Good afternoon and welcome to the final or sorry to the community and economic development committee meeting of Tuesday, October 13
2026 the time is now 134 p.m. And this meeting may come to order before taking a role
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 it out and turn one into myself
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
This meeting came to order at 1 34 p.m. And speaker cards will no longer be accepted 10 minutes after making that time
144 p.m. Will now proceed with taking roll
Council member five
excused council member
Ramachandran present under here and chair Brown present. Thank you. We have three members present one excused five
And chair at this time. Do you have any announcements? Yes
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us
Given the lengthy agenda that we have and in an effort to stay on schedule
I'm gonna modify the public speaking time to 90 seconds. Thank you
Thank you for the announcement starting off with item one approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting of September 22nd
2026 there are no speakers on this item. We just need a motion. Excellent. Thank you so much so moved
second
Thank you. That's the motion made by councilmember Unger seconded by chair Brown to approve the draft minutes from the committee meeting of September
22nd 2026
Honorable councilmember five excuse councilmember Rama chandrin
Hi under and chair Brown. Hi
Thank you item one passes with three ayes one excused flight to accept the draft minutes from
September 22nd 2026
Moving on to item two determination of scheduled outstanding committee items and we have two speakers are signed up to speak. Excellent
Thank you so much to the administration any changes on this item? No, sure. Excellent. Thank you. We can hear from the public speakers
Calling in the names of sign up to speak on item number two, mrs.. Sada Ola Bala and Blair Beekman
Okay, that concludes speakers on item number two. We just need a motion
Thank you
Thank you, that's a motion made by council members Ramachandran seconded by
Councilmember Unger to accept the determination of schedule of outstanding committee items as is on roll councilmember five
Excuse councilmember Ramachandran. I hunger I and chair Brown
Thank you motion passes with three eyes one excused five to accept the pending list as is
Now reading in item number three adopt an ordinance
authorizing the city administrator to execute a license agreement between the Alameda County flood and flood control and water
Conservation district as
licenses and the city of Oakland as a licensee to provide trail maintenance and stewardship of
of a 0.7 mile portion of the San Leandro Creek Trail
for a license fee of $0 for a term of 25 years
and negotiate and execute a sub-license agreement
with the nonprofit Oakland Parks and Recreation Foundation
to provide such trail maintenance and stewardship
for an initial term of five years with five year option,
with a five, four year, sorry,
with four five year options for a total term
to exceed 25 years making findings at the below market license fee is in the
city's best interest and making California Environmental Quality Act
findings and there are a number of speakers on this item and noting the
presence of councilmember Fife at 138 p.m. perfect thank you so much so for
this item we will be hearing from our the city's sustainability team Shana
Thank you Chair Brown. Just a few quick remarks here. The San Leandro Creek
Urban Greenway phase one is seven-tenths of a mile starting from Hagenberger and
growing up to Columbia Gardens Park. It's owned by the Alameda County Flood
Control and Water Conservation District but fully within city borders. The site
has been a community priority for well over two decades. There are elders in the
the D.P. Stokeland community who remember playing along the creek as kids and using
the creek trail to access the shoreline. In 2017, among other times, council made public
statements pledging to work with the county to provide ongoing maintenance and to patrol
the creek corridor. The county received a $4.1 million California Natural Resources
agency grant in 2018 to construct this segment of the trail contingent on the
county assigning ongoing maintenance to another agency for 25 years via
cooperative maintenance agreement. For various reasons that you can read in the
report the site was going to be included in the Better Neighborhood Same
Neighbors project in deep East Oakland the transformative climate communities
project but it fell out of that and at that point East Bay Regional Parks
district was unable to perform that maintenance role. Since that time
community partners have been providing consistent maintenance through the
county Adopt-a-Spot program as well as doing a lot of their own fundraising. To
date they've raised over half a million dollars. They've been partnering with the
Peralta Community College District, Castlemont High School. They designed,
And the city and county have been negotiating a cooperative license agreement for about two years at this point.
