Development Opponent Says City of Oakland Should Start Over

The Oakland City Council’s decision to postpone final approval of a 300-unit luxury apartment complex on city-owned land near Lake Merritt gives the city a chance to start over and sell the land to an affordable housing developer, a project opponent said this week. Monica Garcia of Eastlake United for Justice, a group of residents who live near the site of the proposed project at the corner of East 12th Street and Second Avenue, said she hopes the city will begin the process again and offer the land to affordable housing developers instead of a private developer such as UrbanCore Development and United Dominion Realty.

Garcia said she and other project opponents believe the city should follow the state’s Surplus Lands Act, which requires cities to first offer public land to affordable housing developers before offering it to private developers.

“That’s what the law says and that’s what we think it (the land) should be used for, Garcia said. The City Council voted on June 16 to sell the land to UrbanCore and United Dominion for $5.1 million. The council was scheduled to approve the sale for the second and final time at its meeting on Tuesday night but Councilman Dan Kalb said the council agreed unanimously at a closed session on Tuesday afternoon to postpone the second vote, probably until September.

Kalb declined to discuss the reason for the postponement but he noted that it came after the East Bay Express published what it said was a leaked confidential memo written by City Attorney Barbara Parker and presented to the council in February saying that in her opinion the sale likely violates the state’s Surplus Lands Act, which requires cities to first offer public land to affordable housing developers before offering it to private developers such as UrbanCore Development.

Kalb said the fact that Parker’s memo was leaked is unfortunate because it was supposed to be confidential and making it public violates the attorney-client privilege. But Kalb noted that the reason he abstained when the council voted on the matter three weeks ago is, “I’ve felt all along that we haven’t fully complied with state law.” Urban Core plans to construct a 24-story apartment tower with about 2,000 square feet of ground-level retail space. The City Council didn’t act on the matter at its May 5 meeting because protesters shut it down and prevented a vote.

The council also postponed a vote on June 3 because there weren’t enough votes to approve the deal. But the council finally approved the deal on June 16 after the developers agreed at the last minute to pay $8 million toward affordable housing at another site in Oakland, yet to be specified. Guillen, whose district includes the land parcel, had previously negotiated with the developers to include $700,000 worth of community benefits, including a skate park, graffiti abatement, tree planting and youth programs at Children’s Fairyland. Guillen said the development also is expected to generate about $650,000 in annual property taxes and $150,000 in annual business taxes. Garcia said project opponents “feel vindicated” by Parker’s legal opinion.

Garcia said, “It’s not just our opinion that this project violates state law because now it turns out that others have the same opinion.” Guillen, City Council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney and other city leaders were unavailable for comment today on what the next step is for the proposed project. UrbanCore president and chief executive Michael Johnson declined to comment on the council’s decision to postpone final approval. Zachary Wasserman, an attorney for UrbanCore, said he thinks it’s possible that the City Council will now “pull back and follow the Surplus Lands Act.”

He said that would mean the council would see if any affordable housing developers are interested in the land before it would finalize the deal with UrbanCore. Wasserman said, “It could be a matter of months” before that process is completed.

Wasserman said he believes the state law doesn’t apply to the land at East 12th Street and Second Avenue because it was never “surplus property” because it was owned by the city’s redevelopment agency and was slated for economic development. But he said, “Reasonable attorneys can differ” in their legal opinions and he thinks the reason that Parker warned the council about the land sale is that she may fear that the city could be sued.

By Bay City News

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