This morning, Sam and I headed out to Alameda Point. We’ve decided to downsize from our large single-family home and are excited to preview some of the smaller homes available at the Point.

We took the shuttle out to the new neighborhood shopping center and looked at the condos over the shops along the Ferry Terminal. We did some window shopping and strolled through the Farmer’s Market, then stopped for brunch at one of the new little restaurants along the lagoon. We worked off brunch by walking along the estuary, admiring the skyline of San Francisco as the fog lifted.

Along the way, we cheered some children playing soccer at one of the many sports parks and dropped off a book at the neighborhood library. A bus took us to see a nearby cottage that we are thinking of purchasing.

Then my cat jumped up on my lap and I abruptly awoke to realize that the Navy still owns the land, that the Plan to Revitalize Alameda Point that we have worked so hard to achieve over the last twenty years is in danger of being pecked to extinction, and in a cold chill I faced the reality of 2009, not the dream of 2020.

~Helen Sause, President, HOMES - Unpublished

As I read the article about the Alameda Theatre that appeared on the front page of Sunday's Business section, I couldn't help but think about how difficult it is in Alameda to accomplish such obviously needed developments. Our mayor was right when she said that trying to change Alameda usually ends up in a "Holy War." And it doesn't take much to remember how loud and vexatious the detractors of the theatre really were.

Is it possible that the small minority of disgruntled nay-sayers who made all the noise about the theatre have now found a new opponent in SunCal? And, is it possible that these are the same squeaky wheels who opposed the building of the library? And the development on Bay Farm Island?

The Alameda Point should be developed, and soon. There is a plan, it is a good one, albeit not perfect. The theatre, the library, and the Harbor Bay development proved that Alameda could become something different, and better, than that which had existed for many years. And the integration of residential and commercial development actually fits the base harbor.

Its about time that those of us who are "interested but usually remain quiet while the loud ones yell" speak out. I am an Alamedan who is tired of the Holy Wars.

~Ron Matthews, 'Naysayers Find New Target in SunCal',
Alameda Journal, Sept. 17th

While there are a lot of complex questions to be answered about SunCal's proposed development at Alameda Point, I think Alamedans should first answer the simple question: Do they even like what's being proposed?

I've seen the plans and I do like them. I like that Atlantic Avenue leads to a mixed-use town center, just as I enjoy the mixed-use "town centers" of Park Street and Webster Street. I can imagine going there just for fun. I like the fact that having homes, shops, parks and schools all in the same neighborhood means people could, if they wanted to, spend a day without their car.

As far as modern urban development goes, I like it. I don't know if everyone will, but to like it or not, you have to know about it. Suncal has a copy of their proposal online.

~Christopher Seiwald, 'SunCal's Proposal',
Alameda Sun, Aug. 27th

I have worked for more than 30 years for libraries in Alameda, from promoting school library services to the development of an adequate main library and branches to provide library services to the whole community. As I visit the main library and its branches it is obvious that preschoolers to elementary, high school and college students to adults and seniors are making use of these facilities.

The Revitalized Alameda Point plan includes 47 acres of civic spaces including a new branch library, a community center, schools, fire house and post office. These new facilities will benefit not just future residents of the Point, but current residents as well. The new facilities will pay for themselves through new revenues which will be generated by the project itself, not from current taxpayers.

Right now Alameda taxpayers are paying for maintenance on roads, pipes, sidewalks and sewers at the Point that date back to World War II. These are in areas that few people can use and are a constant drain on the taxes we pay today. The longer we wait to move forward on this project, the more money we are forced to spend on the upkeep of this idle and decaying infrastructure. The more money we spend on the upkeep of this idle infrastructure the more we lose out on using our resources for new schools and public safety .

I urge Alamedans to get behind the plan that will bring prosperity to this ignored portion of our city and put it to good use for all Alamedans.

~Honora Murphy, 'Get Behind the Plan',
Alameda Journal, Aug 13th

Mixed in with the discussion on the best plan for Alameda Point has been the topic of environmental sustainability. It made me curious to check out just what it really means to be green when it comes to land development.

