For Immediate Release: October 17, 2024
Contact Amaya Lin: AJLin@oaklandca.gov, 510-238-7022
Oakland Breaks Ground on New Senior Affordable Housing
in Chinatown by Lake Merritt BART
Oakland, CA– Today, the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC) broke ground on 96-units of permanently affordable housing for seniors – a crucial Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) project located in Chinatown near the Lake Merritt BART station. This is the first phase of a much larger project within the Lake Merritt BART Station Area Plan, with 460 additional planned homes, retail, public recreation areas, a childcare facility, and pedestrian and bike improvements to connect Chinatown to other neighborhoods.
EBALDC’s Chinatown Senior Transit-Oriented Development project at the base of Lake Merritt is funded in part by a $3 million loan from the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA) and $1.86 million loan from Oakland’s Measure U Affordable Housing and Infrastructure Bond distributed by the City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department.
“This project is one of two projects in my district that represent the culmination of more than a decade of community advocacy for public land for public good,” said Nikki Fortunato Bas, Oakland City Council President, District 2 Councilmember and Executive Board member of the Association of Bay Area Governments. “Funding from BAHFA and Oakland’s Measure U, which I co-authored and Oakland voters passed overwhelmingly, help close the funding gap to create deeply affordable housing. I’m grateful to EBALDC and the Chinatown community organizations who advocated for our vision of affordable housing for seniors, families and unhoused individuals near public transit through the Lake Merritt BART Station Area Plan. I’m excited for what this building and the rest of the development will do not just for Chinatown, but for all of Oakland.”
The 96-units of permanently affordable housing for seniors includes 44 units of permanent supportive housing reserved for formerly homeless individuals. This infusion of affordable housing, along with the 35% affordable housing across the Lake Merritt BART Station Area Plan, helps address our region’s housing crisis. The project is scheduled to open for occupancy by summer 2026.
This groundbreaking also acknowledges and begins to repair the historical wrongs of freeway and BART public infrastructure projects in the 1950s and 1960s’ that cut through ethnic enclaves like Oakland’s Chinatown – a community constricted and created by necessity due to racist discrimination and exclusion of Chinese residents from settling in other neighborhoods.
Background:
In 2022, Oakland voters passed Measure U, an $850 million affordable housing and infrastructure bond with $350 million dedicated to affordable housing. Measure U will fund the construction and acquisition/rehabilitation of 2,200-2,400 affordable housing units over the next four to six years, getting Oakland closer to meeting the goal of 10,000 units of affordable housing by 2030.
In 2024, Oakland has 1,542 units of affordable housing under construction with half dedicated to people who are formerly homeless. Since 2019, 1,931 affordable units have been completed and occupied including 599 for those exiting homelessness.
Community development organizations like EBALDC were founded in Chinatown nearly 50 years ago, and are an important anchor for community connection and belonging. As an institutional leader in Oakland’s Chinatown, EBALDC provides affordable housing, nonprofit commercial leasing, community service, coalition building with other organizations and institutions, and more. EBALDC has grown in nearly half a century to become the largest nonprofit provider of affordable housing in Oakland, and the largest nonprofit commercial landlord in the East Bay, providing 114 nonprofits and small businesses space to operate and grow.
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Learn more about Council President Bas and her work at oaklandca.gov/officials/nikki-fortunato-bas.
🌳EBALDC senior housing groundbreaking 🌱
✨Back in 2008, EBALDC and many other Chinatown community organizations came together to envision what a thriving 21st century Chinatown should be. Their collective leadership, history, and advocacy reshaped the priorities of the Lake Merritt BART Station Area Plan, and created the pathway for BART’s future redevelopment of the station area to be economically inclusive, and historically and culturally restorative. This month, EBALDC will be starting construction on the first phase of the Chinatown community’s vision for the site! Join me at the groundbreaking on October 17th at 11:30am– information and registration here. #OaklandChinatown #seniorhousing #TOD #affordablehousing
