Community & Economic Development Committee - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Beep. up.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Community and Economic Development Committee meeting of Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026. The time is now 1.35 p.m. and this meeting may come to order. Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit speaker cards for items on this agenda. If you're here with us in chamber and would like to submit a speaker card, please fill one out and turn one into myself or a clerk representative no later than 10 minutes after the start of this meeting or before the item is read into record, whichever occurs first. Registering to speak via Zoom is now due 24 hours prior to the start of this meeting time, and this meeting came to order at 1.35 p.m., and speaker cards will no longer be accepted 10 minutes after, making that time 1.45 p.m. We'll now proceed with taking roll. Council Members Fife, excused, Council Member Ramachandran.

Thank you.

Council Member Unger? Here. And Chair Brown? Present. Thank you, we have three members present, one excused. Chair, before we begin, do you have any announcements at this time?

Yes, so first off, thank you everyone for joining Community and Economic Development Committee meeting. We have several important and exciting items for consideration today. I did want to begin by extending a warm welcome to my office's newest internships. interns for the for the summer so wanted to welcome sanai from stanford university as well as jakari from southern university which will be they will be with us for the summer and so hopefully everyone can greet them and engage with them during their journey in the at large office um and you got you got to raise raise your hand they're shy there we go Excellent, and then also Council Member Ramachandran, did you have an announcement as well?

I do, I also wanted to welcome the interns in my office, Erin and Nalin from Cal, thank you.

So welcome, excellent. And so then also in addition, in order to ensure that our meeting stays on schedule with all of the committee meetings to follow, I will limit public comment to just one minute. And then in addition, I wanted to make sure that Council Member Fife is here for item number three, so I'm going to modify the agenda where we take item number four first, followed by three, five, and then six. Yeah, we'll do the bid.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, noting the modifications to the agenda to hear items one, two, four, three, five, and six. Starting off with item one, approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting of June 9th, 2026, and there are no speakers, we just need a motion.

Excellent, thank you so much. Colleagues, I'll entertain a motion.

So moved.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Unger, seconded by Council Member Ramachandran to approve the draft minutes from the committee meeting of June 9th, 2026, also noting the presence of Council Member Fife at 1.38 p.m. On the roll to approve the draft minutes, Council Members Five? Aye. Ramachandran? Aye. Unger? Aye. And Chair Brown? Aye. Thank you, item four, sorry, item number one passes with four ayes. Reading in item two, determination of schedule of outstanding committee items, and we have two speakers that signed up to speak.

Excellent, we can, to the administration, any changes?

To the chair, none.

Excellent, and we can hear from the public speakers.

Calling in the names that sign up to speak on item number two, Mrs. Sato-Olivalla and Blair Beekman.

So it's my understanding at some point, I think with item five, we're gonna have a discussion that will have some detail around code enforcement. And I wanna remind you about the Gold Ship Fire. Failure for code enforcement to be implemented and people died. the Coliseum connection, failure for city to take responsibility for your drains being clogged up that caused the flooding in the Coliseum connection unit. And almost over a year, it took you to do corrective action around the developer when the corrective action should have been around the city of Oakland. I need to see a report on the Lau Family Program, Motel 6, transitional housing, what's going on. When you go online, you don't see anything about what they're doing. So what's happening there? I need to see, and I'll go into deeper discussion about your sanctuary city staff.

Thank you for your comments. Switching to Zoom user, Blair. You can unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Hi, Claire Beekman. I will be attending the meeting today. I'm listening in on Zoom. I don't know if I'll quite have public comment, but I just wanted to, I put in my speaker cards as needed, and I may or may not raise my hand, but I'll be listening and attending. Thanks for the meeting today.

Thank you for your comments. Sure, that concludes all speakers on this item. Excellent. Thank you so much. I'll entertain a motion.

So moved.

Second.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Unger, seconded by Council Member Ramachandran to accept the determination of schedule of outstanding committee items as is. On roll, Council Members Five. Aye. Ramachandran. Aye. Unger. Aye. And Chair Brown. Aye. Thank you, item two passes with four ayes to accept the determination of schedules of outstanding committee items as is.

Excellent, and so due to the presence of Council Member Fife and staff that potentially have other conflicts, we'll go ahead and proceed with item number three and all of the agenda items as scheduled, thank you.

Thank you, proceeding with item number three, adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to negotiate and execute an exclusive negotiation agreement with Costco Wholesale Corporation for development of a Costco store on city property located at 101 Admiral Robert Tony Way and 2308 wake avenue for a 24-month term condition on a 300 000 exclusive negotiation payment with two additional six-month administrative extensions each conditioned on payment of an additional twenty five thousand dollars waving competitive bidding under oakland municipal code chapter 2.42 and adopting california environmental quality act findings and we have a handful of speakers that signed up.

Excellent, thank you so much. And so I'll go ahead and turn things over to Council Member Fife, followed by comments from the Office of the Mayor, and then a brief presentation from our EWD team. Thank you, Chair.

Could you clarify what you meant by us not, or potentially having to leave?

Oh, I was waiting to hear this item until you arrived, and so I had switched the agenda, but we just switched it back.

Okay, thank you. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to speak. Honestly, I really don't have much to add on top of what the info reports in the packet have to say, but I did want to first and foremost say thank you to our real estate team, who has worked tirelessly on the direction given by this body several months ago to negotiate an ENA or an exclusive negotiating agreement with the individuals from Costco. This is a major step forward in a process towards attracting this retail giant. And the money that Oakland loses to shoppers who live in Oakland but go outside of the city to spend their dollars is immense. And a report done several years ago at that time estimated that it's upwards of $1 billion a year that people who live in Oakland spend outside of the city. So not only will this project bring in desperately needed revenue to the city that we're spending as Oaklanders in other places anyway, it's also slated to bring in hundreds of jobs, good paying jobs, and retail that will attract other businesses to the city of Oakland who are looking for that anchor that shows that Oakland is serious about its business. And so again, I'm grateful for all of the individuals who attended the monthly town halls that my office sponsored. So Brendan Moriarty has been a treasure to work with. I wanna give a shout out to Chuck Johnson who also was, Chuck Johnson who was also, Baker. Why am I thinking about Soul Beat right now, y'all? Chuck Baker, I apologize, who was on the panel and answered lots of questions from the community, to the mayor's office, who's also been really supportive, and my colleagues who saw the benefit in moving this forward several months ago. This is the first step, so hopefully I can get unanimous support of it leaving committee and going to the full city council for our entire body to deliberate on. But I want you all to let the community know, everybody doesn't agree that we need a Costco or we should even have a Costco. But the importance of this process is to engage in the democratic process. So I encourage all voices, whatever side that you fall on, to let your voice be known to this body and the full city council when it comes forward. And I am done talking. Thank you all.

Excellent. Thank you so much. And I believe the office of the mayor.

Thank you, Chair Brown. Preston Kilgore, Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Barbara Lee. Thank you, Council Member Fife, for your comments. So on behalf of Mayor Barbara Lee, I'm pleased to be here today in support of this exclusive negotiation agreement with Costco Wholesale Corporation. This ENA, as the speakers will share briefly, gives Oakland the opportunity to explore a transformative economic development project that could, as the report mentions, create approximately $3 million in annual general fund revenue which is critical, create around potentially 400 high-quality jobs with competitive wages and benefits, and provide Oakland residents with a locally accessible source of affordable groceries, gas, and other goods, all outlined in the report. The mayor would like to recognize and thank Councilmember Fife for her leadership in hosting multiple community meetings, I believe four specifically, and giving residents a real voice in this progress and an ear as well. Huge thank you also to the city administrator's office, the real estate team, economic and workforce development, planning and building, finance, and the city attorney's office for their work in bringing this ENA forward. And again, this ENA is not a final approval. It is the continuation of a serious structured conversation. And the mayor looks forward to that work continuing on behalf of Oakland residents. So thank you all again, and I'll hand it over to Kelly Kahn, Assistant Director at UWD. Thank you all.

Good afternoon, Chair Brown and CET members. I'm Kelly Kahn. I'm the Assistant Director of Economic and Workforce Development. Thank you to Council Member Fife and Mayor Lee for your sponsorship of this item. I'm pleased to be here just to open the item, which is seeking approval of an ENA for Costco, consistent with Council's direction last December. And I wanted to first just provide some quick context on where we are in the process, and then I'm gonna hand it to my colleague, Brendan Moriarty, to present the details of the item. So before you today is the ENA exclusive negotiating agreement, which is the first step, as Council Member Fife said, in the process to bring a new Costco to Oakland, and with its significant economic and community benefit. Today, though, is not the approval of a specific project or a binding real estate transaction yet. Rather, the ENA provides time, in this case up to 12 months, for the city and Costco to commence focused negotiations around the terms of a ground lease, and for Costco to undertake community outreach, and importantly, to start its planning approvals and its CEQA review. And then, at the end of that ENA period, staff must return to this body and to the full council to seek authorization of a binding ground lease and disposition agreement. And assuming that is assuming that all we've reached terms with Costco on those real estate transactions and that they have completed their sequel review and their planning approvals So with that framing I'm gonna hand it to Brendan Moriarty to talk through the specifics of the ena terms. Thank you

