me, this letter is a classic letter, it's a typical letter of a developer who is pushing back. And developers in the construction trade in general, they've been doing nothing but pushing back since 1973, this is nothing new. And they'll keep on pushing back until they do realize that they themselves are in need of a wheelchair, or a cane, or something. What we're asking is the result of many, many, many hours that people prior to my participation in that working committee have put in many hours working, and analyzing and studying all the statistics, the numbers, the need, and that's particularly for Alameda, it's not for the State of California. We, in Alameda, we feel the need of more housing that is accessible for people that have difficulties being up one step. Anto Aghapekian: What we're asking is nothing extraordinary, what we're asking is the facility for people who visit friends, visit families, and be part of this city, be part of the family, instead of being neglected, which they had been for a long, long time. So I agree, Beth, we need to study this. And the letter, and I'm not surprised, an attorney has to study this, it's all legalese. And I'm in no rush, I would like to see this done a soon as possible, but I will not accommodate some developers schedule so that we pass this ordinance by January. I mean, why January? Why not February? Why not March? Why not December? So, I'm not too keen on setting a date, a deadline to finish this off. Arnold Brillinger: This letter itself talks a lot about apartment buildings. Apartment buildings don't even have these problems, they are accessible just by the fact that they are apartments. And I do not think that the person who wrote this letter really has that much knowledge of building expertise as maybe the people in the Planning Board, or maybe Andrew. Even what we've learned from him tells me here, this person is just kind of blowing smoke. And I don't think that we should feel that we need to back down on anything, and maybe we even need to make some of the things stronger, and we shall see. Anto Aghapekian: And I would also like to add that during the meetings, it became very obvious from the numbers that the city itself has prepared that there is a demand for housing that's accessible. The demand is there, the numbers, the facts are not provided to us by the city. So if the demand is there and people are looking for it, why not supply? And we're not begging. Arnold Brillinger: Also, now Audrey mentioned that they kind of look like deer in the headlights or something, right? When you asked him about what kinds of things are you offering. I also went and they gave me a couple of sheets that looked like were run off on the old mimeograph machine. Arnold Brillinger: Even if you give that out to people, they're not going to even look at it twice. And it needs to be some kind of a nice fancy brochure, a slick brochure to hand out to people. But as it is, when this person talks about the State, what they suggest, that's the bare minimum. Again, we do not want to be the bare minimum. We are not Omaha, Nebraska, or something like that, they can just keep on ploughing under the cornfields outside of the city limits and make them into housing. When we build these houses out there on the Naval Air Station, after that where do you have a space large enough to put up more than a couple of houses at one time? You don't have it. And if Alameda doesn't have visitable or accessible housing, at least for some of their buildings, which would be 100% of all the new ones, then you will just have a city that is basically unvisitable, and have grandma come over and enjoy Christmas afternoon with them, if she's in a wheelchair. There're so many different things. I know we don't have the time for it. Elizabeth Kenny: We do have an additional public comment. Carol Gottstein? Page 14 | CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2016-10-12.pdf |