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Urban life a core value for Echo Boomer families

By Rachel SwanApril 12, 2015 Updated: April 12, 2015 6:56pm
4
Martha Rynberg takes a look at a loose tooth of her daughter Carter., 6, in the kitchen of their apartment in the Uptown area of Oakland, CA, on Monday, April 2, 2015. Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle
Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle
Image 3 of 12Sisters Olive (left), 15, and Carter, 6, hang out at the dinning table of their apartment in the Uptown area of Oakland, a place their mother loves living in but wishes it had more community spaces to gather.
IMAGE 1 OF 12
Martha Rynberg takes a look at a loose tooth of her daughter Carter., 6, in the kitchen of their apartment in the Uptown area of Oakland, CA, on Monday, April 2, 2015.
Five years after moving her family into a downtown Oakland apartment complex, Martha Rynberg has no plans to leave. She loves leaning out her tiny Juliet balcony and gazing at food trucks, or the traffic. When an Occupy encampment sprang up nearby, she wholeheartedly embraced its message.

All the same, she wishes her daughters, who are 15 and 6, had a place to play.

“I wouldn’t describe this as inviting for families,” Rynberg said, standing amid the Ramona books, Hello Kitty rain boots, and kid toys that deck the living room of her three-bedroom apartment inside the Uptown complex. While there are perhaps dozens of families living in the Uptown, there aren’t enough community spaces to gather, she says. The outdoor pool is only for swimming; the art park next door is too saturated in dog pee, she said.

Despite those frustrations, Rynberg said she loves raising kids in the heart of the city. And she isn’t alone. So-called Echo Boomers or Boomerang Generation folks — people in their early-to-mid 30s who are getting married and having kids — might have grown up in the suburbs, but they don’t necessarily want to raise their families there.

RELATED

Ben Delaney, President of the Jack London District Association pictured in Jack London Square, in front of the ferry lawn March 17, 2015 in Oakland, Calif. Jack London Square is latest height-limit battlefield Berkeley’s sensible approach to housing demand People walk past the Sears building in downtown Oakland, CA, on Thursday, March 26, 2015.
Construction on the Uptown Station project is underway at the old Sears building on 20th Street and Broadway in downtown Oakland. One building symbolizes Oakland’s transformation
“There’s a generation of families emerging that appreciate walk-ability and diversity,” said Carolina Reid, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at UC Berkeley. She said a variety of factors drew families out to the suburbs in the 1950s, among them freeway construction, federal aid for mortgages, and even advertising campaigns that touted the benefits of a green lawn and a yard. Once families moved in they pushed for better parks and school systems, which in turn made those bedroom communities more desirable places to live.

Move back to cities

But investment is shifting back to cities, and families are following suit. Developers say the migratory pattern of previous generations has changed in places like the East Bay, which gained about 70,000 people between 2010 and 2013 alone, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. While many of the people coming in are wealthy singles, some, like Rynberg, are parents willing to cope with a smaller living space and an urban school system.

“We’re beginning to see families who want to be part of the urban core, who are comfortable taking public transportation, and who are comfortable not owning automobiles,” said John Protopappas, founder of Madison Park Financial Corp., one of Oakland’s more prodigious housing developers. He says he added more two- and three-bedroom units to a new project at 3900 Adeline St. to address the shift in market demand, and he might add more three-bedrooms to a forthcoming project at 34th and Hollis streets.

Yet competition for housing is stiff, and it’s still more cost-effective for developers to flood the market with single-bedroom units, which earn more money per square foot. Families that currently reside in Oakland’s downtown corridor say they’re faced with rising rents and a paucity of open space, in an area that’s largely geared for a new population of wealthy single professionals.

Rent skyrocketing

San Francisco’s tech boom has its own warping aftereffects, most notably that it’s causing real estate prices to skyrocket. As the city becomes a hotbed for tech workers, it seems only the wealthiest families are able to afford to stay there.

East Bay residents say they’re seeing hints of the same pattern as tech-boom investment starts migrating across the bridge.

“The rents ... are great if I’m 27, I work for Google, I don’t have a kid, and life is peachy,” said Jonathan Grisham, a single father who was recently displaced from his apartment at 901 Jefferson, a bright blue-and-green building that’s come to symbolize Oakland’s affordable housing battle. In February, residents there received notices that their rents would increase to meet the market rate, at the behest of Berkshire Group, the Boston-based company that bought 901 Jefferson from Madison Park Financial in December.