According to the May/June Association of Bay Area Governments newsletter, 50 percent of Bay Area greenhouse gases come from transportation, as compared to the rest of the world at 14 percent. In the Bay Area, a 20 percent to 40 percent reduction in vehicle miles traveled can be achieved with compact development as compared to sprawl.

The SunCal plan calls for compact development with the inclusion of condos, townhomes and apartments, in addition to single-family homes, which enables more compact development. A compact development means less reliance on the automobile for several reasons: it promotes mixed-use, meaning businesses, retail, civic, recreational uses and housing coexist, greatly reducing the distances that need to be traveled for everyday needs or amenities; it supports walking and biking as alternatives to the car due to these shorter distances and the completeness of the neighborhood; and it supports public transportation options and frequency of service because there are enough residents who live close enough to use public transportation.

Transportation strategies in the plan include a new ferry terminal, bus rapid transit, an EcoPass program, carshare and carpool programs, guaranteed ride home program, community bicycle strategy, and adaptive parking pricing.

These strategies de-emphasize the need for the automobile, which benefits all Alamedans in terms of traffic. And it greatly reduces carbon emissions, which is what being green really means.

~Nancy Heastings, 'Small Developments Help Environment',
Alameda Sun, Aug. 7th & Alameda Journal, Aug. 13th

Faith McDonald's intentions may have been honorable, but her recent letter to the editor ("What's the Point?" Aug. 6) had the facts wrong about the residents of the Alameda Point Collaborative, currently living out at Alameda Point.

APC has a 59-year lease on housing and other properties at Alameda Point. This lease cannot be broken by SunCal. There is no danger or possibility of our residents being "hustled off the island" as Ms. McDonald alleges.

Calls to do nothing or to protect the Point as is are actually the greatest threat to our community members, and would likely result in their dislocation — intentionally or otherwise, as this do-nothing approach provides no solution to replacing the current infrastructure that is on the verge of failure.

Also contrary to Ms. McDonald's statement, APC residents have had a significant voice in the redevelopment plans, having attended every public planning meeting (and there have been lots) going back to the meetings held in the flight tower more than four years ago.

SunCal has also met specifically with our community to incorporate our needs and ideas into the development plans in ways that will enhance our neighborhood and the services we offer.

APC residents are supportive of the proposed redevelopment for the new job opportunities, recreation sites, civic opportunities and transportation enhancements it will offer.

That is the vision established for Alameda Point in the general plan, and for those of us who have been waiting for that vision to manifest over the last decade, we look forward to finally getting some new neighbors and new job opportunities!

~Doug Biggs, 'APC Is Involved',
Executive Director, Alameda Point Collaborative, Alameda Sun, Aug. 13th

HOMES continues to fully support the SunCal plan to revitalize Alameda Point. We appreciate the timing of the election being postponed until 2010 to enable more Alamedans to fully understand the plan and the benefits it offers to our community and to enable more time at the negotiating table between the Navy, the city and SunCal.

This is an extremely good plan for Alameda Point. It brings economic opportunities, employment, transit and recreational benefits to the whole community. It takes a virtually unusable, decaying old military base that requires cleanup and construction of infrastructure systems to turn it into a sustainable, new neighborhood providing an array of housing, jobs, revenues and amenities for the community.

This plan has been in the works for 15 years. There have been dozens of community meetings to gather input from Alamedans. The community's key goals and principles have been incorporated into the city's general plan. And now, at long last, we have a developer who has figured out a way to turn the community vision into a physical and fiscal reality.

It is time that we finally do something positive out at the Point. Some of us would like to see this happen in our lifetimes. It is now vitally important that SunCal and the city continue to work swiftly and cooperatively to keep this plan on track.

~Helen Sause, 'Stay On Track',
Alameda Journal, Aug. 15th

I agree that it would be wonderful to have a green technology/sustainable energy research park at Alameda Point (Letters, Aug. 13). It has been the dream of many of us who care about the environment that Alameda Point include a major employer in the green technology or environmental sustainability field. But this is just part of the dream.

