This Wednesday, the Oakland Planning Commission is considering approving 179 new homes in Downtown Oakland at 1433 Webster. This project lies directly in the path of an alleged view corridor. East Bay for Everyone has written about this previously, and the staff report for the project identifies them as a “key issue”. The reality is that the planning commission originally voted in 2010 to recommend against protecting any views.
Excerpt from scanned staff report, highlighting the original decision in 2010 to not protect any views of City Hall. Despite this prior recommendation, anti-housing advocates are again raising view corridors as a reason to block the proposed new housing.
This project includes 8 units reserved for Very Low Income families which are those making anywhere from 0% to 30% of the area median income. These are able to be brought to downtown thanks to the State Density Bonus law. These homes will provide 8 families with affordable housing and direct access to BART, AC Transit, and other low-cost means of getting around town. While 8 homes affordable to the poorest of us is insufficient to address our housing shortage, that doesn’t mean that we should allow ourselves to wait for the perfect housing project with 100% affordable housing to come along. We need these homes and no single project will ever solve what is a decades-long systemic problem of insufficient access to housing.
We’re putting out an all points bulletin for this. If you have time, please show up at 6pm on Wednesday the 27th for the Oakland Planning Commission and fill out a speaker card on 1433 Webster.
If you can’t make it in person, please write a letter to the commission, your city councilor, and Mayor Libby Schaff. Emails are included at the end of this post.
Being in favor of the project means standing up against view corridors being pushed by pro-gentrification lobbyists. They’ve assumed the name of Oakland Heritage Alliance and as if to underscore their agenda here is an excerpt from their letter of opposition to blocking the view corridors penned in 2016.
Click the image to read the full letter which is in the public record for 1433 Webster.
Jaw dropping, huh?
Emails
These are the email addresses you’ll want to use when writing in support of 1433 Webster. There’s a lot, but they’re all the decision makers involved.
- Planner for 1433 Webster: Peterson Vollmann, pvollmann@oaklandnet.com
- Mayor Libby Schaaf, officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com
- Commissioner Adhi Nagraj, nagrajplanning@gmail.com
- Commissioner Jahmese Myres, jmyres.oakplanningcommission@gmail.com
- Commissioner Jonathan Fearn, jfearnopc@gmail.com
- Commissioner Tom Limon, tlimon.opc@gmail.com
- Commissioner Clark Manus, cmanusopc@gmail.com
- Commissioner Amanda Monchamp, amandamonchamp@gmail.com
- Commissioner Emily Weinstein, ew.oakland@gmail.com
- Councilor Lynette McElhaney (District 3), lmcelhaney@oaklandnet.com