Thank you. Good afternoon. Brendan Moriarty, Director of Real Estate and Special Projects. So I have a brief PowerPoint presentation. I'll try to move through this fairly quickly. So the citing question is in the former Oakland Army Base area, the portion of it that's owned by the City of Oakland, and specifically the North Gateway portion. That's the red block you see in this map here. It's west of 880. And this map provides another point of view. It's two parcels in question, parcel one and parcel two. So the blue and the purple. There's a little extension of the purple below parcel one. That's actually an easement that the city holds underneath the freeway structure. So all of that would be included in this negotiation with Costco. And it totals about 23 acres. All of the land that the city received from the federal government years ago that is the subject of discussion here today has restrictions on it that prohibits housing due to the historical use of the site as a military base. And the city council years ago passed a couple of development frameworks here that are irrelevant. In 2000, the redevelopment plan, which basically established that this should be redeveloped into a productive economic asset. And then a couple of years later with the OAB final reuse plan, which emphasized employment and economic activity, transforming the site into a modern commercial maritime and industrial center. The City Council revised those plans in 2012 to include the idea of relocating two specific recycling companies from the West Oakland neighborhood into this area of the North Gateway. So that's specifically California Waste Solutions or CWS in Cass. And so from that point forward, for a better part of about 15 years, those parties were engaged in discussions and negotiations about that relocation. This first was through an ENA and in the early years jointly with CWS and CASA, that was in February 2012, we were for four years in exclusive negotiations. We had additionally an ENA with CAS in September 2021 that went for a year and a half. We even got to the point of a lease disposition and development agreement with California Waste Solutions in 2021. So that would be the binding real estate transactional agreement that could lead to the construction of the facility. But none of those efforts actually resulted in a project outcome, no construction. So the site is vacant today. The final thing to say about this, City Council this month passed a resolution that directed the city administrator to study and come up with a program in the planning code that would set forth a process for moving those recycling companies out of the West Oakland neighborhood. So no longer as a transactional exercise, but rather a land use regulatory exercise. And so the administration is working now through December of this year to come up with that program and would be reporting back. There is one interim use on the site today. Parcel 1, the eastern portion, is leased to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital for a temporary helipad. While the hospital in North Oakland is under construction, the helipad will then move back to the hospital when the renovation is done. And we don't anticipate any conflict with the Costco timeline. This interim lease would be done before any Costco project would break ground. Now, with respect to Costco, the city has actually been here once before. In 2005, city council authorized an ENA with Costco that obviously did not, for this very specific site, that did not result in an agreement or the construction of a Costco store. This past year, in 2025, the city was approached with an unsolicited proposal to discuss bringing a Costco store to the site. And that resulted in city council passing a resolution in December of 2025 that directed the city administrator's office and city staff to negotiate the terms of an exclusive negotiation agreement or ENA. So in other words, come back and this is what we're doing today. The set of terms under which the city and Costco would now just be working exclusively and in a focused way with each other on the negotiations and the planning to actually make this happen. These are the terms that we've worked out for that ENA. It's a 24-month, I think Kelly might have said 12 months, she meant 24 months, initial exclusive negotiation period for which Costco would pay the city $300,000 in non-refundable revenue. There would be two six-month administrative extension options for which Costco would pay an additional $25,000 each if the parties needed that additional time. This would be for, again, exclusive negotiation over two things. The terms of a lease disposition and development agreement, or LDDA, and the ground lease itself. The LDDA is kind of like having a purchase and sale agreement if you were selling property. It's the binding real estate transactional document that says we're going to sell you the property under these terms. The ground leases are the thing that then emerges from that and then lives for years to come and is the basis upon which Costco builds a project. During the ENA period is when Costco would actually develop the specific plan for a store on the site. How big of a building? How much parking? Where is all of that? Where is the traffic? Where is the access? That specific plan would be developed during the ENA period. It would undergo a SQL analysis based on that project plan. The planning department for the city would review that and then that would come back to the city council in the future once we return for authorizing an actual LDDA and ground lease. Also during the ENA period, Costco would get all the entitlements taken care of as well with the planning department. There is an existing community benefits package that is applied to all of the projects passed and contemplated in the Army base that address things like jobs and labor union participation and environmental considerations, hiring, all of these things. It's a consistent package, and we would intend to negotiate for that package here. The resolution from this past December as well as the municipal code required us to also do an analysis and come back with information on how is this in the best interest of the city. That finding would need to be in the resolution authorizing a transaction with Costco because of it emerging not from a competitive process. So we've done that analysis. The staff report has it in detail. We did find that it's in the best interest of the city. Some highlights I'll just name right now is that we believe that this store would generate $3 million in general fund revenue just from taxes. It would be larger than that because we would also be negotiating a ground rent under the lease. We don't estimate what that would be right now. That's subject to negotiations during ENA period. But 3 million is not just the lower end. It's below the lower end of what the city would get in the general fund. There would be, we estimate, 400 new ongoing high-quality jobs with competitive wages and benefits and new access to affordable goods and services, both for Oakland residents as well as Oakland businesses. With respect to community, Council Member Fife did host a series of workshops in late 25, early 26. Staff, administrative staff were there and was able to take in a lot of public comment. Our observations is that they were overwhelmingly positive. A lot of people cited that they were members of Costco, looked forward to having better access to a store, cited Costco's reputation as a good employer and corporate citizen. The concerns that we did hear, they were less than the positive comments, but they were generally related to traffic concerns, what would happen to those recyclers, where we had been discussing for some number of years that they might move here, and then what would be the impact on local businesses. Almost done here. So, alternatives. Obviously, the alternative here is to not pursue an ENA with Costco, keep it available for other uses such as the recyclers. We have received, from time to time, unsolicited expressions of interest in the site. It's obviously a large development site, but none with the anticipated economic impact that we foresee with the Costco store. So this is it. We do recommend approval. It would fulfill the objective of the 2025 resolution. We found it to be in the best interest of the city. After the E&A negotiations, we would come back again to city council and to this committee with a recommended set of terms for an LDDA and ground lease. Thank you.

Excellent, thank you so much. It appears that there has been just so much community engagement on this item and just so much intentionality around really trying to get input from community as well as just kind of outlining all of the details of this agreement, especially on page four of the report where it lists the community benefits and job policies and everything that kind of goes into that. And then I also notice how it says community benefits as needed and feasible, such as support for the West Oakland Fund. So I think that there's just so many parameters of this you know item that's before us and i'm 100 in support and so thank you so much council member fight for your leadership and and staff for your leadership on this item council member fife

Thank you for that, Chair Brown. I just have one slight correction, but I could be wrong. In the slideshow, it said that there was a community meeting hosted by the District Four council member, so I want to ask through the chair to Council Member Ramachandran if you had a, no, okay. I think it should say District Three.

Apologies for that. No worries. You hosted those community meetings. No worries. Thank you.

Yeah, I knew that was a typo. Excellent. Colleagues, any questions or comments? We can go to the public speakers.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number three. In no particular order, you can come up to the podium, state your name for the record, and begin your comment. Ms. Asada Olabala, Chris Nguyen, Steven Labonge, Lamar Bell, and Christina Tostado.

No, I'm not from here.

But it amazes me how y'all love trees and hate coal, but you are willing to ignore that the CIPRA analysis has been done. and it stated that the environmental conditions of the Army base is not favorable for human habitation and would require a time consumption and expensive process to secure regulatory approval and mitigate the environmental hazards, the soil contamination that's on that property. And it was never brought up in the presentation. I will not go there. I'm having that fight at McClymonds to remediate. BART is engaged in a project on their parking lot to build housing. The first thing they're doing is mediating or mitigating the soil contamination issue. Nobody brought it up in the presentation that this is, and 400 jobs, who's going to get them jobs? Not black people. Not black people.

Good afternoon, Chair Brown, Council Members, Chris Nguyen, representing myself as someone who grew up in West Oakland, Lafayette Lowell McClemmons High School, and deep respect to Mrs. Satter's comments as well. I'm here and in favor of continuing negotiations with Costco. You know, a lot of people in our city don't know West Oakland is resource rich in some ways and resource very poor. In West Oakland, there's not a single supermarket. There's a market, right? In West Oakland, there's not a hospital, there's a clinic. And in West Oakland, there ain't a single bank. And the credit union just moved. So bringing more resources to Oakland and Costco as a start is incredibly imperative, not only as somebody from West Oakland, but somebody who provides social services and working community in West Oakland. Let's stop having our peoples go somewhere else and keep the money and the resources here at home and in the end of this West Oakland corridor Well, right, so that's it.

Thank you If your name was called and you wish to speak on this item, please come up to the podium Chair at this time all names have been called

Stephen Labonge, I'm here on behalf of Costco. Can you guys hear me all right with a few other people? I just want to thank Council Member Five, the Mayor's Office, Administrator Baker, and staff. We are very excited to be here. We're kind of at the start line. There's still a long ways to go, but we appreciate your time. And I'll be sitting right over there with some other colleagues. So if there are any questions, we can pop up and answer anything you want. Thank you.

excellent thank you very much thank you so much good afternoon uh my name is lamar bell i'm the warehouse manager at the richmond costco and just here to um first of all thank you guys for your time um and here to answer any questions that you may have about operations of a costco thank you thank you

Hello, everybody. I would like to get the rest of Lamar's time and Steven's time, if that's okay.

I was told. Through the chair to the member of the public, once a person speaks, they cannot cede their time as they did use their time to speak. So you will have one minute.

Okay, perfect. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Cristina Tostado, also known as Tina from the Town. I'm currently an Oakland Library Commissioner, a mentor for Life Goes On, where we're trying to end senseless gun violence. I'm also a board member with Reading Partners. I do so much work in the city of Oakland. I actually got my birthday July 30th, proclaimed Tina from the Town Day. Most people actually think I work for the city of Oakland, but I've been working for Costco for 20 years. One of the things I haven't mentioned before is last year Costco donated $1.9 million to Children's Hospital in North Oakland. They have high paying wages, 401K, they pay time and a half on Sundays, they pay for new parents, paid sick leave, comprehensive medical dental vision coverage. They just raised the price to $200 a year for glasses and contacts. I bought a house in the Bay Area by myself by being a part-time supervisor at Costco. I would appreciate your support to bring it into the greatest city in the world.

Thank you for your comments, Chair. That concludes all speakers on this item. Excellent.

Thank you so much. Council Member Fife?

If we could bring Brendan, if you're available, to come and speak to the issue. of uh... the contamination i will say i think was my first year in office where i was recommending that site be utilized for homeless housing and i went through uh... a lot of conversation with the department of toxic substance control the environmental protection agency uh... several environmental groups and i thought I fought our city administration and I fought a lot of different people inside of the city to be able to utilize that space for resident residential construction and the level of cleanup and remediation that has to be done for people to live there 24 hours a day is different than it has to be. that has to be done for retail use. There will be remediation at that site, but I wanted to bring up staff to speak a little bit about the type of remediation, the difference between residential life and commercial use. Or maybe we should have a presentation by the public since they know more than we do.

Order in the chamber. Order in the chamber.

so through the through the chair um first of all just say this is um it's not like a super fun site this is not like the most toxic place right it just it does have a history of military use there is known contamination in the soil it is characterized the state and regional regulatory bodies have required that the site because of that contamination not be used for housing because to have people, particularly young people like children or people that are uniquely vulnerable, actually living 24 hours a day on a site, you really do need to have a much cleaner standard there. You have to really limit the human exposure. That's a lot different than having people come and shop. And in addition, when a commercial project such as Costco is designed for the site, You would design the project in a way that you address the contamination so that it is safe for shoppers, it is safe for that use, it is safe for employees. There would presumably be a cap placed where needed on the site so that there is no permeability. All of that would be addressed during the ENA period. The city would share all of its environmental information with Costco. Costco would then design its project around the unique characteristics of the site.

Excellent. And then just while you're there, just for clarity, that it's actually during this negotiation timeframe that the CEQA kind of analysis will be complete. Is that correct?

Yes. Through the chair, we don't know what this project looks like yet. I couldn't tell you how big the building is, where it is, et cetera, so it's impossible to study its environmental impacts. So, yeah, during the ENA period, we'll actually get the project description from CEQA. Our colleagues in the planning department who do this, you know, day in and day out, we're working through a CEQA consultant, actually do the environmental assessment during that ENA period. And then those findings will be brought back to you as part of the whole ENA package.

