Hello WUDO Supporters. We hope you’re easing your way into the holiday season and enjoying some of the fun local activities around town. We’ve been covering those for you in our 2nd Annual What’s Up Downtown Orinda Holiday Guide; look for more in our next installment later this week!
Today we have a few other items on our list we’d like to chat about. First, the Orinda City Council Meeting tonight at 7pm in the Orinda Library Auditorium: the Council will recognize outgoing Mayor Eve Phillips for her dedication to the role over the past year and a new Mayor will be nominated and sworn in for the coming year. We wonder who that will be?
One thing’s for certain: we’ll be asking our new Mayor and the entire City Council to put an updated General Plan at the top of their list for 2018. We’d also love to see a Downtown Specific Plan created to address the development opportunities that may present themselves in the next several years. This recent article on the transformation of a dark spot in the sleepy town of Santa Cruz got our creative juices flowing...
We were encouraged that 2017 brought movement in that area with the help of consultant groups Main Street America and ULI and we are still waiting to hear from City Council on how they can use the recommendations from these two groups to reshape Orinda's outdated General Plan.
The Downtown dilemma comes down to a few hot button points, one of which is housing. What type of housing, if any, is right for Downtown Orinda and where is the right place for it? How will it affect our City’s character? Parking? Schools? Wow… so much to think about and we will be back with more on all of this in the New Year.
Adding to the excitement is a slew of new legislation recently passed in Sacramento that could affect the way the state interacts with local governments when it comes to issues of housing. This recent article in the New York Times does a much better job than we can in explaining the potential impact on Orinda.
WUDO Supporters, you can help today by reaching out to our City Council and urging them to get moving on reshaping our outdated General Plan. Let’s chart our own course for the future together.