Bay Area

EB PREC’s Plan to Replace Landlords With Communal Ownership

Published

5 years ago

September 19, 2019

Gregory Jackson (bottom left), Marissa Ashkar (top left), Noni Session (center), Shira Shaham (top right) and Ojan Mobedshahi (bottom right), are all staff members of the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Collective, a collective that prioritizes serving Black and Indigenous residents and creates permanently affordable housing. Photo by Erin Conger.

The East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative (EB PREC) is working to keep Black, indigenous, people of color and allied communities in the East Bay by communally purchasing and sustaining land and housing with local residents.

“The critical part of our project is that we take land and housing permanently off the speculative market,” said EB PREC’s Executive Director and third-generation West Oakland resident Noni Session. She, along with six other local residents, form the Black led and POC majority staff of EB PREC, and the growing cooperative currently has more than 125 other non-staff members including resident owners and investors.

In an interview with The Oakland Post, Session explained how EB PREC is replacing landlords with resident owners and investors who are driven by the desire to sustain the community as opposed to make money.

California residents can invest up to $1,000 in EB PREC’s collective fund and receive 1.5 percent in annual dividends, a rate similar to what many banks offer. After five years, investors can choose to sell their share, which allows them to get their invested money back plus any outstanding dividends. Local investors who own a share of the collective also can attend EB PREC events and vote on major cooperative decisions.

“If 100 of us can join together to create a pot of investment,” said Session, “that means…we don’t have to wait for organized capital, or follow the very poor advice of commercial developers, or wait for charity-based subsidies from our city in order to change our outcomes.”

In June 2019, EB PREC collaborated with the Northern California Land Trust (NCLT) and residents of a four-unit building in North Oakland called Coop 789 to purchase the building from their former landlord.

The residents now no longer pay rent but instead pay monthly lease shares. The lease share money goes towards the cost of the project, minimal property management fees, an emergency repair fund, and equity that goes into residents’ capital account that they can cash out if they want to move and sell their share back to the coop.

EB PREC’s mission is to keep these housing costs permanently affordable. The coop doesn’t allow the residents to ever sell the property, leaving it as a community resource as opposed to a commodity to be sold for profit.

“We feel secure in our housing situation,” said Coop 789 resident Tia Taruc-Myers. “And that feels really empowering.”

EB PREC is also interested in how its connections with local residents and organizations can create social capital to serve the community. Session insists that EB PREC can’t do this work alone and she never would have known how to go about starting the cooperative if it wasn’t for the example she saw in Mandela Foods Cooperative, the cooperative West Oakland grocery store that started in 2009.

EB PREC’s work also wouldn’t be possible if they hadn’t collaborated with The Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC). SELC pushed for the passing of California Assembly Bill 816, which has allowed residents to invest up to $1,000 in a cooperative housing endeavor. Before, the state had capped individual investments at $350. Without the law change, EB PREC’s method of communal housing investment wouldn’t have been possible.

Although EB PREC officially launched in Dec. 2018, it’s already on route to steward five different properties by the end of 2019 and has plans to add five to 10 additional properties in 2020.

As EB PREC works to obtain and steward these properties, it’s educating the public about stewarding land and communal ownership.

“Communities have not just been dispossessed of land and assets,” said Session. “They’ve been dispossessed of knowledge, skills, access, and information.”

EB PREC has formed the Collective Action and Land Liberation Institute, which is a platform for their outreach and educational efforts. Gregory Jackson, EB PREC’s partnership director, facilitates book clubs in East Oakland and Richmond. He’s currently teaching “Collective Courage” by Jessica Gordon Nembhard, a book that chronicles Black cooperative organization and its foundational role in the Civil Rights Movement.

“We want to communicate to our communities that not only are coops not a new thing, they’re not a white thing,” said Session.

Zack Haber

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Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

Published

20 hours ago

December 26, 2024

Oakland Post

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Bay Area

Glydways Breaking Ground on 14-Acre Demonstration Facility at Hilltop Mall

Glydways has been testing its technology at CCTA’s GoMentum Station in Concord for several years. The company plans to install an ambitious 28-mile Autonomous Transit Network in East Contra Costa County. The new Richmond facility will be strategically positioned near that project, according to Glydways.

Published

3 days ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

Image of planned Richmond facility courtesy of Glydways.

The Richmond Standard

Glydways, developer of microtransit systems using autonomous, small-scale vehicles, is breaking ground on a 14-acre Development and Demonstration Facility at the former Hilltop Mall property in Richmond, the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA) reported on social media.