Part of the whole package. And that's just pretty standard.

Correct. This is a standard operating procedure here. Yeah.

Thank you.

Council Member Phyfe.

I wanted to just reiterate to the public that because of racial segregation, industrialization, and all of the impacts that certain industries have had on the city, West Oakland is largely polluted and i'm working with environmental organizations it's it's part of what i've been doing even before i was a council member is to mitigate those impacts which is why amortization that is not directly related to this topic but tangentially uh... related is something that i'm also pushing for at the same time it's why i maybe I should say this or not, I oppose coal in the district. It's something that I do in my leadership and in my role as an elected official. As stated by Mr. Moriarty, these are things that will be studied in this ENA process. So we're not just moving forward haphazardly. We are studying it. That is what the ENA is about. So part of this process is also about listening and learning. And if we don't have the ability to do that, then we're gonna be stuck where we are. I would like to make a motion to move this to the next full city council meeting. I believe it would be July 7th. Is that significant? I mean, for staff, is that feasible? Is that? Yep. July 7th to the full city council meeting.

Excellent, thank you so much Council Member Fife. Administrator, well Council Member Ramachandran and then Administrator Baker.

Oh, I'll be brief. I just want to express my support for this project. I think it's exciting the number of jobs that can be created and I really hope Ms. Tina from the town's T-shirt logo can be plastered on the side of the Costco. That would be very cool. So thank you to Council Member Fife, Mayor Lee, and everyone else who's brought this forward.

Thank you so much. Administrator Baker?

Through the Chair, thank you. I just wanted to address the additional sort of discussion that's ongoing with remediation. And the North Gateway parcel, which is under consideration for the Costco store, is part of a clean site that several agencies have cleared, including the California Water Board, and that any development will require site-specific environmental review. CEQA will be required. within the ENA period to ensure that no residual soil or groundwater groundwater risks remain before construction begins. And any soil disturbance from evacuation for building utilities will require testing and oversight under existing site controls. Specifically. excavation requirements documented in environmental documents and so um we will be as the council member five said as well as staff be ongoing uh this will be an ongoing discussion with monitoring and we'll get this right i appreciate that excellent um thank you for everyone's work on this i'm happy to second the motion and we can go ahead and call the vote thank you

Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Fyfe, seconded by Chair Brown to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the July 7th City Council agenda. On roll, Council Member Fyfe. Aye. Ramachandran. Aye. Unger. Aye. And Chair Brown. Aye. Thank you, item number three passes with four ayes to forward this item to the July 7th, 2026 City Council agenda on consent. Reading in item four. Adopt the following pieces of legislation. One, a resolution approving the fiscal year 2025-26 annual reports of the Lakeshore Lake Park Business Improvement Management District of 2022, the Jack London Improvement District, the Temescal Telegraph Business Improvement District, the Laurel Business Improvement District 2025, the Koreatown Northgate Community, oh sorry, Community Benefit District 2017, the Oakland Tourism Business Improvement District, the Downtown Oakland Community Benefit District 2018, the Lake Merritt Uptown Community Benefit District 2018, and the Chinatown Community Benefit District 2021 Advisory Boards. Two, confirming the continuing annual assessment for each said district and levying said assessments. Three, increasing the 2026-27 assessment by 5% for the Jack London District to Mezcal District, Lakeshore District, Lake Merritt Uptown District, and Chinatown District by 3.2% for the Downtown Oakland District, and by 3% for the Laurel District and the Koreatown District. Authorizing payment of the City of Oakland cumulative fiscal year 2026-27 fair share assessment in an approximate amount of $509,669.34 for City of Oakland owned properties in the Jack London District, the Temescal District, the Koreatown District, the Downtown Oakland District, the Lake Merritt Uptown District, and the Chinatown District, sorry, the Chinatown District and renewing agreements with the districts for administration and disbursement of funds, and two, a successor agency resolution authorizing payment of the Oakland Redevelopment Successor Agency's cumulative fiscal year 2026-27 fair share assessment in an approximate amount $3,371.34 for one Oakland redevelopment successor agency owned property in downtown Oakland Community Benefit District 2018. And we have two speakers that signed up to speak on this item.

Thank you so much, Madam Clerk. Such a long title, appreciate you. And then now we will hear from our EWD team for a brief presentation, about five minutes, please, thank you.

My name is Eric Samunza with the EWD, Economic and Workforce Development. The item before you would take those following actions, approving the annual reports, confirming the assessments, approving the assessment increases, and authorizing the payment of assessments on city-owned properties and a north of base property. The city resolution exhibit contains the annual reports submitted by each bid. And in 2024, the annual report format was redesigned and migrated to an online platform. BEYOND THE BUDGETARY INFORMATION REQUIRED UNDER THE CITY'S BID ORDINANCE AND STATE LAW, THE UPDATED REPORT CAPTURES A BROADER SET OF DATA POINTS DOCUMENTING THE MEASURABLE IMPACT OF BID ACTIVITIES. WITH THREE YEARS OF DATA NOW AVAILABLE, STAFF CAN IDENTIFY TRENDS AND TRACK CHANGES OVER TIME. THIS PRESENTATION HIGHLIGHTS A KEY FINDING FROM THE ANNUAL REPORTS TO ILLUSTRATE THE COLLECTIVE IMPACT OF OAKLAND'S BIDS. AND SO WE'LL START. LET'S SEE. Okay, here we go. So Oakland has 11 bids in total, eight property-based bids, one tourism bid, and two business-based bids. The Rockridge and Montclair business-based bids were established under separate legislation and operate on a different reporting schedule, so they are not included in this council item or in the analysis here. So here's some key aggregate statistics from the 2025 self-reported annual data. There's about 2,500 businesses supported, over 5,100 parcels covered, just under 1,900 occupied storefronts, and over 19,000 residents served. So here we're going to look at staffing levels over time. In 2025, Oakland's bids collectively employed the equivalent of 117 full-time staff members. Cleaning ambassadors and workers accounted for 40% of those positions. General admin was 25%. Remaining staff is and consists of public safety officers, security and hospitality ambassadors, business outreach coordinators, and seasonal or part-time workers. Staffing levels have increased over the past two years, particularly in the cleaning and ambassador roles. It's largely attributed to uptown and downtown bids transitioning to dedicated cleaning and hospitality teams rather than cross-functional teams handling both responsibilities however for most districts the bid ambassadors continue to be cross-trained and they may be shifted to different roles as as needs require and in in addition to paid staff bids engage more than 300 volunteers in 2025 a good strategy to strengthen community involvement in in the improvement of of business quarters So Oakland's eight property-based bids provide four primary service categories, safety, cleaning, beautification, and marketing. We'll start with cleaning. Three of the cleaning metrics measured here have more than doubled since 2023. I'll chart in the next slides here. You can see trash collected, the rise over that time period, and here for illegal dumping incidents addressed, and pressure washing hours also increased over 100% in that time. Graffiti removal incidents by contrast have declined significantly. This can reflect a shift in focus towards security as well as a reduction in graffiti incidents from the attention given or a combination of both factors. In terms of safety, there's some safety metrics that have been tracked since 2023. This includes 911 calls made by bid staff, patrol hours, merchant check-ins, and security cameras that are maintained. The non-patrol hours increased significantly, while the patrol hours, merchant check-ins, and camera maintenance showed more modest growth. Based on feedback gathered at a bid workshop, the definition of merchant check has been refined to refer specifically to scheduled outreach visits or check-ins not initiated by a service request. We have a new metric now, service responses, which is added to capture visits made and direct responses to specific requests from business owners. Bids continue to invest in beautification and streetscape enhancements, including planters, tree wells, banners, lighting, trash cans, plazas, and public art installations. Bids also play a key role in marketing and promoting their districts. Collectively, Oakland's bids gained nearly 21,000 new Instagram followers in 2025. Visit Oakland alone maintains an audience of over 89,000 Instagram followers. Across all bids, outreach touched more than 39,000 email subscribers and over 20 million social media accounts. And as part of the annual reporting process, the bids can submit slides summarizing their year's accomplishments. So some selected highlights are shown. Lakeshore bid invested significantly in sidewalk cleanliness through power washing, trash collection, landscaping, and gardening. Temescal reported strong cleaning metrics shown here 2100 graffiti removal incidents 121,000 pounds of trash collected Laurel bid here in addition to cleaning services hosted 20 public events and festivals drawing an estimated 25,000 visitors to the district and Here for Koreatown, we see the completed planter cleanups you can see on the left. On the right, they beautified all tree wells along 25th Street between Telegraph and Broadway. They also partnered with Yelp to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Black Forest Kitchen, a restaurant that originated as a First Friday vendor seen in the middle. The Chinatown bid documented measurable reductions in graffiti and litter, which you can see through the before and after photography on the bottom left. They also reported stronger attendance and sponsorship levels for signature district events. The Oakland Tourism bid, or otherwise known as Visit Oakland, reported 3.2 million visitors to Oakland in 2025. They generated 554 million in spending. This activity sustained 5,291 jobs, produced 82 million in visitor-generated tax revenue, and contributed collectively $740 million in total economic impact. The downtown bid hosted the inaugural Oakland Holiday Coffee Market at the Rotunda Building, drawing over 1,000 attendees and spotlighting local businesses. The uptown and downtown bins collectively, their clean and safe program metrics included things like 6,000 linear feet of medians planted and maintained and 128 hanging planters installed and maintained. And you can see here a quote from a staff member from the Oakland School for the Arts that's credits to the ambassador presence on the streets with improving her sense of safety when walking home. And then for the Jack London Improvement District, last but not least, they have activated merchant participation through vintage clothing and vinyl pop-ups and block parties, and also commissioned local artists to paint storefront windows for the holiday season. And here's just the last slide. Speaks more broadly to the corridor safety ambassador program. This continues to fund many commercial corridors throughout the city, including those that have bids and others that do not. Jack London Improvement District was awarded $300,000 to provide safety ambassador coverage to support multiple surrounding districts. That included Chinatown, the Arts and Garage District, Uptown, Koreatown, and the Black Arts Movement District. And that's the end of the presentation. I'm here for questions.

Excellent, thank you so much for a very comprehensive presentation and the slides that really showcase all of the amazing work that the bids are doing in their various zones. It was really nice to see. We can go to, if no questions or comments from my colleagues, we can go to the public speakers, if any.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number four, Daniel Swafford and Ms. Asada Olabala.

