Oak to Ninth Mixed Use Development:
Oakland Heritage Alliance has been following the 60+ acre Oak to Ninth project
and Senator Perata's Oakland-specific SB 1622. We oppose 1622, and we have many
questions about the development. We have a history of working cooperatively and
are on a friendly basis with Signature Properties. Nonetheless we have many
serious questions.
We are increasingly alarmed that this project seems to be moving forward with
inadequate public discourse. Here are some of our concerns:
1) What are the proposed changes to the adopted Estuary Policy Plan? If it needs
to be altered, this should happen among Oakland's citizens first, with a full
discussion and redrafting of the relevant parts, not in a closed session at City
Hall (nor in a Sacramento land swap with no public input).
2) Where is the Specific Plan, as called for in the EPP and thus under Oakland's
General Plan. Is there a rationale for eschewing the Specific Plan?
3) What are the community's priorities, needs and wishes for this publicly-owned
area? Don't they require an open and wide-ranging discussion? Are we delegating
the entire fate of our waterfront solely to political appointees of a mayor who
will be gone by 2006, if not before?
4) Why is the Port encouraging state legislation to trade off our invaluable and
irreplaceable public lands for unspecified other property? Why would we give
away citizen-owned land in exchange for what seems a pig in a poke? Would the
City Council be willing to oppose this unwise legislation?
5) As the keepers of Oakland history, and the publishers of the most
authoritative history of the city, we respectfully remind everyone that we think
we have progressed since the greedy and unwise politics of the waterfront a
hundred years ago. Are we willing to go back to those bad old days of Horace?
6) Can the development creatively reuse the historic Ninth Avenue Terminal,
Oakland's last remaining marine terminal? It is a fabulous opportunity, if
approached with the right frame of mind.
7) Can we fulfill the requirement for usable, friendly, ample open space as
passed into the General Plan under the Estuary Policy Plan?
8) Shall we study carefully the sudden and unwelcome idea to build residential
structures around our shiny new Aquatic Center, intended as the centerpiece of a
park? Where did the public discussion occur that declared this was not a
priority?
More than anything else, we strenuously object to sidestepping public discussion
of an adopted policy under our general plan. There should be a full public
discussion of any tidelands trust exchange. This Oakland project must be
discussed in Oakland, by the people who will live with it for the next hundred
years.
Under the EIR, the following should be studied before the project moves any
further in any of its many venues (state legislation, local legislation,
development discussions, land sale discussions, the Port Commission, the City
Council, or any other bodies). Alternative analysis must include:
* A project which provides all the open space and other provisions called for in
the Estuary Policy Plan.
* A project which preserves and reuses Ninth Avenue Terminal, all of it.
* A project which preserves the older portion (about half) of Ninth Avenue
Terminal.
* A project which incorporates affordable housing.
* A project which retains the Estuary Policy Plan park lands around the Aquatic
Center.
* A project which provides open access to the waterfront, so that the public can
see its own coastline, and where the waterfront trail is visible and inviting to
those who may not live in the project.
* Detailed examination of the financing of the open spaces and their
maintenance.
* Clarity about who would own what land, and how the public lands will be held
in perpetuity for the public, so that they would not have to continually defend
it.
* Clear discussion about any transfer or usage of Measure DD funds by any party
other than the City of Oakland.
* Discussion of subsidies provided by the Port, as land subsidies, direct
payment, or other arrangements relating to public contributions.
* Clear identification of any land proposed to be swapped, and what it would be
traded for.
* Clarity about what would happen should the developer transfer ownership to
other parties.
We believe the project deserves a broad, open, and public participatory process
to ensure a full discussion of the issues long before this project goes before
any more voting bodies or advisory bodies. The public priorities for this land
have not been revisited by the public. Our officials need to protect the
waterfront, our publicly-owned lands, and our rights.
OHA is willing to be flexible and think creatively about how to get a full and
fair public process for this huge project. Our understanding is that an EIR is
NOT a planning tool; it has particular issues to focus on, and about which there
can be public debate, but does not really look at the overall issues of where,
whether, how, and what to develop. We participated in a several-year Estuary
Policy Plan development. We don't agree with everything in the EPP, but it is
part of Oakland's General Plan, was arrived at through public discussion, and if
it is to be changed, should be changed through public discussion, not by a few
mayoral appointees and a state senator. We take the long view: the really long
view. And this administration will only be with us for a couple of years.
As an alternative or adjunct to preparation of a Specific Plan as called for in
the EPP (and thus under our General Plan), we have been suggesting the
possibility of a full-scale, thoroughly staffed and widely publicized charrette
process. We brought in an expert from the National Charrette Institute to
describe this in a bit more detail to Claudia Cappio, two city council aides, a
planning commissioner, and representatives from the League of Women Voters. For
more information on how this works, see links below. This process broke log jams
in Pleasant Hill and Hercules, and achieved "buy-in" to the projects from
disparate community groups.
One piece of legislation we are concerned about it Ms. Cappio's proposal for a
new kind of zoning called PDZD which would specifically address large projects.
We believe a charrette or similar process should be used in cases where projects
entail several acres of development (more than five acres, or something like
that).
http://www.charretteinstitute.org/resources/presentations.html