The 901 Jefferson complex had long appealed to parents like Grisham, who were willing to put up with crime, pollution, and the chaos of Oakland’s nightclubs, in exchange for the perks of living downtown. Mia Metcalf, a single mother of a 2-year-old, said she moved there in 2011 to be close to the restaurants in Chinatown.

Shift in vision

“A lot of us had young kids or were pregnant when we moved in,” Metcalf said, adding that Madison Park Financial kept the rent substantially low. Protopappas explained that the housing market favored tenants when he bought the building in 2009, and that his company’s policy is to only meet the market rate when apartments turn over. The building is not zoned to include affordable housing units.

Berkshire had a different vision for 901 Jefferson, Grisham believes. “They’re catering to the influx of tech workers in the East Bay,” he said, adding that he and his daughter moved to Alameda after the monthly rent on their 775-square-foot apartment rose from $1,850 to $3,200, plus additional fees for parking, utilities, and improvements.

A spokesman from Berkshire group said the new rental rates are competitive with those of other apartment complexes in the area. “We believe that 901 Jefferson will continue to appeal to a wide demographic of residents who desire living in a modern apartment community in close proximity to transportation, employment, retail and amenities,” he added.

What’s best for kids

Grisham is now resigned to living away from the urban core of Oakland, where he expects to find a better quality of life. “I would love to move back to Oakland,” he said. “But ultimately it’s better for my daughter to have more green space and better schools.”

Rynberg resists that idea. “Living downtown provides us with access to everything — school choice, events, transportation,” she said. “I want my kids to grow up feeling like they can live in the world however they want to.”

Few people are more adamant about family housing than Emeryville City Councilwoman Jac Asher. In February, she backed a controversial moratorium that would have halted approvals for four major residential projects, so that the city could study issues like affordability and unit size.

The proposal failed, but Asher is still struggling to bring more families into Emeryville.

“We see people who want to stay, but we’re not giving them the option to do that,” said Asher, a mother of two who moved to the city from North Oakland because of its day care facilities. With three-bedroom apartments comprising only 6 percent of the city’s housing stock, she added, it’s no surprise that there aren’t enough families sticking around to bolster the school district and other public resources.

Big Emeryville turnover

According to Asher, Emeryville currently has a 30 percent population turnover each year. She thinks many of those folks are families moving to outlying suburbs, out of necessity rather than choice.

Developers and city planners who opposed the moratorium believed it would have a chilling effect, and argued that it’s not the city’s job to legislate more three- and four-bedroom apartments into existence. Former El Cerrito Mayor Ann Cheng, who now serves as a program director at the transportation policy group TransForm, called the moratorium a “bull in the china shop” approach.

Still, Cheng said, when you consider all the benefits that family housing has for cities, it’s not surprising that some officials are taking a bullish approach.

“You increase public safety with more households on street corners,” she said, adding that a rise in two-income households could also bring more money to local businesses.

Less parking needed

Cheng believes that developers could offset the cost of building bigger units by reducing the number of parking spaces they provide, given that Echo Boomers drive less than their parents, anyway. To that end, Protopappas says he’s only leased 76 of the 92 available parking spaces in his West Oakland Lampwork Lofts development, and that he’s built an additional room for residents to stow their bikes.

He too sees a generational shift in the housing market. Families are rejecting the suburbs and instead seeking areas of “vitality and innovation,” Protopappas said. If that pattern persists, then Oakland and Emeryville might come to resemble denser cities like New York

ผลลัพธ์ (ไทย) 1:

63° SubscribeSign InLocalFree Access VieYou've been granted free access to this San Francisco Chronicle article.Subscribe today for full access to the San Francisco Chronicle in print, online and on your iPad.SubscribeUrban life a core value for Echo Boomer familiesBy Rachel SwanApril 12, 2015 Updated: April 12, 2015 6:56pm4Martha Rynberg takes a look at a loose tooth of her daughter Carter., 6, in the kitchen of their apartment in the Uptown area of Oakland, CA, on Monday, April 2, 2015. Photo: Michael Short, Special To The ChroniclePhoto: Michael Short, Special To The ChronicleImage 3 of 12Sisters Olive (left), 15, and Carter, 6, hang out at the dinning table of their apartment in the Uptown area of Oakland, a place their mother loves living in but wishes it had more community spaces to gather.IMAGE 1 OF 12Martha Rynberg takes a look at a loose tooth of her daughter Carter., 6, in the kitchen of their apartment in the Uptown area of Oakland, CA, on Monday, April 2, 2015.Five years after moving her family into a downtown Oakland apartment complex, Martha Rynberg has no plans to leave. She loves leaning out her tiny Juliet balcony and gazing at food trucks, or the traffic. When an Occupy encampment sprang up nearby, she wholeheartedly embraced its message.All the same, she wishes her daughters, who are 15 and 6, had a place to play.“I wouldn’t describe this as inviting for families,” Rynberg said, standing amid the Ramona books, Hello Kitty rain boots, and kid toys that deck the living room of her three-bedroom apartment inside the Uptown complex. While there are perhaps dozens of families living in the Uptown, there aren’t enough community spaces to gather, she says. The outdoor pool is only for swimming; the art park next door is too saturated in dog pee, she said.Despite those frustrations, Rynberg said she loves raising kids in the heart of the city. And she isn’t alone. So-called Echo Boomers or Boomerang Generation folks — people in their early-to-mid 30s who are getting married and having kids — might have grown up in the suburbs, but they don’t necessarily want to raise their families there.RELATED Ben Delaney, President of the Jack London District Association pictured in Jack London Square, in front of the ferry lawn March 17, 2015 in Oakland, Calif. Jack London Square is latest height-limit battlefield Berkeley’s sensible approach to housing demand People walk past the Sears building in downtown Oakland, CA, on Thursday, March 26, 2015. Construction on the Uptown Station project is underway at the old Sears building on 20th Street and Broadway in downtown Oakland. One building symbolizes Oakland’s transformation"มีการสร้างครอบครัวใหม่ที่สามารถเดินและหลากหลาย กล่าวว่า แคโรไลนา Reid ผู้ช่วยศาสตราจารย์การเมืองและการวางแผนภูมิภาคที่เบิร์กลีย์ UC เธอกล่าวว่า ความหลากหลายของปัจจัยดึงครอบครัวออกไปชานเมืองในช่วงทศวรรษ 1950 ฝ่ายก่อสร้างฟรีเวย์ ความช่วยเหลือของรัฐบาลกลางเพื่อจำนอง และแม้แต่แคมเปญโฆษณาที่ touted ประโยชน์ของสนามหญ้าสีเขียวและศอก เมื่อครอบครัวย้ายใน พวกเขาผลักดันสวนดีกว่าและระบบโรงเรียน ซึ่งจะทำ ชุมชนห้องนอนที่เหมาะอยู่ย้ายกลับไปเมืองแต่เป็นการขยับลงทุนไปเมือง และครอบครัวที่มีต่อชุด นักพัฒนากล่าวว่า รูปแบบการอพยพของรุ่นก่อนหน้านี้มีการเปลี่ยนแปลงในสถานที่เช่นอ่าวตะวันออก ซึ่งได้ประมาณ 70000 คนระหว่างปี 2553 และ 2013 คนเดียว ตามข้อมูลจากสหรัฐอเมริกากรมเคหะและ Urban พัฒนา ในขณะที่หลายคนมารวย เดี่ยว บางอย่าง เช่น Rynberg เป็นผู้ปกครองเต็มใจที่จะรับมือกับพื้นที่ขนาดเล็กและระบบการเมืองโรงเรียน"เรากำลังเริ่มจะเห็นครอบครัวที่ต้องการเป็นส่วนหนึ่งของหลักเมือง ที่สะดวกสบายการเดินทาง และที่พักไม่เป็นเจ้าของรถ กล่าวว่า จอห์น Protopappas ผู้ก่อตั้งของเมดิสันสวนเงิน Corp. หนึ่งในนักพัฒนาอยู่อาศัยที่มหัศจรรย์มากของโอ๊คแลนด์ เขากล่าวว่า เขาเพิ่มมากกว่า สอง และสามนอนกับโครงการใหม่ที่ 3900 Adeline เซนต์เพื่อกะความต้องการตลาด และเขาอาจเพิ่มเติมสามห้องนอนโครงการชมรม 34th และถนน HollisYet competition for housing is stiff, and it’s still more cost-effective for developers to flood the market with single-bedroom units, which earn more money per square foot. Families that currently reside in Oakland’s downtown corridor say they’re faced with rising rents and a paucity of open space, in an area that’s largely geared for a new population of wealthy single professionals.Rent skyrocketingSan Francisco’s tech boom has its own warping aftereffects, most notably that it’s causing real estate prices to skyrocket. As the city becomes a hotbed for tech workers, it seems only the wealthiest families are able to afford to stay there.East Bay residents say they’re seeing hints of the same pattern as tech-boom investment starts migrating across the bridge.“The rents ... are great if I’m 27, I work for Google, I don’t have a kid, and life is peachy,” said Jonathan Grisham, a single father who was recently displaced from his apartment at 901 Jefferson, a bright blue-and-green building that’s come to symbolize Oakland’s affordable housing battle. In February, residents there received notices that their rents would increase to meet the market rate, at the behest of Berkshire Group, the Boston-based company that bought 901 Jefferson from Madison Park Financial in December.The 901 Jefferson complex had long appealed to parents like Grisham, who were willing to put up with crime, pollution, and the chaos of Oakland’s nightclubs, in exchange for the perks of living downtown. Mia Metcalf, a single mother of a 2-year-old, said she moved there in 2011 to be close to the restaurants in Chinatown.Shift in vision“A lot of us had young kids or were pregnant when we moved in,” Metcalf said, adding that Madison Park Financial kept the rent substantially low. Protopappas explained that the housing market favored tenants when he bought the building in 2009, and that his company’s policy is to only meet the market rate when apartments turn over. The building is not zoned to include affordable housing units.Berkshire had a different vision for 901 Jefferson, Grisham believes. “They’re catering to the influx of tech workers in the East Bay,” he said, adding that he and his daughter moved to Alameda after the monthly rent on their 775-square-foot apartment rose from $1,850 to $3,200, plus additional fees for parking, utilities, and improvements.A spokesman from Berkshire group said the new rental rates are competitive with those of other apartment complexes in the area. “We believe that 901 Jefferson will continue to appeal to a wide demographic of residents who desire living in a modern apartment community in close proximity to transportation, employment, retail and amenities,” he added.
What’s best for kids