Chair Brown, members of the committee, Daniel Swofford for the record. I'm here in the capacity of the Administrator and Executive Director of both the Temescal Business Improvement District and the Laurel District Association. I would just like to extend my gratitude to the collaboration over now 20 years for both of those two organizations respectfully being renewed in the last two years with over 80% support in the renewal balloting. And as you can see from the reports, proud and privileged to be able to serve community in this way and just wanted to Appreciate economic development and their partnership, of course all the city departments Public Works DOTM just just can really show what an organization on the ground can do in partnership with local government and Appreciate that opportunity available if you have any questions. Thank you

And while you're there, Mr. Swafford, I did have a quick question. Some of the data that was uplifted both in the, we'll take the two that you mentioned, the Temascout and the Laurel, how is that information communicated to residents, like the impact of the bid in these areas?

Yeah, of course. So, yeah, actually holding, you know, the, I guess, the public version of the annual report, as Eric mentioned, you know, the JOT form that we submit the data through is, you know, very good at capturing data, but not, doesn't have the images and some of the easy ways to maybe ingest some of the, you know, some of the aggregations. So we try to publish that in our newsletters out to the general public, which in Temscal have about Over 5,000 subscribers and Laurel over 3,000 posted on social. It's always kind of cached on the website And then we tried to tell those stories over time as well So with spotlights throughout the year just to be able to call attention to the cleaning ambassadors and the safety ambassadors for example of course the events YOU KNOW, WE ALWAYS WANT TO TAKE CREDIT FOR OUR WORK AND SOMETIMES PEOPLE DON'T KNOW THE ORIGIN OF WHY THESE THINGS ARE HAPPENING. SO HOPEFULLY OUR BRANDING IS ABLE TO TELL SOME OF THAT STORY ALSO AND THEY CAN ATTRIBUTE IT TO THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE ASSESSED PROPERTY OWNERS AND TO THE COLLABORATIVE WORK OF THE DISTRICT STAFF AND THE COMMUNITY THAT SHOWS UP AS YOU SAW WITH THE VOLUNTEER NUMBERS IN A BIG WAY.

EXCELLENT. THANK YOU.

In its original form, this process only assessed commercial property. Some way along the line, some of these business improvement associations have started to assess residential property. if you live within the certain perimeter of the commercial property. I think that's grossly unfair and I think that should be reevaluated. I looked at this item and I see that the city of Oakland has to pay for some of these assessments. So in Chinatown, you have nine properties that are city-owned properties for which you pay the city a certain amount of assessment, 10 in downtown, three in Korea, and I won't go on, but you also pay for the Oakland Ice Rink, $32,970.19 a year. Y'all give a lot of money to that Oakland Ice Rink. And you also have...

Thank you for your comments, Chair. That concludes all speakers on item number four. Excellent.

Thank you so much. I don't necessarily have a question, but I just wanted to uplift that in the slide deck, um you're we're able to see the impact on social media of like of the various bids and I think that some of this in addition to the publicity around the different events that are happening in the bids I think it would also be amazing to showcase and spotlight just the impact of like whether it's the graffiti removal trash pickup and all of those things also to the public so that everyone can really just see the impact. And so I hope that all of the folks that manage the various bids, if you all are listening, I feel like the impact is so dynamic and so hopefully we can showcase this impact to the public so that community members can really see the value add here. Council Member Ramachandran.

Thank you. Just want to express my gratitude to all the bids, but certainly The one in my district, the Laurel bid does so much to improve the vibrancy of the stretch of the Laurel, all of the events, all of the work the ambassadors do. I mean, there's been notable decreases of crime during the holiday period over the years. When the first round-the-clock coverage ambassador pilot was put in in late 2023, compared to the year before, crime decreased by 35%, which is significant. I've seen these ambassadors in actions. I've seen, not just during the holiday period, but all the other folks that work with the bid really engaging with the community in an authentic way. I think there's more foot traffic on the Laurel now certainly than it's been in a long time coming back post pandemic and I think the bid is well respected by a lot of community members and you should come to the Laurel Street Fair on August 8th to see it in action.

Excellent. Any other additional questions or comments? Anyone wants to move the item as well? Okay, council number five.

Sorry if I could just through the chair from Eric get some clarity around the difference between commercial and business You know assessments because I think there's a maybe clarity needed Explaining to the public the difference what why our residential what type of residential units are included in any assessment?

sure so let's see there's um there are two different kinds of bids there's the business space bids where the business owners are being assessed and then there are the property based bids where the property owner is being assessed for the um for the property based bids um there are it is fairly standard for um some residential property to to be included There is a requirement by state law that no land zoned strictly residential can be assessed, but apartment buildings as well as condos are very typically assessed for property-based bids throughout the state and throughout their country. because of the benefits that they accrue, not just to the business owners, but to the residents as well.

So for the property-based bids, like the ones that exist in the Laurel, is it specifically for any property owner, or is it for rental housing property owners?

Rental and ownership, rental and condos.

Okay.

There are often some of the bids, when the assessment rates are developed, there can be some variation in rates, and sometimes there are specific rates for condominiums.

And then my last question is, what kind of oversight, if any, does the city have? I have several bids throughout District three, and there have been some questions that I've received from business owners around the responsibilities of the bids to perform certain activities. What type of oversight or inquiry can the city for the city council specifically engage to ensure that the contracts are being met? Do we have any jurisdiction there?

TO, YEAH, WE HAVE THROUGH THESE ITEMS EVERY YEAR TO RENEW OR NOT RENEW THE ASSESSMENTS. THEY ARE REQUIRED TO REPORT ON AN ANNUAL BASIS. AND IN ORDER TO THEN LEVY THEIR ASSESSMENTS FOR THE FOLLOWING YEAR, THEY NEED TO REPORT AND HAVE THEIR REPORTS ACCEPTED BY THE CITY COUNCIL.

But that's the only timeline that the city council can engage is whether they renew or not to renew.

If there are findings of say financial mismanagement, malfeasance, a dissolution process can be instituted at any time by the city.

That seems extreme. The folks who've reached out to me are just asking if there are things that have been promised to be done contractually and they haven't been done, what is the recourse?

LET'S SEE. I THINK AS STAFF MANAGING THE PROGRAM, IF THOSE ARE BROUGHT TO OUR ATTENTION, THAT CAN HELP THAT WE CAN CERTAINLY WORK THINGS OUT WITH, YOU KNOW, TRY TO ADDRESS THEM WITH THE BID STAFF. i think with with that and you know with our when we review our annual reports um you know we we do we do review to to make sure that um what the what the bid is spending on is in line with uh the management district plans that were set up for that bid um so so we we do monitor them to make sure that that they are um doing what they are have or were formed to do So if there are complaints or anything about those sorts of issues, the first step would be going to the bid management itself, but then they can involve staff as well.

Great, I will definitely refer them to you. Okay. And that said, I do wanna say that in District 3, there are so many things that the bids do that improve the quality of life for residents, for shoppers, for businesses that the city just, can't do right now so i'm very appreciative of the extra hands that they provide to ensure that oakland is a clean and safe place and look forward to moving this forward i'm not sure if there was a motion already i'd be happy to offer a second

Excellent, and then I guess also just for clarity, during the bid renewal process, it's renewed by the input of the business owners, and so ideally ensuring that they are doing all the things that are kind of mapped out, that is also the nexus to ensure that it's renewed, is that correct, right?

So yeah, the property-based bids all have a defined term, and in order to extend past that defined term, there needs to be a petition effort and a ballot initiative. Once they meet the petition threshold of 30% of the property owners, then we can issue a resolution of intention to renew or form the bid. And then all of the property owners in the set boundary are then sent ballots with that management district plan to vote on the service plan that's been set.

Exactly. Awesome. Thank you so much. And so do we have a motion in a second? Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Ramachandran, seconded by Council Member Five to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the July 7th City Council agenda. On roll, Council Members Five. Aye. Ramachandran.

Aye.

Unger. Aye. And Chair Brown. Aye. Thank you, item number four passes with four ayes to forward this item to the July 7th City Council agenda. And to the makers of the motion, is this on consent? yes thank you on consent reading in item 5 adopted resolution accepting and appropriating a total amount oh sorry a total award of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development grant funds in an amount not to exceed fourteen million six hundred seventy four thousand seven hundred ninety nine dollars and seven cents for community development block grants home investment partnerships, emergency solution grants, and housing opportunities for persons with AIDS, programs for fiscal year 2026 to 2027, authorizing the city administrator to prepare and submit to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development the annual action plan for fiscal year 2026-2027, appropriating any available revolving loan program income for housing rehabilitation activities, authorizing the city administrator to award agreements for activities as set forth in exhibit A and the list of eligible backup activities to be funded with funds that become available as a result of projects being completed under budget delayed or canceled attached hereto. Inclusive prior year funding availability subject to compliance with any applicable competitive bidding requirements and authorizing the city administrator to designate certifying official for the purpose of title 24 part 58 of the code of federal regulation and submit to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and we have 25 speakers that signed up to speak on this item.

Excellent, thank you so much. And on this item, we will hear from our HCD team. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair and committee members. Hugo Ramirez, Deputy Director, Oakland HCD. Hannah Batesh will be presenting today's presentation, but I'd like to introduce both her and our new leader of the Community Development and Engagement Unit, Claudia Flores. And Hannah Batesh will be presenting, thank you.

Excellent, thank you so much.

