In 1993, the League of
Women Voters of Oakland published a benchmark study titled “The Waterfront: It
touches the World. How does it touch
The study is available
online at: www.waterfrontaction.org/learn/lwvo.htm.
The Estuary Policy Plan is available online at: www.portofoakland.com/realesta/reso_05.asp
The Estuary Policy Plan for
the Oak to 9th area intends the area to be a major open space-indeed, the main
place where the public would have access to the waterfront. In addition, it
states that a Specific Plan for the area should be done before development. A
Specific Plan is a tool for the systematic implementation of the General Plan. In
the healthy course of events, a city’s elected officials, staff and the public
all sit down together and decide what they would like done in a specific area.
Developers are then asked to propose projects that meet that vision.
The Oak to 9th area is
owned by the
Despite the concerns and
objections voiced by numerous individuals and groups to the developer’s plan,
the Oakland City Council has approved it
For more details on the
history of the project, go to: www.waterfrontaction.org/plans/oak9_project.htm
So what is the problem with
the project that is being planned?
There are many issues of
grave concern. A few are outlined below.
1. First, the Estuary
Policy Plan was adopted in 1999 with broad public support:
It represents one of the
most significant additions to public park space in the entire Bay Area. In 2003
2. The process used to
develop the proposal:
The entire project was
devised backward. In a good planning process, City officials, staff and the
public would decide together what
3.
Lack of open space:
In the Estuary Policy Plan,
the Oak to 9th area was to have provided significant public access to the
waterfront, both physically and visually. It was to include a regional
sized open space, providing space for city festivals, and giving the public
clear views of the waterfront. This current plan significantly reduces the
amount of open space, eliminates an area that can be used for public festivals,
and blocks most of the views of the waterfront. One of
4. Affordable housing:
The proposal calls for the
legal minimum for affordable housing in a redevelopment area. It is crucial to
note that The City of Oakland-not the developer, who will be profiting from this
deal-is subsidizing that affordable housing, and this will utilize all of the
City's affordable housing money for the next ten years. We think the developer
should be required to pay a fair share of the project's affordable housing
requirement so that the City's limited affordable housing funds can be used
elsewhere. As well, by subsidizing the housing in this project, the City
sets a precedent; developers in future developments will expect similar
subsidies. In addition, the affordable housing units are located too close to
the freeway to be considered safe by public health professionals. Other concerns
about these units have also been raised.
5. School:
There is no provision for a
school in this area. There will be over 1,000 children in the area when it is
fully developed. The public schools serving the area are already overcrowded,
and access to them would require the children to cross a major access street,
railroad tracks and the 880 freeway.
6. Air quality:
The plan calls for housing,
in particular the affordable housing, to be developed adjacent to the 880
freeway. There is no plan for ventilation and filtration systems that would help
protect the residents from respiratory diseases.
7.
The plan calls for the
demolition of the historic
At this point Community
activists representing numerous groups and concerns have testified about the
deficiencies in this plan before the City Council Planning Commission and the
Parks and Recreation Commission. In addition, they have submitted formal
comments on the Environmental Impact Report. There have been only a few changes
to the plan and we feel that it still has significant problems. Therefore, community
activists have joined together to try to stop this development. Some are
pursuing lawsuits, outlined below, and we are mounting a drive to collect
signatures for a referendum which will halt the plans that are steamrolling
ahead to take Oak to Ninth from Oaklanders and literally give it away to a
developer who couldn’t care less about our city.
1. Lawsuits:
There are one, and
potentially two, lawsuits against the City based on the Environmental Impact
Report. The first is by the Oakland Heritage, and focuses on the portion of
the EIR dealing with the Ninth Avenue Terminal. The second (potential) suit
would deal with the other deficiencies that many of us see with the EIR.
2. Referendum:
A coalition of groups has
formed to collect signatures for a referendum on the Development Agreement.
The coalition includes the Northern Alameda County Sierra Club, the League of
Women Voters of Oakland, and a number of other irate and very concerned
citizens.
In a referendum, if enough
valid signatures are gathered, the City would be required to put the development
on hold until they either rescind their vote for the agreement to the
development, or put the agreement to a vote of the people. This would not
be in time for the November ballot, so the City would either have to call a
special election, wait for the next scheduled election (June 2008), or rescind
their previous action. In any of these cases, the development will be on
hold.