OAK TO 9TH – A Response to Objections to the Case for Referendum

Oakland District 2 Council Member Pat Kernighan recently voiced her “dismay” at the arguments the Oak to Ninth Referendum Coalition has made against the poorly-conceived development agreement voted by the Council in June. She has called those arguments “false statements” and “misleading rhetoric”.

It is unfortunate that Council Member Kernighan and others chose not to establish a dialog when these same arguments were made by so many concerned citizens before and during the Council hearings on the Oak to Ninth agreement. Much time, effort, and money would have been saved by all of us working together to give Oakland the best waterfront project possible. Now the debate may have to be carried out in the media and at the ballot box, so that all the people of Oakland can decide for themselves what they want their waterfront to look like.

So let’s begin the debate by responding to Council Member Kernighan’s objections:
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- Kernighan’s Objection: "The project was supported by a broad array of community and environmental organizations."

* Coalition Response: Environmental groups supporting this project were few and far between. While Greenbelt Alliance apparently supports it, their only useful comment has to do with a simple-minded claim of "infill." Can a project on the edge of the city with serious access problems and badly served by public transit, be called “infill”? The Better Oak to Ninth Coalition would call this a case of urban sprawl in infill clothing. The Sierra Club and the Green Party, each with large numbers of Oakland members, oppose the project.
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- Kernighan’s Objection: "[The project provides] affordable and market-rate housing . . ."

* Coalition Response: The affordable housing will be paid for by our city’s redevelopment funds. The developer is requiring that it be built atop a grocery store and three floors of parking. It will be placed on the two parcels most affected by Freeway 880 pollution and noise. There is no requirement to incorporate such mitigating measures as air filtration and noise baffling. It will not be built until 2016 or later. It will soak up all Oakland’s affordable housing funds for the next ten years, meaning that other less costly affordable projects may not get built. While this housing may be affordable for future residents, is it affordable for the city today?
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***Statement of the Referendum Coalition: "Don't Sell Off Our Public Park Land!"

- Kernighan’s Objection: "No parks are being sold by anyone. The land for the development project has been zoned and used for industrial activity for most of the last century. It is now a contaminated brownfield.

* Coalition Response: The Estuary Policy Plan, approved unanimously by the City Council, is part of our General Plan, and calls for 41 acres of parks in the area. To approve this project, the City Council had to pass an ordinance to override the General Plan in order to suit the developer, and did so without holding any separate hearings, nor establishing a Specific Plan as recommended in the Estuary Policy Plan.
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- Kernighan’s Objection: "The City of Oakland is not selling any land, park or otherwise. The Port of Oakland is selling land, a decision they made 3 years ago, under the review and approval of the State Lands Commission.

* Coalition Response: The Port of Oakland is holding the areas overseen by State Lands in trust for all the citizens of California. While it has a lot of fiscal independence, Port of Oakland is most certainly a city body, with all its commissioners appointed by Oakland’s mayor. No development can take place without the agreement of the Oakland City Council. The people of Oakland have the final say on what happens to their waterfront.
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- Kernighan’s Objection: "The City does not even own the land. In order to create the parks envisioned in the Estuary Policy Plan, the City would have to buy the land from the Port, clean it of toxics, and then build the parks. It is highly unlikely the City could find enough money to do that for many decades to come. The amount of money allocated by Measure DD is a fraction of what would be needed."

* Coalition Response: More money is available, but the city has put virtually NO EFFORT into applying for funding for park cleanup and improvements at the waterfront, beyond the $18 million in DD funds. According to park management experts, the city has moved this project forward while ignoring opportunities to apply for public funding of several kinds. Private funding could also come by soliciting a more reasonable development plan. We are surrendering to the developer's demands, while abandoning other funding opportunities. Why?
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***Coalition Statement: "Why is Oakland selling off our public land and limiting public access?"

- Kernighan’s Objection: "There is no public access now at the Oak to Ninth area. You can't limit access if there is none to start with."

* Coalition Response: This is a false argument. Everyone agrees that the area will change. The question is HOW will it change? We believe this is Oakland’s last chance to have a usable, nearby waterfront access area. The Estuary Policy Plan showed a major waterfront destination, similar to San Francisco’s Crissy Field, with three major park areas. But this development replaces our planned parks with a modest expansion of one pre-existing park (Estuary Park), a reduced-size Channel Park (which will not serve for public assembly due to the presence of over 300 residential units), and instead of a third park, open space will be created on a concrete wharf by demolishing a significant and re-usable historic building. This is not acceptable.
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- Kernighan’s Objection: “The Oak to Ninth development will create public access by building 20+ acres of new public parks on the east side of the Channel, plus build out the Bay Trail, at no cost to the public, where no parks, trails or public access exist now. The developer is also donating several acres of cleaned-up land on the west side of the Channel to expand Estuary Park. Out of the 64 acre project, 32 acres will be public open space!"

