Uncategorized

OP-ED: Window for City to Act on Housing Opportunities for Residents Is Closing Fast

Published

10 years ago

October 6, 2015

By Margaretta Lin

The international peace leader Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us to write love letters to our elected officials.

My mother taught her children that a true friend tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. This is my love letter to you – the Oakland City Council and Mayor Libby Schaaf – after the other night’s council hearing on Oakland’s housing crisis.

I am grateful for your unanimous passage of the Oakland Housing Equity Roadmap’s action plan. After so many years of not having sufficient Council votes to pass fair and balanced rules for development, thank you for taking the first step towards historic action.

Your approval of the roadmap means that the city now has one unified housing plan for its many parts—city departments, city administrator, mayor, council offices, and stakeholder groups—to implement.

We know through previous examples like with the federal stimulus efforts under Mayor Dellums or downtown development under Mayor Brown what can be accomplished when the city has unity of purpose.

I also need to share my concerns coming out of the council process with the hopes that it can help inform your future actions.

It deeply troubles me that no council action was supposed to occur at the meeting.

Had there not been intervention from faith, community, and labor leaders combined with the leadership of Councilmembers Brooks, Kalb, and Kaplan, it seems that the council would not have taken any action that night.

With unprecedented housing unaffordability that has contributed to the loss of more than 24 percent of Oakland’s African Americans and 16.7 percent of its children, the time requires swift action, not more study.

We have had years of studies and process, going back to 2007 when Mayor Ron Dellums’ administration and several councilmembers worked with stakeholder groups to develop policies that would have prevented some of the ensuing displacement.

But no council action then was taken because of blockage from private developer interests.

The city had an 18-month process to develop the roadmap that involved many update reports to the Council CED Committee, briefings with council and mayoral offices, integration of the best thinking of city departments and stakeholder groups, data analysis and research, and review by national housing policy experts.

The roadmap lays out this information in an organized way, including identifying the concerns of stakeholder groups as well as ways to achieve housing equity while balancing private interests.

If you haven’t already done so, please read and use the roadmap.

We need you to run, not walk, to work on the nine anti-displacement, affordable housing production, and habitability policies that require follow-up council legislative action.

These policies have been implemented effectively in other cities without landlords or private developers running away.

At the council meeting, it was an amazing sight to see the diversity of Oakland fill the Council Chamber and overflow rooms. But most of the people were not there when the Council finally took action after 4 1/2 hours.

Please allow the public to speak earlier on the meeting agenda. And please take Council votes early enough in the meeting so that your constituents are there.

It has been heartbreaking to see so many of Oakland’s elders and families struggle so hard to stay in their homes and hometown.

We greatly need your wise, principled, and courageous leadership and action. The window for Oakland to create opportunities for its struggling residents to remain is fast closing.

*Margaretta Lin is the co-author of the Oakland Housing Equity Roadmap along with PolicyLink. She served as Director of Strategic Initiatives for the City of Oakland’s Department of Housing and Community Development and is currently a principal with the Dellums Institute, a social justice action tank.

Oakland Post

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Uncategorized

Oakland Housing and Community Development Department Awards $80.5 Million to Affordable Housing Developments

Published

6 months ago

June 17, 2025

Oakland Post

Special to The Post

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department (Oakland HCD) announced its awardees for the 2024-2025 New Construction of Multifamily Affordable Housing Notice of Funding Availability (New Construction NOFA) today Five permanently affordable housing developments received awards out of 24 applications received by the Department, with award amounts ranging from $7 million to $28 million.

In a statement released on Jan. 16, Oakland’s HCD stated, “Five New Construction Multifamily Affordable Housing Development projects awarded a total of $80.5 million to develop 583 affordable rental homes throughout Oakland. Awardees will leverage the City’s investments to apply for funding from the state and private entities.”

In December, the office of Rebecca Kaplan, interim District 2 City Councilmember, worked with HCD to allocate an additional $10 Million from Measure U to the funding pool. The legislation also readopted various capital improvement projects including street paving and upgrades to public facilities.