Good afternoon, I'm Hannah Batesh. I'm a monitoring and evaluation supervisor in the Department of Housing and Community Development. I'm going to go through our department's annual action plan to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. I don't know if there's, there we go, okay. So I'm gonna walk through what this plan is and why we do it. We do it every year. And then what activities we're proposing to use our HUD funding for. I'm gonna close with some context about the opportunities and limitations of federal funding, which represents, I just wanna say, one part of how our department funds safe and stable housing for our neighbors. So this is a sliver of how we do what we do and there are a lot of strings attached and so that informs what we do with the funding. And so this is the text of the resolution that we are asking council to adopt at its July 7th meeting and essentially accepting the federal funds and giving us flexibility if we need to make minor adjustments to how we use them. So for example, if one project is delayed and another is moving faster, then we have the option to fund the faster project at a higher level than planned. So that's all that is. So a little about the city's HUD funding. We're what's called an entitlement jurisdiction, which means we get funding based on our population level and demographics. We have an ongoing cycle for planning and reporting on that funding. So that's shown here, and what we're doing today is the part in purple. So at the top, every five years we create a consolidated plan to HUD, the con plan, that lays out what we're going to do over the course of five years with our HUD funding. That's in alignment with broader city and county goals and planning around homelessness. So again, this is just one piece of it. our current con plan goes through 2029 and as part of developing it last year we did a lot of community engagement around housing homelessness and economic development so that's the top part today what we're doing is the annual action plan so there's a one-year plan submitted each year that maps to that con plan at the top it represents our annual commitment to what we will do with our HUD funding in the coming fiscal year and that's what we're presenting for approval the last part of the cycle which I understand there's some interest in is that at the end of every fiscal year we submit a report about what we did to achieve everything that we laid out in last year's annual action plan. So today's just about that middle part. We will have a separate presentation about what we did last year separately for that other report. In the interest of time, I'm not going to go through all of the highlights from our current five-year con plan, but these are the needs and goals that we try to achieve every year with the different activities that we fund through our annual action plan. And again, this is not a strategy setting document. So for that, we look to local plans like the department-wide strategic action plan, as well as the city's homelessness strategic action plan and the anti-displacement strategic action plan. So HUD funding is just one way that we support broader strategic visions that are laid out in other city plans. So the HUD funding that we do get is in these four grant streams. And the exact amounts are announced every spring And it's a congressional appropriation based on a formula that's tied to our population size and demographics. And so, as you can see, most of the funding is for capital improvements rather than for services. So that's a limitation of the funding that's important to name at the outset. The first two grants are administered by our department. The second two are administered by Community Homeless Services Division in the Human Services Department. And the amounts that we received this year are similar to what we got last year overall. By grant streams there might be some amounts that are a little higher and a little lower, but overall the funding amount is very similar. So a little about what we anticipate using each of these for. So for CDBG, You can see that these are examples of both services that we have funded in the past and services that we plan to fund again this year. So we do this process every year. We also fund fairly similar services. And so these are some examples of what we plan to do with our 26, 27 allocation. We also use those funds for other activities funded through CDBG, so in addition to rehabilitation activities, we also do a lot of anti-displacement and tenant stabilization work, like the programs that you see up here. For the home funding stream, we mostly aim to fund new construction like these projects. Again, any reports on the progress of these projects would be in a separate plan that's a separate presentation. So that's not what we're doing today. Today we're talking about how we plan to use the funds moving forward. And then we also have our HOPWA funding stream. These are the kinds of services that we've funded in years past and we plan to fund these again. And for ESG, we have funded these services in years past and we plan to do so again. A little bit about the limitations of these funds that I just want to make sure to go through as we're considering how we're planning to use them moving forward is that there's a lot of restrictions around how and when we spend it. So we have to spend it by a certain date and we also need to be really clear about how we might reprogram so that we don't find ourselves locked into having to do a specific thing on a specific timeline and not be able to move money around. If, for example, one project is moving faster than another, we want the flexibility to pivot if we need to. Another thing I want to call out is that there's also a lot of restrictions on how we use them. So again, we have to mainly use these for capital improvements. It is much harder to use them for direct services and administration. So that's why you may see more capital improvement funding than direct services and administration funding is that that's a requirement of the funding source. We also have limitations on what we can spend on administration and we also have to be very careful about not only how we use our federal funding overall but how we combine those federal funds because they all have a lot of different requirements and when you layer them on top of each other it can get fairly complicated. All of this is to say this is why we are funding a lot of projects that we have funded in the past because we've already done the thinking around how to do this in a way that gives us maximum flexibility and doesn't lock us into doing things in a particular way that doesn't give us the flexibility to pivot. And so that's also why we have historically included broad authority in our resolution like the one today to enter into agreements to execute activities in our spending plan without having to go through any additional processes if those change slightly. So next steps for what we will do with the annual action plan, it is available for 30-day public review on our website. A public hearing will take place on July 7th, at which point the council will consider adoption of the resolution to accept the funds and appropriate them. and submit the annual action plan to HUD. So this is the same process that we do every year, we're just doing it again this year. And then after that, we will have our consolidated annual performance and evaluation report for last year. So that's when we will report on things that happened with the projects that we funded last year is in that separate report and that will happen in September. So if there are questions about specific projects and what is going on with them, the time to get those questions answered will probably be in September when we present those findings. That is all, thank you.

Excellent, thank you so much. We can hear from the public speakers.

I'll read in the names of those that signed up to speak on this item. If you are ceding time or have time ceded to you, the person must have a card filled out and they must be present to acknowledge that they are ceding their time. If you need translation, the person speaking will get one minute and then an additional minute for translation. In no particular order, you can line up. State your name before beginning. Asada Olabala, Buffalo Sojourn, Alberto Para, Richard Taylor, Christina Justo, Janice Slaton, Tai Hua, Isabel Ruiz, Linda Wade, Lovetta Montjoy, Marcus Garcia, Teresa Salazar, Christine Sue Miller, Jasmine Hurt, Sharon Greenpeace, Greg Slaughter, Valerie Batchelor, Kathy Harris, Bruce Conti, Lucretia Flemings, Ron Williams, Janet Klintzos, Samuel Ramey, Eddie Itarte, Emily Wheeler, and Rochelle Miller.

Are you ready for me now? Regents, friends, enemies, and political operatives, most of you weren't here when administration of information gave us word, and we delivered. We said, the truth is the light, check yourself before you wreck yourself. That's why you have so many new city council members. But on this item five, It's kind of hard to separate five from six. I hear we got a public hearing, and I hear we have a time to get the draft of plan, but I'm just a homeless guy. Where do I go to get the draft of plan? And how will the public hearing be held? Where? It's nice that you're gonna have a public hearing, but knowing the where and when of it? Yes, you've lagged. Oakland. and its housing authority could not pass the section 8 inspection by hud on a bet no less than 50 thank you for your comments mr sojourn

How we doing chairman Queen brown. In other costs people keep my name is Gregory slaughter. I'm a member of ace Oakland live in just 7. I've been in Oakland all my life on Sunday, I'll be 73 years old. When I first knew about rent, my parents was paying $125 a month for a two-bedroom house, backyard, car, garage, everything. Now, for a two-bedroom house, you're paying down to $4,000 a month for a place where you got rats, roaches, and everything else. in in there okay you have been out to open station you know ideas out there for us okay we're gonna need you again though i'll tell you about that later but code enforcement need to step up and start doing inspections every i say at least once every year get these landlords off the behind so they can take care of their business the right way because these houses are not being inspected and the

Good afternoon. Thank you for having us. This is a difficult time. I got a paper from the company saying...

Sorry, to the member of the public, please state your name. I paused your time. Please state your name for the record. LaVita Montjoy. Okay, thank you. Your time will continue.

I got a paper saying that I hadn't paid my rent. Getting still, I have a statement of it. So I had to go back and tell them that I did pay my rent. That's just one of the little things that they do. say you're having a a problem i got roaches anybody come oh yeah we got somebody come in and do something about it next morning they were still there this is how i live every day it's not a fun thing i don't know who to go to ask for support but i just live there

Good afternoon, everyone on the chair. My name is Richard Taylor. I'm a resident of the previously Oakland Senior Station. Now it's just Oakland Station. I've been there since the beginning of this building, and my opinion is that the building is being mismanaged by Con-Am. I don't know of any of those funds about what went on last year. I'd like to know where any of those funds spent on management of our property. Our property has deteriorated. We have a gate that has been broken for at least eight months. They have perpetuated the situation that's going on in Oakland Station, the management company, Con Am. They allow people to come in. You don't need a pod to get up the elevator. Anyone can walk in. And we wonder why we're having crime there. We wonder why we have people perpetrating on our seniors. They stole my wife's walker. They stole the fire extinguisher in front of my apartment now. I don't have a fire extinguisher. And we wonder why.

Buenas tardes, mi nombre es Alberto Parra, soy residente del Distrito 5, miembro de ACE. Estoy aquí hoy por los vecinos y compañeros inquilinos de la ciudad de Oakland, exigir medidas urgentes ante las cosas ante las crisis de vivienda en nuestra ciudad los inquilinos viven en condiciones inseguras que incluye moho a plagas electrodomésticos averiados y graves infractions of habitability. While many repair requests remain unanswered, the volunteers continue to charge the rent without paying bills. We, the residents of Oakland, demand that the city invest in...

Good afternoon, my name is Alberto para and I'm a resident of district 5 and member of ace I'm here today with my neighbors and fellow ace members of Oakland to Assert the urgent housing crisis that we're living through in our different individual units in the entire city tenants have a living with habitability issues including mold and pest infestations, and electrical issues. Meanwhile, anytime we ask our landlord for a request, we're just ignored. We, the residents of Oakland and tenants, demand that the city invest in the proactive rental inspection program to ensure that landlords are maintaining their properties.

Buenas tardes, mi nombre es Cristina Justo y estoy aquí para exigirle a la ciudad que por favor Hagan caso porque desgraciadamente los inspectores no dan seguimiento cuando uno se queja de cómo están las viviendas. Necesitamos tener estabilidad para nuestra vivienda. Necesitamos viviendas dignas como inquilinos que pagamos nuestras viviendas. y queremos que la ciudad sea proactiva en normas de viviendas, refuerce y garantice protecciones reales para los inquilinos, porque las denuncias o infracciones, la mera verdad, no se toman mucho en cuenta o los inspectores simplemente no hacen bien su trabajo.

Hello, everyone. My name is Christina, and I'm here today to urge the City Council to implement the proactive rental inspections to ensure follow-up on violations. As tenants, we pay a lot of rent, and we need to ensure that the city is making sure that all units are habitable and safe places to live. Thank you. Good afternoon, council members. My name is Marcus, and I'm an organizer with ACE, working with tenants across Oakland. I'm here because our current complaint-based system is failing. Too often, tenants are forced to choose between staying silent in unsafe housing or risking retaliation just for asking for basic repairs. I've seen families live with mold, broken heaters, leaks, and other serious conditions for months or even years because they're afraid to report them, or when they do, they're retaliated against. A system that depends on tenants making complaints does not protect the people most at risk, especially immigrants, seniors, and families with children. When people fear harassment, eviction threats, or worse, dangerous conditions go unaddressed. That's why we need proactive rental inspections. The city should not wait until tenants suffer before acting. We need a system that identifies and fixes hazards before they become crises. Safe housing is public safety. Oakland should ensure every resident has a healthy, dignified place to live. Thank you.

The Honorable City Council, I would like for you to discuss amongst yourself why is it that we are the persons...

Sorry, do the chair to the member of the public. Please state your name for the record.

Oh, I'm sorry. Let me start again. My name is Bruce Conti. I'm from the Oakland Station Apartments. You already know what the problems are that we have. I went and listened to the news one day and said that in the entire world, we are getting less services for our money. The whole entire world for what is given to us through our tax-paying money. I have nothing else to say.

Hello, my name is Kathy Harris, and I am in District 7. I'm a resident of the Oakland Station, and I'm a member of ACE. I am here with my neighbors and my fellow tenants calling for urgent action on housing crisis. Across our city, renters are living with unsafe conditions, including mold, pests, broken appliances, and serious liability violations. while many repairs go unanswered and landlords continue collecting rent without accountability. We, the tenants of Oakland, are calling for the city to invest in proactive code enforcement, strengthen landlord accountability, and ensure real protection so tenants can report violations and stay safely housed without fear of retaliation. And that is all.