* Coalition Response: This 32-acre number includes an extant park, Estuary Park, and the acreage on the footprint of historic Ninth Avenue Terminal. On most of the park areas, the developer would not be permitted to build housing anyway, because of Trust Lands restrictions. While he may be "donating" park land (which is now in public ownership), and will clean it up, he will make back much of the land cost by selling the affordable housing parcels F&G, now publicly owned land, back to the city for an estimated $26 million dollars. He is buying the entire project for only $18 million.
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***Coalition Statement: "Elected officials are going against the mandate of Measure DD."

- Kernighan’s Objection: “Measure DD was a funding measure. It did not guarantee full implementation of the Estuary Policy Plan - it merely allocated bond money toward that goal."

* Coalition Response: The voters were told that their funds would be going toward waterfront parks. Does this mean we agreed to pay for them and then not build them?
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- Kernighan’s Objection: "The $18 million in DD money earmarked for the area from Estuary Park to Union Point Park is a fraction of what it would cost to buy, clean and build all the parks envisioned for that area in the EPP."

* Coalition Response: Measure DD was never intended to supply all the money. The assumption was that we would use this money to get matching funds from other sources, including federal and state government as well as private and nonprofit funds, to build parks.
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***Coalition Statement: “Oakland cannot afford this corporate welfare.”

- Kernighan’s Objection: "Just the opposite of corporate welfare, the developer is giving the City millions of dollars in public benefits--
- donating clean land to expand Estuary Park
- donating approximately 20 acres of clean land for the rest of the parks east of the Channel.
- building approx 20 acres of park at no cost to the City as well as maintaining all 32 acres of parks in perpetuity.
- building all the public infrastructure for the area: sewers, utilities, streets, sidewalks, etc.
- contributing $1.6 M toward job training programs for Oaklanders and guaranteeing that 300 Oaklanders will get apprenticeship jobs, which will get them into the union construction industry for a lifetime of high-paying work.
- selling clean land at the developer's cost to the Redevelopment Agency to build 465 units of affordable housing. The developer is thus forgoing millions of dollars in profit that he could have made by selling that land for market rate housing."

* Coalition Response:

* Many of the areas to be "cleaned" are proposed simply to be capped with 6 inches of concrete, allowing pollutants to continue to leach into water and land.

* Most of the park area is land on which housing cannot be built, by law. This is not a donation.

* While the developer is building public infrastructure within project areas, there are many costly items the city will have to pay for, including vehicular and pedestrian safety accommodations, police and fire services, and road improvements outside the project to handle the huge new traffic flows. There is no provision for a school to serve children from this development. The two nearest schools are full.

* While the job training and employment provisions are a positive step, the agreement calls for only six percent of jobs to go to local residents. The Fox Theater rehabilitation project will employ almost fifty percent local residents, by comparison.

* Perhaps the developer is forgoing millions of dollars in profit for the affordable housing, but he will be paid more than his full cost for all the land -- for just two parcels, F&G.

* 2700 market-rate units at this location, some with wide views, would sell today for between one and a half and two BILLION DOLLARS. We are sure there are developers who would be willing to work on an appropriate project here with us. Otherwise, the city should consider developing the land itself!
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***The Better Oak to Ninth Coalition supports intent of the provisions in the current agreement for affordable housing, training, and jobs. But we think this agreement represents only a modest success, achieved after a long struggle by community activists, in the face of strong resistance from the developer and little support from the City Council. If the referendum qualifies, we would be willing to negotiate improvements in the current agreement to satisfy our requests. We would not give up any of the affordable housing units, job training or employment agreements already in place, but would improve on them.

Some of the improvements we want to see are:

---more open space with better public access
---improved mitigations for public health dangers
---preservation and re-use of the Ninth Avenue Terminal
---better urban planning within the development, especially for traffic, schools, and recreation
---a better economic deal for the citizens of Oakland, including more jobs and benefits
---independent analysis to determine a fair affordable housing component

OAKLAND WANTS AND NEEDS A BETTER “OAK TO NINTH”, AND WE CAN GET IT!
http://www.ABetterOakToNinth.org