Grisham is now resigned to living away from the urban core of Oakland, where he expects to find a better quality of life. “I would love to move back to Oakland,” he said. “But ultimately it’s better for my daughter to have more green space and better schools.”

Rynberg resists that idea. “Living downtown provides us with access to everything — school choice, events, transportation,” she said. “I want my kids to grow up feeling like they can live in the world however they want to.”

Few people are more adamant about family housing than Emeryville City Councilwoman Jac Asher. In February, she backed a controversial moratorium that would have halted approvals for four major residential projects, so that the city could study issues like affordability and unit size.

The proposal failed, but Asher is still struggling to bring more families into Emeryville.

“We see people who want to stay, but we’re not giving them the option to do that,” said Asher, a mother of two who moved to the city from North Oakland because of its day care facilities. With three-bedroom apartments comprising only 6 percent of the city’s housing stock, she added, it’s no surprise that there aren’t enough families sticking around to bolster the school district and other public resources.

Big Emeryville turnover

According to Asher, Emeryville currently has a 30 percent population turnover each year. She thinks many of those folks are families moving to outlying suburbs, out of necessity rather than choice.

Developers and city planners who opposed the moratorium believed it would have a chilling effect, and argued that it’s not the city’s job to legislate more three- and four-bedroom apartments into existence. Former El Cerrito Mayor Ann Cheng, who now serves as a program director at the transportation policy group TransForm, called the moratorium a “bull in the china shop” approach.

Still, Cheng said, when you consider all the benefits that family housing has for cities, it’s not surprising that some officials are taking a bullish approach.

“You increase public safety with more households on street corners,” she said, adding that a rise in two-income households could also bring more money to local businesses.

Less parking needed

Cheng believes that developers could offset the cost of building bigger units by reducing the number of parking spaces they provide, given that Echo Boomers drive less than their parents, anyway. To that end, Protopappas says he’s only leased 76 of the 92 available parking spaces in his West Oakland Lampwork Lofts development, and that he’s built an additional room for residents to stow their bikes.

