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Greenbelt Alliance In the News

April 11, 2011

Envisioning a better Broadway, post-Redevelopment (Analysis)

How will the Broadway-Valdez area develop without redevelopment agencies?
More than 100 Oaklanders came out to support the Greenbelt Alliance's vision for Broadway-Valdez. Supporters are encouraged to communicate their support to their Council member, and listen for an announcement about a public workshop on April 28.

On Thursday, April 7, more than 100 activists, residents and curious onlookers attended an unusual meeting in Oakland's Broadway-Valdez area.

While the city of Oakland is focused on filling its budget deficit and finding ways to keep its redevelopment money from Sacramento, this meeting didn't have a lot to say about money. The meeting regarded a project in a redevelopment area, but it didn't focus on the fate of Redevelopment Agencies.

What made this meeting unique was that the event's organizers asked what it means to aspire for neighborhood improvement after Redevelopment Agencies go away.

The Broadway-Valdez area is the perfect test case for Gov. Jerry Brown's third term. Back in 2009, the city set out to define a station area plan that would transform Broadway from 23rd to I-580 into a regional shopping destination. The city worked with a community stakeholder group to codify what new development should look like: how tall to make the buildings, what types of businesses to attract, even how many parking spaces should be built. The city produced three options in 2010, and they were all rejected by the stakeholder group. The discussion stalled long before Brown began to remove Redevelopment Agencies (and their ability to buy, demolish and rebuild entire city blocks quickly) from the process.

Thursday's meeting looked forward. The official purpose of the event was to redefine the narrative of the Broadway-Valdez project, bringing it out of Sacramento and Oakland City Hall and into the neighborhood. The event was sponsored by a coalition of green, labor and civic organizations to rally support and build consensus on several progressive development concepts.
Staff from TransForm and the East Bay Housing Organizations - EBHO - were on hand to ask and answer questions at information tables. Guests were given a quiz on the problems facing Oakland.

For instance: What percentage of Oakland renters lived in overcrowded conditions in 2000.

The answer: 1 in 5.

The tables were designed to encourage understanding and discussion of the organizing coalition's policy platform. The platform urges future plans for the neighborhood to include:

• A mixture of business sizes and price points;
• Affordable housing;
• Limited parking;
• Quality union jobs;
• Walkable streets;
• Green buildings;
• Integrated transit and bicycle access; and
• Adaptive reuse of existing buildings.

The event culminated with several speakers - Vien Truong, chair of the Oakland Planning Commission, advocated the coalition's vision, and Josie Camacho, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Alameda Labor Council even roused a chant of "Si se puede!"

Attendees engaged the coalition representatives and each other in a frank discussion about how redevelopment should work after Redevelopment Agencies disappear. For instance, though the elimination of these agencies seems like a forgone conclusion, the implications for affordable housing in Oakland are very uncertain.

"Oakland doesn't require affordable housing through inclusionary zoning, which is unusual for major California cities. San Francisco does, Pleasanton does, in fact many cities across the country require some percentage of privately developed housing to be priced below market rate. In Oakland, that requirement only applies within redevelopment areas. If redevelopment goes away, we'll lose a major mechanism to ensure that new affordable housing gets built, said Gloria Bruce, Deputy Director with EBHO.

"Why do they need redevelopment to go in and tear down these buildings?" Naomi Schiff of the Oakland Heritage Alliance asked within the audience.

The meeting was held in the former Connell Dodge showroom, which retains its original architecture during its second life as part of Z Bar Cafe. Without the controversial strong arm of redevelopment, the future of Broadway's Auto Row seems more likely to incorporate its existing historic buildings. These smaller buildings are more likely to attract boutiques and small businesses than big box stores, have lower rents than newly constructed buildings and are already more pedestrian-friendly than some of the options proposed by the city in 2010.
When asked about the outcome of the event, coordinators said they were pleased with the number of attendees, taking that interest to indicate strong support for a more progressive second round of alternatives.

"We don't need a Redevelopment Agency to make this happen. We have a vision, we just need a plan," summarized Bruce. "Without redevelopment funds it will just take longer for us to see the plan implemented."

The city's stalled station area planning process may restart again soon. City staff announced during the meeting that the first in a new round of public workshops could be held as early as April 28 (time and location to be determined).

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