FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, July 19, 2022
Contact: Tiffany Kang, tkang@oaklandca.gov
Public Land for Public Good: Council Moves Forward Two 100% Affordable Housing Projects at E. 12th Street City-Owned Parcel
OAKLAND, CA – At today’s Special Meeting of Oakland City Council, Council unanimously passed two resolutions to achieve 100% affordable housing at the city-owned parcel of land at E. 12th Street and 2nd Avenue next to Lake Merritt in District 2. The site consists of two side-by-side parcels, Parcel 1 and Parcel 2, where two 100% affordable housing projects are moving forward through today’s Council actions.
A Win-Win for Oakland: Two 100% Affordable Housing Projects at East 12th
- Council voted to authorize the City Administration to negotiate and enter into an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement (ENA) with East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), to provide 91 units of housing affordable to lower-income households on Parcel 1, including units for transition age youth.
- Council voted to approve Council President Bas’ resolution to initiate a process with Satellite Affordable Housing Associates (SAHA) for an additional 100% affordable housing project on Parcel 2. This effort reflects a renewed, updated path forward for the People’s Proposal, an 100% affordable proposal developed by nearby community members – including Eastlake United for Justice and the East 12th Coalition – in partnership with SAHA. The People’s Proposal was first developed and submitted to the City in late 2015, shaped by a lengthy, multilingual community engagement process with hundreds of residents providing feedback on housing needs, affordability, and needs for community, commercial and open spaces.
CP Bas’ office is working with EBALDC on Parcel 1, SAHA on Parcel 2, City Staff, Eastlake neighbors, and Dewey Academy located next to the parcel, to ensure coordination and partnership across parties moving forward, including around affordability levels, community benefits and construction mitigations / timelines.
CP Bas is also committed to supporting union labor and participation of small local Black and minority contractors in the two projects.
“Since entering office in 2019 and long before as a community member and organizer, I have urged the City to use public land for public good, to provide dignified, deeply affordable housing to address Oakland’s homelessness and displacement crisis, and to prioritize lease over sale of publicly owned land,” said Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas. “The city-owned 12th Street Remainder Parcel in my district provides an opportunity to make public land for public good a reality. I am grateful to our community partners for their persistent organizing and advocacy since 2015. We are closer to a community vision of 100% affordable housing on both portions of the East 12th site, urgently needed in a working-class neighborhood that has experienced and continues to face the threat of intense displacement.”
“EBALDC is excited to partner with the City to bring 91 new, 100% affordable homes to Parcel 1 at East 12th Street. Today’s decision preserves millions of dollars in subsidy for affordable housing and transportation infrastructure improvements the State previously committed to the City of Oakland, AC Transit, BART, and EBALDC,” said Andy Madeira, Executive Director of EBALDC. “We are also pleased to add units for Transition Aged Youth to our proposal, and to collaborate with our colleague organization SAHA to realize the ‘People’s Proposal’ and a shared vision of an Oakland where everyone has a place to call home and have the resources to thrive.”
"Eastlake United for Justice and the East 12th Street Coalition has been fighting to maximize affordable housing on the East 12th Street Remainder Parcel for 7 years. In our campaign Public Land for Public Good, we fought a market rate tower on the very site we are looking forward to building an updated version of our 100% community derived design, The Peoples Proposal,” said Dunya Alwan, founding member of Eastlake United for Justice and the East 12th Street Coalition. “Oakland urgently needs affordable housing and we are pleased that this goal is closer to being achieved.” Dunya is also a 15-year neighborhood resident and architectural designer who worked on the charette and architectural team that produced the Peoples Proposal design in 2015-2016.
“We deeply appreciate the opportunity to be part of this grassroots effort and are excited to see a path forward for both EBALDC’s project as well as the People’s Proposal,” said Eve Stewart, VP of Real Estate Development of SAHA.
“As next-door neighbors to the E. 12th parcel, it is critical to Dewey Academy that the construction timelines and mitigation plans for these two 100% affordable housing projects are compatible with our school community,” said Brooklyn Williams, Vice Chair of Dewey Academy’s School Site Council. “Much of our student population has firsthand experience facing and overcoming tremendous obstacles, including housing instability and homelessness. We recognize the importance of deeply affordable housing and are committed to advocating for the inclusion of units specifically for transitional-age youth in these projects and citywide, as well as ensuring that our students’ learning environment at Dewey is minimally impacted throughout the projects’ development.”
“East 12th is a gem of a site, and it’s complicated history highlights the need for Oakland to have a clear and transparent policy prioritizing community engagement and affordable housing on public land,” said Gloria Bruce, Executive Director of East Bay Housing Organizations. “Oakland has a huge need for affordable homes, so we're glad to see public land used for public good at last. EBALDC and SAHA are two excellent, mission-driven nonprofit housing providers with deep history in Oakland, and I feel confident that they will do right by Oaklanders at East 12th St.”
The vast majority of residents in the E. 12th neighborhood are people of color (73.8%). 43.9% of households make less than $50,000 (income in 2019 inflation adjusted dollars), and median household income is $56,129. The majority (79.6%) are renters, with nearly half (49%) rent-burdened.
According to the Oakland Residential Instability Dashboard built by Stanford University’s Changing Cities Research Lab in partnership with the City of Oakland Housing and Community Development Department and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, from 2000-2018, the census tract where the projects will be developed experienced the highest level (“Intense”) of gentrification, defined by an aggregate increase in a set of socioeconomic indicators (i.e. median household income, median rent increase, median home values, and college-educated residents) greater than 75% of the subregion’s aggregate increase.
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About Council President and District 2 Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas
Nikki Fortunato Bas is President of the Oakland City Council and represents District 2, one of the most diverse districts in the city. Since taking office in 2019, she has championed community-centered policies and budgeting. She led the passage of the strongest COVID-19 eviction moratorium in the State of California and a COVID-19 grocery worker hazard pay $5 wage bonus covering 2,000 workers in Oakland’s largest grocery stores. She created a fund for community land trusts to prevent displacement and create permanently affordable, community-owned housing, introduced a progressive corporate tax which will be on the ballot in 2022, and led a task force to reimagine public safety in Oakland. She led a budget team that passed a biennial budget which invests millions in violence prevention and alternative crisis response. She also serves on the National League of Cities’ inaugural Reimagining Public Safety Task Force. For two decades prior to being elected in 2018, Bas pushed for worker, environmental, gender and racial justice. She organized immigrant garment workers to win their wages back in Oakland and San Francisco Chinatowns, and she worked in coalitions to raise Oakland's minimum wage with paid sick leave, create living wage jobs on the Oakland Army Base redevelopment project, and reduce diesel truck pollution at the Port of Oakland. Learn more at oaklandca.gov/officials/nikki-fortunato-bas.