He too sees a generational shift in the housing market. Families are rejecting the suburbs and instead seeking areas of “vitality and innovation,” Protopappas said. If that pattern persists, then Oakland and Emeryville might come to resemble denser cities like New York

ผลลัพธ์ (ไทย) 3:

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swanapril โดยราเชล 12 2015 ปรับปรุง : 12 เมษายน 2015 6:56pm
4
มาร์ธา rynberg ใช้เวลาดูที่ฟันหลวม ของลูกสาว คาร์เตอร์ . 6 ในครัวของพาร์ทเมนท์ของพวกเขาในพื้นที่ตอนบนของ Oakland , CA , ในวันจันทร์ที่ , เมษายน 2 , 2015 รูปถ่าย : ไมเคิลสั้นพิเศษ , ประวัติการ
รูปถ่าย : ไมเคิลสั้นพิเศษเพื่อบันทึกภาพ 3
12sisters มะกอก ( ซ้าย ) , 15 , คาร์เตอร์ , 6 , แขวนออกที่โต๊ะกินข้าวของพาร์ทเมนท์ของพวกเขาในพื้นที่ตอนบนของโอ๊คแลนด์ที่แม่ของเขาชอบอาศัยอยู่ใน แต่ความปรารถนามันมีชุมชนเป็นเพื่อรวบรวม ภาพที่ 12

1 Martha rynberg ใช้เวลาดูที่ฟันหลวม ของลูกสาว คาร์เตอร์ . 6 ในครัวของพาร์ทเมนท์ของพวกเขาในพื้นที่ตอนบนของ Oakland , CA , ในวันจันทร์ที่ , เมษายน 2 , 2015 .
ห้าปีหลังจากที่ย้ายครอบครัวของเธอในตัวเมืองโอ๊คแลนด์ อพาร์ทเม้นท์ มาร์ธา rynberg ไม่มีแผนการที่จะปล่อยเธอชอบเอียงออกระเบียงเล็กๆ จูเลียต เธอและจ้องมองรถบรรทุกอาหารหรือการจราจร เมื่อครอบครองค่ายดีดขึ้นมาใกล้เคียง นางสุดใจ กอดข้อความ

เหมือนเดิม เธอปรารถนาให้บุตรสาวของเธอที่ 15 และ 6 , มีสถานที่เล่น

" ผมไม่อธิบายเรื่องนี้ให้ครอบครัว " rynberg บอกว่ายืนอยู่ท่ามกลางฝนรองเท้าคิตตี้ ราโมน่า หนังสือ ,เด็กของเล่นและเครื่องเล่นที่ห้องนั่งเล่นของเธอสามห้องนอนภายในตัวเมืองที่ซับซ้อน ในขณะที่บางทีมีหลายสิบของครอบครัวที่อาศัยอยู่ในชานเมืองมีไม่เพียงพอ ชุมชน เป็นการรวบรวม , เธอกล่าวว่า . สระว่ายน้ำกลางแจ้งมีแค่ว่าย ; ศิลปะสวนสาธารณะประตูถัดไปมันอิ่มตัวในฉี่หมา , เธอกล่าวว่า .

แม้จะผิดหวังเหล่านั้นrynberg บอกว่าเธอชอบเลี้ยงเด็กในหัวใจของเมือง แล้วเธอก็ไม่ได้อยู่คนเดียว ที่เรียกว่า boomers ก้องหรือ Boomerang รุ่น folks - คนในช่วงต้น 30s กลางที่กำลังจะแต่งงานและมีเด็กอาจเติบโตในแถบชานเมือง แต่ก็ไม่จําเป็นต้องเลี้ยงดูครอบครัวของตนเองมี

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เบนโรประธานของแจ็คลอนดอนตำบลสมาคมภาพในแจ็คลอนดอนสแควร์ในด้านหน้าของท่าเรือ สนาม 17 มีนาคม 2015 ในโอกแลนด์ , รัฐแคลิฟอร์เนียแจ็คลอนดอนสแควร์เป็นสนามรบล่าสุดที่จำกัดความสูงของเบิร์กลีย์เหมาะสมแนวทางความต้องการที่อยู่อาศัย คนเดินผ่านร้านอาคารในเมือง Oakland , CA , วันพฤหัสบดี , มีนาคม 26 , 2015