City Government

As Oakland Allows Luxury Development, Advocates Question ‘Trickle-Down Housing’

Published

5 years ago

November 14, 2019

Construction project on Union and 5th Streets in Oakland. Housing advocates are concerned that only 7 percent of new Oakland housing construction has been affordable since Mayor Libby Schaaf committed to building 28 percent affordable units about four years ago. Photo by Zack Haber.

In the wake of a Nov. 5 City Council meeting during which the City of Oakland denied the East 12th Street Coalition’s (E12SC) appeal to stop UrbanCore from building a luxury housing tower on public land next to Lake Merritt, housing justice advocates are questioning the city’s ongoing plans to construct far more market-rate units than affordable ones.

“We are advocating for maximizing affordable housing on this precious piece of public land and Mayor Libby Schaaf and half the City Council is ensuring that a luxury tower will be put in our community,” said Dunya Alwan, a member of E12SC and a neighbor to the site. She says the luxury tower would contribute to “trickle-down gentrification” in her neighborhood, which she describes as “the single remaining working-class community by the lake.”

Her statements came after Schaaf gave a final vote to deny E12SC’s appeal, clearing the way for UrbanCore’s luxury housing tower. Schaaf’s vote was necessary as a tie-breaker as Council President Rebecca Kaplan and councilmembers Nikki Fortunato Bas, Noel Gallo and Sheng Thao voted to approve the appeal, while Council Members Larry Reid, Lynette Gibson-McElhaney, Loren Taylor, and Dan Kalb voted to deny the appeal.

UrbanCore’s luxury tower plans to have 253 market-rate housing units and 18 units for those that make 80 to 120 percent of the area median income. On the same public land, the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation will build a mid-rise building with 90 affordable units. The E12SC had proposed an alternate development that would have 133 homes housing nearly 700 people entirely in affordable housing.

Schaaf’s vote aligns with public statements she has recently made claiming that constructing market-rate housing for those moving into Oakland helps to keep Oakland residents from being displaced and helps the city to construct more affordable units.

“New people are moving to Oakland…and we’re Oakland, we welcome all,” said Schaaf during a Sept. 18 recording of the Podcast “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis.”

“If I don’t build new housing for the new people, they are going to push you out and price you out of the lovely Lake Merritt apartment you have today. That is a rule of supply and demand.”

Peter Cohen, who for 10 years has co-directed the Council of Community Housing Organizations — a non-profit coalition that promotes developing permanently low-income housing — said Schaaf’s method is called “filtering.”

He said the method could be effective in helping to create affordable housing in some suburbs where land is cheaper and development is slower but it doesn’t work in crowded cities with expensive land. Some advocates have called filtering “trickle down housing.” The Alliance for California Community Empowerment Action (ACCE Action) has planned the March For Housing Now which is calling for East Bay residents to come to Mosswood Park on Nov. 23 to protest against “trickle-down solutions” to housing.

“When people throw filtering out there as a validation for market-rate development policy,” said Cohen, “it’s essentially a fallacy when you’re mostly talking about urban markets.”

Councilmember Bas called filtering into question at the Nov. 5 council meeting.

“Over the last four years we have approved over 9,000 units of luxury housing,” Bas said, “in that same time our homeless population has doubled. Luxury housing is not working in terms of fixing our housing affordability and displacement crisis.”

The Mercury News reported in March that in the last three years only 7 percent of new Oakland housing units were affordable, although Schaaf had originally pledged that 28 percent of new housing construction would be affordable.

Despite the shortfall, Schaaf has stuck to her plan and has begun adopting impact fees for market-rate developers to help create affordable units.

“Market-rate units create a need for protected affordable units,” said Schaaf in the Gimme Shelter Podcast, “so developers have to include protected affordable units in those new buildings or they have to write a nice big check to our affordable housing fund.”

Cohen is weary of relying on market-rate developers to fund affordable housing.

“[Local mayors] have started this narrative that market-rate housing is how you pay for affordable housing,” said Cohen. “I don’t agree with that, but I also think it’s a very risky place to go…because what it means for housing advocates is you’re now putting all your outcomes (dependent on) the private real estate market.”

Zack Haber

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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

1 day 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.

Oakland Post

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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

1 day 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.

Oakland Post

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Activism

Protesters Gather in Oakland, Other City Halls, to Halt Encampment Sweeps

The coordinated protests on Tuesday in San Francisco, Oakland, Vallejo, Fresno, Los Angeles and Seattle, were hosted by Poor Magazine and Wood Street Commons, calling on cities to halt the sweeps and focus instead on building more housing.

Published

1 day ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

The California Poor People’s Campaign’s Victoria King erected encampments for unhoused Oaklanders. Victoria King and her committee erected these emergency tents to symbolize the needs of unhoused Oaklanders. Photos by Post Staff.

By Post Staff

Houseless rights advocates gathered in Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other city halls across California and Washington state this week protesting increased sweeps that followed a U.S. Supreme Court decision over the summer.

“What we’re dealing with right now is a way to criminalize people who are dealing with poverty, who are not able to afford rent,” said rights advocate Junebug Kealoh, outside San Francisco City Hall.

“When someone is constantly swept, they are just shuffled and things get taken — it’s hard to stay on top of anything,” said Kealoh.

Local houseless advocates include Victoria King, who is a member of the coordinating committee of the California Poor People’s Campaign. She and Dr. Monica Cross co-chair the Laney Poor People’s Campaign.

The demonstrations came after a June Supreme Court ruling expanded local governments’ authority to fine and jail people for sleeping outside, even if no shelter is available. Gov. Gavin Newsom in California followed up with an order directing state agencies to crack down on encampments and urging local governments to do the same.

Fresno, Berkeley and a host of other cities implemented new rules, making it easier for local governments to clear sidewalk camps. In other cities, such as San Francisco, officials more aggressively enforced anti-camping laws already on the books.