Happy Mother's Day Martinez

Okay I’m a tad tardy, normally I would finish that with “so shoot me” but I’m think’n there might be a taker or two…Well no matter, to all the mom’s out there I hope your day was wonderful. Personally I’d like a do over but hey we can’t have everything.

I have been mulling the proposed senior housing project since its inception, but hesitated in offering an opinion because I hadn’t taken the time to learn more about it. This week I popped my head in at the design review committee meeting and unfortunately my initial impression of the project proved to be correct. While mine may not reflect the opinions of the neighbors who would be directly impacted; I believe it’s valid nonetheless.

Sanctimony aside, whether or not the City of Martinez needs additional low income senior housing, what I heard and saw described at the design review meeting leaves a lot to be desired. I’ll get round to the grossly exaggerated economic benefit to the downtown another time, since my understanding of the residents who will be served supposedly fall into the ultra low and low income categories. If that’s the case then the notion the majority of these residents own transportation sounds a bit like puffery to me. A quick comparison of Aegis’s property on Oak Park Blvd. in Pleasant Hill offers a stark comparison to the proposed design with its curved driveway where residents are easily picked up and dropped off, under a height appropriate protective carport, just outside the main entrance. Inadequate parking aside how does the current design address easily accessible alternate modes of transportation? It doesn’t.

My Mother’s Day was spent decompressing from this year’s hospital stay for my own mother. As many of you reading this know she has COPD, i.e. emphysema, and around my house we all hold our collective breathes during cold and flu season. I thought we were home free when the holidays between Thanksgiving and Easter had passed without incident, that is until my housemate knocked on my bedroom door at 1:30a.m. alerting me to the 911 call.

I’ve come to see our close proximity to the emergency room as a blessing and I love the team of doctors and specialists who provide my mother’s care. She loves them too. I keep thinking Dr. Suchow will squeeze what remaining air she has clean out of her lungs when we go in for her quarterly check-ups. I can’t imagine what it would do to her mental health if we ever had to move away from her care providers. At the design review meeting a question was raised about the commitment to maintain this project as senior housing and not something easily morphed into a catchall low income project. I don’t believe that question was answered so let me restate it here and ask a qualifying question, where are these underserved seniors currently?

Another comment compared the project design to a big box something plopped on a piece of land without care or consideration to the surrounding neighborhood designs, much less the downtown specific plan. While that is a valid concern, I’m more concerned with tucking away a highly vulnerable group of residents into a remote corner of our city where ease of access to basic needs like medical clinics, pharmacies and hospitals appear to have been ignored.

While it’s true we have a gem of a county hospital, unless these seniors are already accessing this particular site and network what was the thought, they’d just change plans, doctors, hospitals and pharmacies with no ill affect to their mental health?

In my opinion, if RDC, the County and the City of Martinez really wish to serve this vulnerable segment of our society, they’re going to have to do better than this particular plan at this particular site.