Hello, my name is Sharon Greenpeace. I live in the Oakland Station. I have been there five years, and in that time, we've gone from luxury to ghetto. We now have roaches. We have mice. Just a week ago, we had a dead dog in our garbage room for five days. That is unbelievable. All we want to do is live our golden years golden, but we can't do that living in this surrounding with the mice, the cabinets falling apart, appliances not working, elevators that are used aren't working. We just want to live in peace. We want to have a clean environment. I'm a 25-year breast cancer survivor. I can't live in that building much longer without my health being jeopardized. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Lucretia Flemings, and I've been standing in this department, I just been a year. I just made a year. And when I first got there, they tried to cover up everything. The oven was dirty. The cabinet had bugs in there, all kinds of roaches. And then in the bathroom, they had some bugs in there. And you know when you're supposed to clean the place up, it wasn't clean at all. And then now the place is already, don't have no cleaning up in the whole emplacement anyway.

Oh. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Linda Wade, and I've been a tenant at the Oakland Station for only about 14, 15 months. The worst 15 months of my life. However, I feel like I was betrayed. It's nothing like it was presented to me. You know, I always thought that human rights Housing was a human right for us, but this has become a fight. I'm having to fight for my human rights at the Oakland Station, for my safety, for my dignity, for my respect. I refuse, I'm not for sale. I refuse to be treated in this most inhumane manner. We're finding more dead bodies in that building than the cemetery has. People just doing all sorts of things. I don't feel safe there at all. I'm afraid for my life. I'm ready to go and get armed up, because when I walk out of my door, I don't know what's standing there. I cannot use none of the so-called benefits, entities that they have, such as the laundry.

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up.

Hello, my name is Jasmine. I'm an organizer with the Oakland Ace Office. I grew up in Oakland. I've been organizing all around Oakland. I'm currently now in West Oakland, and it's clear that the habitability in these housing units and in our apartments is just horrible. There are people that are living with mold, pest control, no heater, leaking ceilings, leaking roofs, and when they're reporting it, nothing is happening. We need more investment in proactive code enforcement to ensure that these conditions are changed. Housing is not just about affordability. It's about safety, dignity, and stability for the people who are already living here. Thank you.

Good afternoon, city council members. My name is Valerie Batchelor, and I'm a proud District 6 resident, as well as the director of ACE Oakland. And as you heard today, from deep east all the way to West Oakland, we have a housing crisis, and that's really a habitability crisis. When tenants have to deal with mold, have to deal with pests, have to deal with broken appliances, and serious habitability violations, students can't go to school, folks can't go to work, our elders are disrespected, and again, we have some of the strongest tenant protections here in Oakland. We need a code enforcement department that is proactive, that makes it so that landlords actually fix these units, not just document these units, and I'm glad that some of these resources are gonna be used towards those types of programs, and that we're supporting that work, but this is just a drop in the bucket. We need more resources to support tenants. We need more resources so that disasters do not happen. Fires, floods, and famines are happening all over Oakland and we must stop this from happening and you have the ability to do so.

Good afternoon, my name's Eddie Eduarte and I am with Oakland Tenants Union. You know, tenants are really the lifeblood of Oakland. What would Oakland be without our tenants? And I would like to recognize our, uh i see i do see that uh people from x ace are here and also folks from the uh kids rising uh uh are here so i think we should um should thank them for this appearance here um and also especially the folks from the senior center at 105th street This is a fairly new project, and ever since this project came into existence, we've heard complaints about them over and over and over again at the Oakland Tenants Union, and that's a scandal, and I would want the city to clean that place up and to make it friendly to tenants that live there, because this is a disaster.

Thank you for your comments.

Okay, so I...

Okay, sorry, give me one moment. Emily, you're ceding your time to him. Okay.

Okay, so one of the things that Oakland really needs more of is we need adequate instruction, adequate education of our tenants that live in Oakland. We have some fairly good laws, the rent control law, which could be improved on the state level and also other just cause eviction law. Another good law is that the tenants union along with ACE and other groups over the years have gradually made it better, but they have to be enforced. They have to be enforced and hopefully some of the funds from this effort will go to that. And also, we really need education of tenants because tenants don't know what the rules are, what the laws are. And over and over and over again, tenants come to us. They say, hey, I'm getting evicted just because my owner is selling the building. No way. That's not part of the eviction law. So it's stuff like this. They've got really lying attorneys that somehow the city ought to find out who these people are.

Thank you for your comments. Your time is up. I do apologize. We have speakers that are still waiting to speak. Your time is up. Thank you.

Good afternoon, city of Oakland. My name is Samuel Ramey. I'm with the National Union of the Homeless Women in Health Outreach for Independent Living. I'm over the housing of this country, all shelters. From now on, y'all will come see me. I have a direct line. Herb will be here about three, four weeks before he leaves L.A. I had him go to Little Rock. I told him when he leaves Little Rock, come here. But he was lost, and he's coming up. We're going to clean the house. Y'all ain't right. They shouldn't be like this. Y'all wouldn't even let me build a senior citizen home for them. It's already paid for. Trust me, I didn't plan to sleep in those streets. I'm in a Seattle building, a shelter, 69 years old. I got in front of the building, I said, y'all won't let us, goddammit! How come people living like this? Boom! It got plenty of money, 5.8 billion dollars, I'll give you any more than I can. We gonna finish straight this country out, we're gonna clean this country up, and get rid of this corruption, cause it's tied. I've been begging.

Thank you for your comments, Mr. Ramey.

Hi, my name is Rochelle Miller. There was a point of clarification. My name was called for agenda item number five when I asked to speak on agenda item number six.

Okay, thank you. We'll move it to item six.

I don't know why you put in the report the Phoenix is not available It was finished in November and it's still not open, 111 units, because the developer hasn't paid the contractor. So stop putting in your reports false information. We need to have an identification of a timeline once a complaint is made by any tenant or individual related to code enforcement. Within that time of the beginning of the complaint to the end, what is that period? It must be... resolved if it's not resolved within that timeline you stop paying rent until it is resolved or you pay penalties but we can't continue to have people do this i've seen this before where community members come and it goes on for months and months and months and nothing is happening that's because you don't have a regulatory process that creates a timeline for resolving of the issue mandated and when it's not resolved

Thank you for your comments. If your name was called and you still wish to speak on this item, please come up to the podium or raise your hand on Zoom to be easily identified.

At this time, all names have been called. Excellent, thank you so much. So first off, I just really wanna thank the members of the public that showed up, the leadership of ACE, Oakland's Tenant Union as well, and all of the community members that came from Oakland Station. As you all know, myself, Council President Jenkins, Council Member Houston, we all, as well as our city administration, all had a visit to the property, and not to put you on the spot, Administrator Baker, but I do believe that we need to have a follow-up with some of the- yeah with some of the items that um we needed to follow up under the code inspections and so i look forward to happy to have you chime in but i look forward to further discussions i know that our former city administration administrator johnson also was trying to um make a lot um create some momentum to ensure that this um con am i believe it is uh um to ensure that they address the ongoing issues that have been taking place at this residence. Not sure if you have any updates or knowing that we need to follow up.

Oh, sure, and thank you, Chairman Brown.

Order in the chamber, thank you.

So through the chair, I wanna begin by thanking all the tenants and ACE who spoke tonight. What you're experiencing, I personally witnessed a lot of it, along with members of the staff, which included planning and building, the fire department, and other key officials. We saw dead animals, we saw soiled carpet, doors left unlocked. and unsanitary common areas. We took photos. This is completely unacceptable. And your outrage is absolutely justified. Our staff has done the following. Obviously we walked the building, we prioritize that. And we actually confirm these violations through our regulatory code, including pet infestations and the broken gate, which is allowing anybody to come in there. It's completely unsecure. The mail room is unsecure. The mailboxes have been broken into. And so we found other conditions that, while deeply concerning, based on the current code, and that does not mean that we aren't going to work on reforming it, But it falls outside of some of what code enforcement can do at this time in terms of the legal steps that we can take. But as we've done with other code enforcement reforms as of a month ago, we can do everything we can ministerially. fines, pressure on Con-Am, et cetera, to accelerate this issue. And the biggest priority right now that we heard is that you need to lock the gate and you need to lock the mailroom. And so we need to prioritize the most important fixes, okay? And so that's what we've identified as one of the most important ones is to secure the building, okay? So we would encourage you to file police reports And you guys are already doing plenty, but this is going to help us. If you file police reports, if you file 311 complaints, and you complain on your own on very specific issues specific to locking the gate. We believe that locking the gate and securing the mailroom is the most pressing security issue, notwithstanding the health issues. Criminal activities such as trespassing, theft, and solicitation, which we know is happening, should be documented and addressed through OPD, our police department, police calls police reports And that needs to happen and so we need to ensure that the property management is also reporting these incidences And so we hear you Again, we see the conditions ourselves and we are committed to using every tool available to protect your safety and dignity Excellent

All right, thank you so much, Administrator Baker. Staff for Councilmember Houston's office is also here as well. So following the meeting, we look forward to further connecting to walk through next steps. And so thank you so much for showing up and consistently sharing with us what these issues are so that it's top of mind for all of us and so that we can seek to really make the changes that are needed, so thank you. Councilmember Five.

First of all, I've heard about the conditions that you all are experiencing far too often sitting up here. And I don't have to tell you that you deserve none of this, none of this, but you exercising your rights. I've seen y'all on the news. I've heard some of the organizing that you're doing. It is so important that you stay active because the power is always with the people. I was encouraged to hear that you have taken legal action, but don't just come to city council and don't just come to just work with an attorney. You have to show up, and thank you for speaking to me outside in the hallway, show up at their places of employment. Take direct action. I've supported individuals in your exact same situations towards real solutions, real solutions. It can happen. But in the meantime, do not lose hope because it is possible. And if you need me to come to some of your direct actions when you're chanting down these landlords or you're going to their places where they are, I will be with you because I've done it before. I will do it again because you deserve the right to live like human beings. I've seen the deterioration of this space. It's not my district. It's not my district. But your pain is important to me. I've paid out of pocket. for folks that were members of your organization to be relocated to other spaces. I worked with the folks in the other place, Mississauga knows, the other place in East Oakland when they flooded. So I've been through this and I got y'all back. Just tell me where to show up and I will be there when y'all get ready to do some direct actions. That's all I wanted to say.

excellent and so and so for the item before us um thank you so much to our amazing hcd team for the presentation and the update i know that this is an annual report and so i'm happy to move the item and just need a second second

Through the chair, is this requested to be forwarded to the July 7th City Council agenda as a public hearing?

Yes, please, thank you.