The following Oakland affordable housing developments have been awarded in the current round:

Mandela Station Affordable

238 Affordable Units including 60 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $15 million + previously awarded $18 million
Developer: Mandela Station LP (Pacific West Communities, Inc. and Strategic Urban Development Alliance, LLC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 1451 7th St.

Liberation Park Residences

118 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $28 million
Developer: Eden Housing and Black Cultural Zone
City Council District: 6
Address: 7101 Foothill Blvd.

34th & San Pablo

59 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $7 million
Developer: 34SP Development LP (EBALDC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 3419-3431 San Pablo Ave.

The Eliza

96 Affordable Units including 20 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $20 million
Developer: Mercy Housing California
City Council District: 3
Address: 2125 Telegraph Ave.

3135 San Pablo

72 Affordable Units including 36 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $10.5 million
Developer: SAHA and St. Mary’s Center
City Council District: 3
Address: 3515 San Pablo Ave.

The source of this story is the media reltations office of District 2 City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan.

Oakland Post

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Activism

Oakland Housing and Community Development Department Awards $80.5 Million to Affordable Housing Developments

Published

11 months ago

January 30, 2025

Oakland Post

Rebecca Kaplan, interim District 2 city councilmember. File photo.

Special to The Post

The following Oakland affordable housing developments have been awarded in the current round:

Mandela Station Affordable

238 Affordable Units including 60 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $15 million + previously awarded $18 million
Developer: Mandela Station LP (Pacific West Communities, Inc. and Strategic Urban Development Alliance, LLC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 1451 7th St.

Liberation Park Residences

118 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $28 million
Developer: Eden Housing and Black Cultural Zone
City Council District: 6
Address: 7101 Foothill Blvd.

34th & San Pablo

59 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $7 million
Developer: 34SP Development LP (EBALDC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 3419-3431 San Pablo Ave.

The Eliza

96 Affordable Units, including 20 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $20 million
Developer: Mercy Housing California
City Council District: 3
Address: 2125 Telegraph Ave.

3135 San Pablo

72 Affordable Units including 36 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $10.5 million
Developer: SAHA and St. Mary’s Center
City Council District: 3
Address: 3515 San Pablo Ave.

The source of this story is media reltations office of District 2 City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan.

Oakland Post

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Alameda County

Oakland Acquisition Company’s Acquisition of County’s Interest in Coliseum Property on the Verge of Completion

The Board of Supervisors is committed to closing the deal expeditiously, and County staff have worked tirelessly to move the deal forward on mutually agreeable terms. The parties are down to the final details and, with the cooperation of OAC and Coliseum Way Partners, LLC, the Board will take a public vote at an upcoming meeting to seal this transaction.

Published

11 months ago

January 11, 2025

Oakland Post

Alameda County Board of Supervisors Chairman David Haubert. Official photo.

Special to The Post

The County of Alameda announced this week that a deal allowing the Oakland Acquisition Company, LLC, (“OAC”) to acquire the County’s 50% undivided interest in the Oakland- Alameda County Coliseum complex is in the final stages of completion.

Oakland has already finalized a purchase and sale agreement with OAC for its interest in the property. OAC’s acquisition of the County’s property interest will achieve two longstanding goals of the County:

The Oakland-Alameda Coliseum complex will finally be under the control of a sole owner with capacity to make unilateral decisions regarding the property; and
The County will be out of the sports and entertainment business, free to focus and rededicate resources to its core safety net

In an October 2024 press release from the City of Oakland, the former Oakland mayor described the sale of its 50% interest in the property as an “historic achievement” stating that the transaction will “continue to pay dividends for generations to come.”

The Board of Supervisors is pleased to facilitate single-entity ownership of this property uniquely centered in a corridor of East Oakland that has amazing potential.

“The County is committed to bringing its negotiations with OAC to a close,” said Board President David Haubert.