Imagine if those who worked for such an employer were able to walk to work, shop locally, and have access to all sorts of recreational opportunities without having to commute on and off the Island.

Imagine if there were a variety of shopping options so that those who live on the Point could shop without using their cars. The SunCal plan for Alameda Point includes a large campus for a major employer as well as space for other job creation opportunities, civic and recreational amenities, and an array of housing choices. I encourage those who care about the environment to take a look at the SunCal plan to revitalize Alameda Point.

~Barbara Kahn, 'Open-Minded',
Alameda Journal, Alameda Sun, Aug. 20th

In all the talk about options at Alameda Point, one point is often lost. Development will occur at Alameda Point. The land is too valuable to let it sit fallow. The question is what type of development will it be: A planned entity incorporating the goals put forth by the people of Alameda, or will it be auctioned off piecemeal by the Navy, which still owns the land, to the highest bidder?

Unfortunately, piecemeal development means no overriding community principles will guide development. The result will be a project much like Bayport, which lacks a mix of housing types, neighborhood amenities, walkability and transit options.

The goals developed by the community include open space, sports fields, parks, neighborhood retail and opportunities for walking and cycling. Having mixed-use development, a variety of housing types and transit mitigations linked to the potential users as the neighborhood is built out make this possible. The use of alternative energy sources, energy-efficient building, use of recycled materials and preservation of natural resources make such a development "green."

The SunCal plan is built on these community principles. It certainly seems a better option than piecemeal development. It's important that the new neighborhood at Alameda Point be a credit to our community. Let's examine the facts to make sure that happens.

~Selina Faulhaber, 'Community Principles',
Alameda Sun, Sept. 3rd

No one would dare run for office in Alameda on the slogan "change you can believe in."

Change is a fighting word on the island, where there is a determined constituency against almost anything that would alter the landscape or - horror of horrors - entice people to cross a bridge to shop, play or live here.

As a 20-year resident of Alameda, I share a certain protective streak toward a city of 75,000 that has retained a small-town ambience in the heart of a heavily urbanized region.

But what never ceases to amaze me is the ferocity of the fights over any attempt to update and upgrade the city from the way it was in 1959. Alameda cedes nothing to San Francisco or Berkeley when it comes to NIMBY resistance to progress.

"I think about that all the time," Mayor Beverly Johnson said. "Every time you want to do something, it's like a holy war."

Any city, even one as placid and picturesque as Alameda, must keep evolving to maintain its charm and vitality - and to stop the inevitable slide toward blight.

I reflected on Alameda's aversion to change on a recent Sunday night as I dined in one of the newly thriving restaurants on Park Street. It wasn't so long ago that the town's culinary choices were so bereft that the opening of an Applebee's generated long waiting lines for months.

Before the epic fights over whether to allow the long dormant Art Deco Alameda Theatre to become a cineplex and to build an adjacent parking garage, the Park Street area would have been desolate on a summer night. The people who are now filling restaurants, browsing Books Inc. and attending first-run movies would have been spending their dollars in Emeryville or at Oakland's Jack London Square. The teenagers who are waiting tables and collecting movie tickets might otherwise have been unemployed.

Several blocks away, a new library - which took three elections to approve - replaces what used to be the site of a run-down motel that was a frequent address on the police blotter.

Today, would anyone in Alameda really want to trade the library for that crime-infested motel or a thriving Park Street for the "vacancy" signs that were abundant even during the late-1990s boom years? They certainly tried. Thankfully, they failed.

The 50-year-old South Shore shopping mall - I refuse to use its incongruous new name, Towne Centre - recently was renovated. The open-air atmosphere and the shopping choices improved notably. But one significant piece remains unconverted: a boarded-up grocery store on the western edge. It was going to be a Target, until certain locals cried foul over potential traffic. Now it is slated to be an Orchard Supply Hardware, though, predictably, the town's hardware stores tried to stop it.