Thank you. We have a motion made by Chair Brown, seconded by Council Member Five, to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the July 7th, 2026 City Council agenda as a public hearing. On roll, Council Members Five. Aye. Ramachandran? Excused. Is excused. Unger? Aye. And Chair Brown? Aye. Thank you, motion passes with three ayes, one excused. Ramachandran to forward this item to the July 7th, 2026 City Council agenda as a public hearing. Reading in our last action item, item number six. Adopt an ordinance amending ordinance number 13104 CMS, which authorized the sale of a city-owned parcel at 319 Chester Street to the Alliance for West Oakland Development, authorized seller financing for the purchase price, authorized a construction loan, and authorized a disposition and development agreement with the developer to develop the parcel with the two-family home for sale to one, convert the project into an affordable rental project, and consolidate the city purchase and construction loan into a long-term affordable rental loan. And we have five speakers that signed up to speak on this item.

Excellent, thank you so much. And then we will hear from staff on this item.

Good afternoon, Chair Brown and committee members. My name is Trisha Gonzalez. I'm a housing development coordinator with the Housing and Community Development Department. Thank you for allowing me to have this time. Staff is requesting authorization to allow the project at 319 Chester Street to move forward as an affordable rental project rather than the originally approved two unit home ownership project. This amendment would also consolidate the city's existing 94,000 seller financing loan and a 400,000 construction loan with a new 1 million loan resulting in a single long term affordable rental loan totaling 1,494,000 structured as a standard 55 year residual receipts loan. The additional one million will be funded from Measure U resources already allocated to the acquisition and conversion to affordable housing program, which have sufficient available funds for this purpose. The financing structure is both consistent with current city practices and necessary to move the long delayed project into construction. The project at 319 Chester Street was originally approved in 2011 as a two-unit affordable home ownership development supported by a city land sale, a 94,000 seller financing loan, and a $400,000 construction loan to the developer Alliance for West Oakland Development, also known as AWOD. However, due to rising construction costs, organizational disruptions within AWOD, and the passing of their founder, the project stalled and the site has remained undeveloped for more than a decade. In early 2026, AWOD returned to the city with a revised proposal to convert the development into an affordable rental project, which is now the more financially viable approach. The home ownership model is no longer feasible because of increased rehab costs, limited subsidy availability, and the lack of capacity to pursue mortgage subsidies for low income buyers. Transitioning into a rental model aligns with current market conditions and provides a more realistic path to completing the project. AWAD has strengthened its development capacity by assembling a qualified project team, including a development consultant and technical assistance from the Housing Accelerator Fund. With these partners in place, the project is ready to proceed with permits and construction. The additional one million in city financing will address the significant increase in construction costs since 2011 and support key construction activities such as drywall installation, flooring, kitchen cabinetry and countertops, bathroom fixtures and tile, and exterior painting. To conclude, the proposed amended ordinance will allow the city to finally move forward with the development at 319 Chester Street by converting the long-delayed home ownership project into an affordable rental development. This will restructure the city's existing loans into a single 55-year residual receipts loan and increase the loan amount by one million to fully fund the project's completion. These actions align with the city's standard affordable housing financing practices and provide a feasible path for delivering long-awaited housing affordable to households earning up to 80% of area median income. The updated financing terms and strengthened development team ensure the project can move into construction after more than a decade. Thank you, and I'm available for questions along with our Deputy Director, Faye Darmawi, through the chair.

Excellent, thank you so much. I know that this is located in District Three. I'm not sure if you had any questions first, Council Member Fife?

Yes, thank you. The questions I had, I got clarity speaking with the director of HCD, but I will ask for the record so that everyone is clear. This seems like a lot of money. Can you speak to, for a small development project, can you speak to why the department is moving in this direction to complete this project at this time?

Yep, through the chair, this is in large part due to the economies of scale. Our partnership with the Housing Accelerator Fund has been beneficial. They performed some research analysis in our existing ACAW portfolio with COSTAR data, and it's totally in line with our current underwriting terms. One to nine units, we have set aside up to 500K per door. and we've also engaged in a series of stakeholder meetings with our developers since may 2024 and a lot of our emerging developers have a really hard time finishing these projects under the 500k per door because of the lack the the lack of being able to leverage any other state funds

And this project, it started in originally in 2011, I believe. And over time, the costs also of equipment, the cost of labor has gone up and they lost the original lead for the project, Mr. Cox. I knew Mr. Cox fairly well. We organized together back in the day. But can you with $500,000 per door with two units that that equates to the $1,000,000 and that's similar to new construction, which is about $1,000,000. Well, not similar, but new construction is about $1,000,000 per door, correct? For new construction chair. Yes, that's correct. And so this falls in line in terms of the amount of that is standard in the industry it falls inside of that um kind of framework for how much it costs for rehabilitation through the chair yes that's development that's correct um some questions that i didn't get to ask director weinstein earlier today were about details on the actual contract so I wanted to know if you could provide information around the the construction company not the construction company but the developers commitment to securing strong property management how do we um have kind of oversight over that process

Yes, through the Chair, thanks for that question. We've done our diligence with AWOD in partnership with the Housing Accelerator Fund to ensure that they do have a, AWOD has a property management plan in place. They are going to procure an experienced property manager and they're also very eager to expand AWOD and willing to take property management courses, receive the necessary training to be able to manage the project once it is stabilized.

I I appreciate their desire to want to do that but is there anything that the city can do to make sure that that happens like what kind of accountability levers do we have

Through the Chair, we can ensure that we monitor and just work closely with the developer as we do in our ACCAW program. We are often faced with challenges, yet our goal is to support emerging developers and actively seek the technical assistance they may need or just ensuring they have the correct programs in place. That make sense?

okay and then my last question is what would be the repayment schedule for this project including the amount in timeline just from my um cursory look into this project it looks like it might be about 2500 a month over 55 years um is that accurate or and and then how do we ensure that uh the repayment obligations can actually happen with the cash flow from this project

Through the chair, I may have to get back to you with the details of the amount per month. However, it is structured as a 55-year residual receipts loan, and that's our standard practice of our program.

And that goes back into the revolving loan fund when you get those resources?

Yes, yes.

Okay, thank you. Of course.

Excellent, thank you so much. And just for clarity, so the 55-year repayment term, that's a standard process?

It is for all of our affordable housing projects, actually. It's set up as a 55-year residual receipts loan.

Okay, interesting. Excellent. Thank you so much. Council Member Unger?

On those 55-year loans, do we generally get paid back on those, or do we treat it as sort of a write-off?

Through the Chair, I'll allow Deputy Director Fedor Mavi to answer that.

Hello, Fedor Maui, Deputy Director of HCD through the Chair, Council Member Unger. We structure all of our long-term residual receipt loans as 55 years, and we do sometimes get repaid on them, but it is residual receipts, so it's on a cash flow, extra cash flow basis after the primary debt is paid off.

So we should think of this as a gift rather than a loan?

No, it's a loan.

But we don't necessarily get paid back?

We don't necessarily get paid back, but it's the terms of the loan is that if there is excess cash flow after we pay the hard debt on the first deed of trust, the waterfall allows us to get repaid occasionally.

Occasionally. But not regularly?

Not regularly.

OK. We were talking about the number of 500,000 a door. Have we already put some money in to this prior?

Yes, we put $494,000 in previously. $94,000 when the city sold the land to AWOD, we gave them the loan to buy the land. We also lent $400,000 for them to initiate developing a home ownership project in 2011. So it's $500,000 a door in new money, but we've already put money in.

cheaper than another project necessarily i mean we're probably approaching 750 or a million dollars correct correct um do we have other cases in the city with so much city money into such a small project

We do. These ACCA projects have, on the smaller side, half a million to $700,000 per unit development costs. In terms of loans per project, I think this is the outlier.

Okay. And generally, when we work on projects, we have partners with other funders. Are there other funders involved in this?

Okay, so the intent of the ACAW program is an anti-displacement strategy. It's really not a production shop, and these projects are small and medium-sized apartment buildings that we take off the speculative market. They are... VERY CHALLENGED BECAUSE IT'S VERY DIFFICULT TO LEVERAGE OTHER FUNDING FOR THESE ACCAO PROJECTS. WE DON'T TYPICALLY HAVE OTHER PUBLIC SUBSIDIES AND THEY DO NOT SUPPORT PRIVATE DEBT. The state of California recognizes the track record of the Housing Accelerator Fund in San Francisco and our emerging track record and they are considering creating a huge fund statewide to attack this issue.

So the Housing Accelerator Fund is providing technical support but not money in this instance?

Okay. So the ACCA program has two phases. The first phase is a bridge loan during the construction or rehab phase. And in that phase, in the bridge loan pool, the housing accelerator fund fund raises over 75 of that pool so the city of oakland is 25 and half fund raises 75 that's during the bridge loan phase then there's a second phase which is the permanent loan phase in the permanent loan phase That's when we're 100% of the financing most of the time. And this is what you're considering today, is during the permanent loan phase, the city comes in and quote unquote, takes out the bridge loan. So we come in during the permanent loan phase, which is what you're approving today, with a 55 year residual receipts loan. And we are typically 90% to 100% of that financing.

And the million dollar number, that's not the kind of number you normally see on a pro forma. Usually it's 996,324. It's a pretty round number.

It was rounded up. It was a very peculiar number, very close to it. Just for ease of documentation, we rounded it up to a million.

OK. And so this project has languished for 10 years because the group didn't have good technical assistance. We're confident that this is a better bet now?

We are confident that with the Housing Accelerator Fund and with new management at AWOD that this project will get done.

Okay, I'll yield back to the other council members.

Excellent, thank you so much. I know that there were some public speakers, but Council Member Fife?

No, I'd like to hear from the public speakers. I'll reserve my comments.

Excellent, thank you so much. Take your time, Teresa. I know it was just you. Thank you.

Calling in the names of the speakers that signed up to speak on item number six, Rochelle Miller, Amber Cox, Asada Olabala, Buffalo Sojourn, and Simeon Ramey.

I find it amazing when anything comes up that has to do with a black developer, y'all got a thousand and one questions. So this is black folks that are gonna be working on this project. It's been delayed, just like the Jazz Museum has been delayed, just like the developer who was originally gonna take care of the 12th Street development and couldn't get the money together you took it away from him just like the black liberation zone project is still up in the air hasn't got any movement okay so why all the questions when i just told you over and over again the phoenix project has been completed and the east asian development group owes money and you're not asking no questions about that You got this Motel 6 transitional.

Thank you for your comments, Ms. Assata.

Yeah, Buffalo Sojourn again. I'm sort of kind of field secretary for a group organized to address the issue of homeless that got stomped to death by millions of this city some time ago. I know that's not your fault. Oh, congratulations, city administrator. I heard you say code enforcement. You mean you're finally going to try to be real about that? Do you know how many elevators are broken in the senior citizen buildings that black people live in? And the rest of you, I'm a little ashamed. These people started in 2012, and they got a million dollars. You're going to pay their salaries. Hey, also, I found out about this housing acceleration fund. Can you apply that to Oak Knoll? Who's responsible for the fact that the allocated money for Oak Knoll Senior Development has evaporated? Do I have to press charges? Me. Here's a nice phrase.

