Parking Pirates

Be aware that Oakland has changed its parking enforcement to run until 8pm instead of the current 6pm cutoff. They are also aggressively enforcing neighborhood street parking regulations and raising parking ticket fees. This is in an effort to raise some cash. Kind of like pirates asking you to pay a little “extra protection” to sail past their port. To me, this seems like the wrong message to send to Oakland small businesses.

So if you head out to Zachary’s, Diesel Books, L’Amyx, Lanesplitter, or Peet’s, make sure to check the parking hours and curb your wheels properly or you could be hit with an expensive ticket.

You can read more at the SFGate and the East Bay Express.

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The New Broadway/Pleasant Valley Safeway Plaza … on Steroids

The Oakland Planning Commission is set to hear the proposal to re-develop the plaza where the Safeway and Longs are (and Emil Villa’s was) tomorrow, July 15, 2009.  The new development will be substantially bigger and will likely include CVS as well as Safeway as anchor tenants.  It seems like Longs would be out.  You can view the plans here.  Some of it may be an improvement (e.g., 2 left turn lanes from Pleasant Valley into the mall and proposed shops along PV – if they are accessible from the street and not just the parking lot), but much of it appears to lack the types of bike/pedestrian-oriented amenities that make communities livable.  For example it looks like the entrances to the mall are all auto-centric, including the one directly across from the senior center!  If this get’s built it will be there for a long time, so if you have something to say about it you might want to contact the “case planner” Darin Ranelletti at (510) 238-3663 or by e-mail at dranelletti@oaklandnet.com

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