I might have to wear a disguise for my next trip to Pagano's or Encinal Hardware, but it strikes this do-it-yourselfer that the real beneficiary of such protectionism would be the Home Depot across the estuary in Oakland. For the moment, at least, OSH's plans appear to have been slowed by the economy.

The ultimate conversation-stopper in Alameda politics is Measure A, a 1973 charter amendment that banned the construction of multiple-dwelling units in the city. It was further tightened in 1991 to impose a maximum density of one housing unit per 2,000 square feet.

A visitor to Alameda might see the "Keep Measure A" signs around town and assume an election is imminent. It is not. The signs are there, year after year, to send a message: Don't even think about repealing it.

The rationale for the 1973 Measure A rebellion remains apparent to even the most casual observer. In the city's tree-lined neighborhoods, otherwise stately blocks of Victorians and Craftsman homes are interrupted by lots in which an older home was razed in the late 1960s to make way for a drab, boxy apartment building. During that period, it has been estimated that single-family homes were being torn down at the rate of one every five days.

"It was certainly an overreaction, but that's what they saw - and it was awful, just awful," Don Perata, the former state Senate leader and an Alameda native, said of Measure A. "You would see a Victorian torn down on a 200- or 300-foot-deep lot ... and they would put up some schlock."

It's safe to say that fight has been won. Alameda now has vigorous requirements for historic review, as I can attest, having paid several hundred dollars for city approval to tear down a nondescript, rotting wooden shed and replace it with a garage that would match the architectural lines and stucco exterior of my 1920s-era Mediterranean. I appreciate the city's newfound vigilance on protecting older structures, even if the fees seemed excessive.

Still, the enduring near-religious devotion to Measure A is not only archaic and absurd, it's a serious threat to the city's No. 1 challenge: redevelopment of the Alameda Naval Air Station, which was shut down in 1997 and remains mostly a ghost town, save for soccer fields and a few businesses that have set up shop in old hangars.

We can argue about the details - and, in Alameda, you can be sure we will - but the overriding vision for "smart growth" on the abandoned Navy base is clear: a development that would cluster homes in sufficient density to assure open space, support nearby retail stores, and create commercial space that would provide jobs and services to residents. And the ferry to San Francisco would be just a short walk or bike ride away.

"If ever there was a perfect place to have a water-oriented development, this is it," Perata said. "Otherwise, you might as well turn the property over to the Port of Oakland."

The trouble is, any sensible plan would require an exemption from Measure A, which would require a public vote. SunCal, the city's designated master developer for the former air station, is planning to bring such a measure to the ballot in 2010.

It's a guaranteed tussle, but one that must be fought for the city to seize the opportunity to guide the future of the western third of the island, with its spectacular views and access to the bay.

Tony Daysog, a former Alameda councilman, said he was optimistic that rigid allegiance to Measure A might be weakening with the turnover in homes over the last decade. Alameda's populace has become younger, more diverse, more educated.

"I like to use the term 'metropolitan,' "Daysog said, adding that the recognition of the effects of land-use decisions on global warming could help change the debate on modifying Measure A.

"In the mid '90s, I would have said 'No, no, no - you have a long way to go,' " Daysog said. "People are more attuned in the larger issues involved in having a mix of homes at Alameda Point."

Mayor Johnson has taken abundant heat for her support of the SunCal project. She makes a persuasive case that a large expanse of single-family homes at Alameda Point would create far more traffic than a compact, mixed-use development.

"We're in the middle of the Bay Area, which is one of the most urbanized areas in the country," she observed. "To pretend like we're just this little Mayberry is not realistic ... Alameda is a wonderful place, but it's not Mayberry."

A Mayberry mentality might not be realistic, but it is an entrenched and powerful element of the city's politics. Alameda continues to evolve - for the better - in spite of it.

John Diaz is The Chronicle's editorial page editor. You can e-mail him at jdiaz@sfchronicle.com.

~John Diaz , 'OPINION: Alameda braces for change',
San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 28, 2009