Thank you for your comments, Mr. Sojourn.

Once again, my name is Samuel Raymond. I'm with the National Union of the Homeless out of Chicago, in the Chicago-Illinois National Headquarters. I'm running the chopper here in Oakland. But it's sad. Why y'all gonna pay these people salary and they don't go do the work? They're getting paid. Why ain't the work being done when it come to us? It's like the same thing you see y'all doing. I mean, I had to make them fix the wall. They weren't going to fix the wall.

It's sad.

And the money is there. The U.N. said, you can't be dumb. Our top ten cities, top ten cities, I mean, top ten colleges, five of them is in the Bay Area. So you ain't dumb. He said, we got, y'all got 50 billionaires in there. You ain't poor. You being cheated. Y'all cheating the American people. Y'all robbing, stealing from the American people, your taxpayers. Worked all their life. But y'all won't give them a single cent. I got the money.

Thank you for your comments, Mr. Ramey.

Greetings. My name is Rochelle Miller. I'm the program director in Purple Heart, Veteran Spouse, and an AWOP member, board member since 2010. And the 319 Chester Street project traces its origins back to city council file 10-0096, which is adopted in 2012. We've secured an experienced property management company, Black Holding Diamonds, for property management. Over the course of the project, we've navigated extraordinary circumstances, including a force majeure with the loss of our executive director, the COVID pandemic, and a significant funding disparity. In 2014, the available project funding equated to approximately $82 per square foot. when the construction costs already approached $145 per square foot at that time, showing that it was 50% underfunded at the start of the project. Furthermore, the affordable housing language was omitted from the final adoption and resolution, limiting both the affordability mechanisms, like agenda item number five, and the CDBG funds, and other opportunities that has caused the project's tax back.

Hi, I'm Amber Cox. I stand before you not only as a board member of AWOD, but also as a daughter of Bruce Cox. He was my father. He was the originator of this organization, and this was his vision. And so I've been around from the start of this project, in and out while I was in college, now as official board member. Some of the delays that you're seeing aren't technical issues. There were a lot of city delays, and I have to put that out there. We have worked volunteer time, and I've been on the board for the past seven years, endless time, standing communication with the residential lending department, getting no response during COVID. It took me a year before it went, after Lloyd Ware left, It took a year before I was able to get in contact with anyone to even see who was going to assist us with our project, who was overseeing, who could we get in contact with. We tried to raise additional funding for this project, but like Rochelle stated, due to verbiage within...

Go ahead, keep going. I just want to hear, did you have something additional to say?

Yeah, so we did try to get additional funding. So it's not like we sat here and waited. We have worked diligently and resiliently for seven, at least for me, seven years and Rochelle longer. Volunteer time. to see this project through. We've met several safety issues where we've put ourselves in dangerous situations to maintain that project, which is located across the street from BART. We have worked extremely hard. I can't tell you how many police reports that I've had to make to evade squatters, to evade people trying to take over our properties by putting their pit bulls in our yard and locking the gate so we don't have access to our own property. From even some of the neighbors sending information to the city to try to get that property taken from us. and we've stood strong through it all. We've worked really hard, and I'm thankful for HAV for working with us to try to get to this point where we are now. This is a big thing, not just for the city of Oakland, just with the housing crisis, but for me personally, this is my father's legacy. So I've been a part of this, and I stand strong, and I continue to be resilient with this. This means a lot. And to the West Oakland community, I also am a resident of West Oakland, and I also wanna see more housing get developed. Our project is almost done. It's not in the, you know, just shambles. There were a lot of additional costs that came up, but this project, it's almost, it's near completion, and we wanna address that housing.

Excellent, and in this moment, do you feel like you have all the tools to see the project through?

Absolutely.

Excellent, thank you.

Thank you.

Excellent. Okay, thank you so much to the public speakers. Council Member Fife?

Yes, I was a part of the community individuals that brought forward the ACA program. It was named something different at the time, but it was myself as a director of ACE. Steve from the Oakland Community Land Trust and Justin as my staff brought forward this program because we knew that Preventing displacement from low-income communities was difficult to fund and for units that are 25 Buildings were 25 units or less. It's it's extremely difficult and extremely expensive because it's not Something that can be scaled. I also know that the pipeline of projects that are similar to this to this that the city has is dwindling and there aren't that many projects left outstanding that fall into this particular category of needing bridge loans or that started years and years ago that still have to be completed. So I do want to say that I'm happy to move this forward. It is expensive. Housing in California is expensive. There are not that many more projects like this that we need to get off the books. It will serve the need that we have with our regional housing needs allocation and I trust the city staffs Suggestions on the pros and cons of moving this particular aspect forward after having that conversation with director Weinstein So I'll be happy to move this item forward and I do want to end with that when I was organizing for a jobs policy at the Oakland army base It was through the organization of Oakland Works and Bruce Cox was a member of that organizing project. I learned so much from him. His vision is still alive. What he was trying to do for formerly incarcerated folks and ensuring that they had access to good paying jobs through construction is something that I admire and I want his vision and legacy to be fulfilled. This is expensive, and we've paid way more money for way fewer benefits to our gentrifying district, so I'm happy to move this forward.

Thank you so much, Council Member Fife. I also think that this is an important investment that we need to make, so I'll second the motion.

Thank you, we have a motion made by Council Member Pipe, seconded by Chair Brown, to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the July 7th, 2026 City Council agenda. On roll, Council Members Pipe. Aye. Ramachandran is excused. Unger.

Aye.

And Chair Brown. Aye. Thank you, motion passes with three ayes, one excused. Ramachandran and to the chairs is to go on consent or non-consent.

Consent.

Okay, thank you. That completes our action items. Now moving on to open forum. Calling in the names that signed up to speak for open forum, Simeo Ramey, Buffalo Sojourn, Asada Olabala, Blair Beekman, Anne McClain, and Robbie Ayala. If you're on Zoom, please raise your hand to be easily identified.

Once again, my name is Samuel Ramey. I'm with the National Union of the Homeless with Mental Health Outreach Program for Independent Living. We have a national program. How long? They've been lying to us. They told us that the bases were contaminated. All of them. Now you're off and put Costco stuff out there so it can't be contaminated. What about the base housing? I had that for one shelter. Keep caution, though. They stopped that program. You got vets on your homes. I want to fix it up for them to live in. That's theirs. They bought for that. They earned that. Y'all won't even give them that cent to move in. Y'all ain't helping nobody. There's people that don't need it. That's what the problem is. Where's my wife? Everybody's getting something done to you. All you need is to be on the ground begging for something to do. We can't get no service and none of that. It's sad. The federal government says any base government property has housing.

Thank you for your comments, Mr. Ramey.

You know, the disposition that you're a sanctuary city is a joke, because people who live in here, born in this city, have to struggle to get things done, particularly African Americans. So the meeting coming up, the next meeting, Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, watch who gets the money. Same people over and over. Friends of Peralta Hacienda, friends of Lincoln Rec Center, Spanish-speaking Unity Council, the Lau family, Family Bridges, East Bay Asian Development Company. All the time, same people getting money. You get one group come here, never been here before, or you got questions for them. you gotta have some accountability because it's a million dollars and it seems quite high you are a sanctuary city but you have no idea who's in here who doesn't go through a process

Well, I know y'all are tired of my mouth and I'm tired of y'all's obfuscation. Although I have to admit, it's nice to know that the city administrator has visited some of the substandard buildings. Are you aware of the amount of dead elevators in the building supposedly for senior citizens? And this year, this child has been making a living for 10 years. going for the million dollars, all I got to say is, I know Oak Knoll was set aside for senior housing. I know that money was allocated. Now, who misappropriated the money? You can't blame it all on Larry Reed. You cannot continue the corruption of your predecessors and expect smiles. I'm embarrassed for you. Item six.

Thank you for your comments. Switching to Zoom user Blair Beekman. You can unmute your mic and begin your comment.

Hi, thank you. Blair Beekman with one minute. Thanks for the meeting. I'm concerned about strong mayor issues, the election coming up this November. I like the democratic process involved. There's choices to be made. I'm trying to figure out a language how to better talk about that. I'm just concerned. I've described in San Diego that we have an IBA system already, and it's not working. We need a different organizational model at this point. I don't know if Oakland can, they can work well possibly in the beginning stages of such a thing, but I don't know if it'll be sustainable over time. And I also wanted to offer that previous council person, Lynn McElhinney, he suggested the ideas of a small city manager with a small C. You know, back in 2016 and 17, it fell through, it never came through, but it was obviously on the table. Organ.

Thank you for your comments. Anne, you can unmute yourself. It looks like we have you signed up for two. I'm guessing the second Anne McLean is Robbie. Ann? Ann, I have your hand raised.

Sorry, you went to the wrong computer. So my name is Robbie. I can go first.

OK, go ahead, Robbie.

Okay, hi, my name is Robbie. You will not be receiving a petition for removal from the bid from. He sold his property this year due to excessive assessment on his property on 35th Avenue. He was assessed by the Laurel beta in the amount of 1434 in addition to all his other Oakland assessments. He is Spanish speaking with limited English comprehension. He was 1 of the residents who did not submit a ballot. Early efforts to speak to him in English about the importance of balloting or. I was assigned to speak with him in Spanish, although there was no language barrier. He could not understand the importance of balloting and its significance. This year I spoke with him about signing a petition for removal from the bid, but was informed by him that he sold his property earlier this year. He said he wished he understood what I was talking about because he was unable to understand the materials that were sent to him by the Laurel bid. The 35th Avenue corridor is not a commercial district, but rather a residential neighborhood, and we are petitioning to be removed from the Laurel bid.

Thank you for your comments and you can unmute yourself and begin your comment.

I'm Anne McLean, one of many residential property owners on 35th Avenue. I'm submitting two more petitions for removal from the Laurel bid. One from Mr. Wu, owner of a single family dwelling, and one from AFL Properties on an eight unit apartment complex on Delaware, approximately 40 yards away from 35th Avenue. We are a diverse group. We have communicated to property owners, I have communicated in Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese. I've provided you with the face sheets of the two brochures presented to 35th Avenue Properties last year, both in English, separately now. Earlier this year, the treasurer of the bid proposed a 5% increase in assessment Rep allows only less than 1% this year. We are completely unlike the Laurel bid, and we want out. We do not want to pay over $30,000 to have the dust blown off our sidewalks.

Thank you for your comments, Chair. That concludes all speakers.

Excellent. Thank you so much, everyone. This meeting is adjourned.