Glydways, which released a statement announcing the project Monday, is using the site while the mall property undergoes a larger redevelopment.

“In the interim, Glydways will use a portion of the property to showcase its technology and conduct safety and reliability testing,” the company said.

The new Richmond development hub will include “over a mile of dedicated test track, enabling Glydways to refine its solutions in a controlled environment while simulating real-world conditions,” the company said.

Visitors to the facility will be able to experience on-demand travel, explore the control center and visit a showroom featuring virtual reality demonstrations of Glydways projects worldwide.

The hub will also house a 13,000-square-foot maintenance and storage facility to service the growing fleet of Glydcars.

“With this new facility [at the former Hilltop Mall property], we’re giving the public a glimpse of the future, where people can experience ultra-quiet, on-demand transit—just like hailing a rideshare, but with the reliability and affordability of public transit,” said Tim Haile, executive director of CCTA.

Janet Galvez, vice president and investment officer at Prologis, owner of the Hilltop Mall property, said her company is “thrilled” to provide space for Glydways and is continuing to work with the city on future redevelopment plans for the broader mall property.

Richmond City Manager Shasa Curl added that Glydways’ presence “will not only help test new transit solutions but also activate the former Mall site while preparation and finalization of the Hilltop Horizon Specific Plan is underway.

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Alameda County

Last City Council Meeting of the Year Ends on Sour Note with Big Budget Cuts

In a five to one vote, with Councilmembers Carroll Fife and Janani Ramachandran excused, the council passed a plan aimed at balancing the $130 million deficit the city is facing. Noel Gallo voted against the plan, previously citing concerns over public safety cuts, while Nikki Fortunato-Bas, Treva Reid, Rebecca Kaplan, Kevin Jenkins, and Dan Kalb voted in agreement with the plan.

Published

3 days ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

Oakland City Council voted on a plan to balance the $130 million deficit at their last regular meeting of 2024. The plan reduces police spending by $25 million, temporarily closes two fire stations, and guts the cultural arts programs. iStock photo.

By Magaly Muñoz

In the last lengthy Tuesday meeting of the Oakland City Council for 2024, residents expressed strong opposition to the much needed budget cuts before a change in leadership was finalized with the certification of election results.

Oakland police and fire departments, the ambassador program, and city arts and culture will all see significant cuts over the course of two phases.

Phase 1 will eliminate two police academies, brown out two fire stations, eliminate the ambassador program, and reduce police overtime by nearly $25 million. These, with several other cuts across departments, aim to save the city $60 million. In addition, the council simultaneously approved to transfer restricted funds into its general purpose fund, amounting to over $40 million.

Phase 2 includes additional fire station brownouts and the elimination of 91 jobs, aiming to recover almost $16 million in order to balance the rest of the budget.

Several organizations and residents spoke out at the meeting in hopes of swaying the council to not make cuts to their programs.

East Oakland Senior Center volunteers and members, and homeless advocates, filled the plaza just outside of City Hall with rallies to show their disapproval of the new budget plan. Senior residents told the council to “remember that you’ll get old too” and that disturbing their resources will only bring problems for an already struggling community.

While city staff announced that there would not be complete cuts to senior center facilities, there would be significant reductions to staff and possibly inter-program services down the line.

Exiting council member and interim mayor Bas told the public that she is still hopeful that the one-time $125 million Coliseum sale deal will proceed in the near future so that the city would not have to continue with drastic cuts. The deal was intended to save the city for fiscal year 2024-25, but a hold up at the county level has paused any progress and therefore millions of dollars in funds Oakland desperately needs.

The Coliseum sale has been a contentious one. Residents and city leaders were originally against using the deal as a way to balance the budget, citing doubts about the sellers, the African American Sports and Entertainment Group’s (AASEG), ability to complete the deal. Council members Reid, Ramachandran, and Gallo have called several emergency meetings to understand where the first installments of the sale are, with little to no answers.

Bas added that as the new Alameda County Supervisor for D5, a position she starts in a few weeks, she will do everything in her power to push the Coliseum sale along.

The city is also considering a sales tax measure to put on the special election ballot on April 15, 2025, which will also serve as an election to fill the now vacant D2 and mayor positions. The tax increase would raise approximately $29 million annually for Oakland, allowing the city to gain much-needed revenue for the next two-year budget.

The council will discuss the possible sales tax measure on January 9.