Oakland unveils bold plans for downtown
The city of Oakland has finally released a long-awaited plan to revitalize its downtown area — an ambitious, aspirational proposal to increase density and vibrancy in the city’s core while improving quality of life and addressing lingering racial and economic inequities.
The plan, which has been in the works for nearly 10 years, relies largely on incentivizing private construction of housing, offices and cultural spaces over the next two decades to boost the city center, which has struggled for years and was further harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Known as the Downtown Specific Plan, the weighty proposal seeks to build on the location, history and cultural cachet of downtown Oakland, as well as its proximity to major transit nodes. It envisions the construction of 29,000 housing units — of which 4,200 to 7,200 could be below market rate — plus 18.3 million square feet of new commercial space and 500,000 square feet of industrial space.
In the 1.45-square-mile zone spanning from the southern edge of Pill Hill through Jack London Square, the plan envisions a post-pandemic future of new office towers and residential towers that would add population density to the city center. It also calls for a renaissance of light industry to breathe life into old infrastructure near the Oakland estuary.
To highlight and preserve Oakland’s vibrant arts scene, the plan would create two cultural zones allowing music, visual art and dance to flourish, as well as bike lanes, greenways and open spaces.
“The Downtown Oakland Specific Plan will guide downtown development to meet Oakland’s projected housing, cultural, employment and recreational needs over the next 20 years, while preserving and enhancing the dynamic culture that Oaklanders treasure,” Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said in a statement.
William Gilchrist, the director of the Planning and Building Department, said that the plan “acknowledges Downtown as a vital and ongoing reflection of a city’s values.”
“Residents across the city often claim Downtown as their ‘second neighborhood’ and its social, economic, and cultural character should affirm that claim,” he said in a statement.
Planners said they had convened hundreds of meetings over the years on the proposal and have been careful to find ways to encourage development without increasing displacement.
After receiving feedback in 2017 that the proposals they were drafting could be a “gentrification plan,” they changed course, adding a focus on issues of racial and economic justice — hiring an equity consultant, analyzing disparity data, and convening numerous focus groups with residents.
Though the project was started many years before Thao’s tenure as mayor, she pushed for rules that would make it easier for restaurants, bars and music venues to open, and to establish the two cultural districts, her office said.
Many questions remain about the project’s feasibility — and ability to attract the type of private development that will also serve the public good. Oakland is currently facing a steep budget deficit that hamstrings its ability to fund ambitious projects.
The pandemic threw another wrench in the mix, driving workers from offices and battering the businesses that relied on weekday traffic, as well as transit systems. The city’s downtown, like many others, is struggling with high commercial vacancy rates, shuttered businesses and the loss of vitality and energy from daily commuters.
Dan Lindheim, a professor at UC Berkeley’s public policy school and former city administrator in Oakland, said that the plan was laudable for how much attention it gave to the concept of equity.
“This plan pays lots of lip service to Oakland’s social concerns, about race and inclusion. And that’s unusual,” he said. “But whether any of it is real or will have a positive impact around these issues, it’s not at all clear to me.”
Despite recent adjustments to the plan, Lindheim said the document appeared to be stuck a bit in a pre-pandemic mindset, with its emphasis on a denser downtown — both in housing units and office space. Remote work has changed that equation, although it’s still not quite clear what the new normal will be, he said.
A critical question for developers will be whether the incentives offered to them to add below-market-rate housing or spaces for the arts and local businesses are enough when the economic climate is already chasing many investors away.
“Most of the affordable housing is supposed to be financed by developer fees,” Lindheim said. “Maybe there will be some money from developer fees from increased market rate construction, but I doubt it will be sufficient to make a dent. Will there be any real affordable housing to be built if there’s not a requirement to do so?”
Another problem the plan highlights is the Interstate 980 corridor, which severed downtown from West Oakland when it was completed in 1985, fundamentally altering the city. The planners note that the 560-foot-wide highway was designed to connect Interstate 580 to a second crossing of the Bay Bridge that was never built, and say the road is “over-engineered,” for the number of vehicles that drive on it every day.
Earlier iterations of the plan proposed moving the corridor underground — a transformative but hugely costly undertaking. As released this week, the plan scales back those dreams, noting that such a bold move is beyond its scope, and instead calls for a feasibility study of the idea. Planners say that the vast highway could be converted into 5,000 residential units, 1.5 million square feet of commercial space, and park space — and restore connection between the two neighborhoods.
The plan will be up for review by the Planning commission in the coming months, with approval votes on the zoning and rule changes in the City Council expected by summer.