And the current draft allows the city to terminate the license agreement if the city is able to secure a substitute maintenance agreement.
If the city is unable to find a replacement sub-licency.
is able to secure a substitute maintenance agreement.
If the city is unable to find a replacement sub-licency,
the city would work to secure public support
for trail maintenance through the Adopt-A-Spot program,
and otherwise the city would be financially responsible
for performing that maintenance,
which OPW estimates to cost around 20 to $25,000 a year.
That's the first half of this item
is executing that agreement.
The second half of the item would immediately,
upon executing the agreement with the county,
it would immediately transfer maintenance responsibility
over to the Oakland Parks and Recreation Foundation.
That piece would build on precedent set by
Oakland Parks and Recreation Foundation, OPRF,
at Lake Merritt, at Tyrone Kearney Park, and other sites
where OPRF is working with community groups
to steward public spaces,
and they have been doing an excellent job in every site
where they've been doing that type of work.
Along the Creek corridor,
they're working with local groups,
including the East Oakland Neighborhoods Initiative
and the Broward-Delham Institute
for Sustainable Policy Studies,
which have raised the funding that we talked about before,
and they are committing to a total of 25 years
of trail maintenance.
That concludes my formal remarks.
I don't think that's what we're
going to be able to do.
I don't think that's what we're
going to be able to do.
That's what we're going to be
able to do.
That's what we're going to be
able to do.
That's what we're going to be
able to do.
That's what we're going to be
able to do.
That's what we're going to be
able to do.
That's what we're going to be
able to do.
That's what we're going to be
able to do.
That's what we're going to be
able to do.
That's what we're going to be
able to do.
That's what we're going to be
able to do.
That's what we're going to be
able to do.
committee meeting and chair
brown.
To adjourn the community
economic development committee
meeting and to convene as a
special meeting of the full
council.
On roll council members by.
I am a chung joon.
I under and share brown I thank
you motion passes with four eyes
to convene- search to convene
as a special meeting of the
full council.
Excellent thank you so much-
councilmember Houston did you
can we hear from the public speakers first. Excellent thank you. Calling in
the names that sign up to speak on item number three in no particular order you
can come up to the podium state your name for the record before making your
comments or raise your hand on zoom to be easily identified. Robin Freeman, David
Ralston, Marquita Price, Aya Jeffers Favreau, Asada Olavala, and Blaire Beekman.
Again, in no particular order, if you sign up to speak on item 3, you can come up to
the podium.
Hello.
I'm Robin Freeman.
I'm Meredith's chair of the Environmental Program at Merritt College and co-director
of the Broward-Elhams Institute for Sustainable Policy Studies.
And I am delighted to be here now and that the license agreement is on the agenda and
after 20 years and thank you so much for the staff putting it together. So after
2006 the community requested access to San Antonio Creek and our Merrick College
students led a community design process along with funding from that time
Development Agency and Caltrans, and we designed something in conjunction with the Safe Routes
to School and a neighborhood to Shoreline Connection that's in alignment with a general
plan update.
Our youth have been involved in, as all generations, in the design and installation and maintenance
so far wind up here as staff said that 2 million was allocated for community maintenance but
unfortunately was lost due to an oak dot repo.
Thank you for your comments your time is up.
Good afternoon esteemed council my name is David Ralston resident of Oakland I am speaking
I would like to thank you for
the great effort that you're
doing in favor of this item.
Thank you to staff for your
commitment in hard work and
especially thank you.
To our community partners some
of them who are here who've been
working.
To see this project come to
fruition as you've heard for
over two decades and I've had
the pleasure of working with
many of these partners this is
not been an easy project at all
in fact as is a side.
U. P. R. R. railroad did not
the city council and city staff to remedy that to we actually
had to give money back to the state so we want to change those
conditions but we are what you have before you here today.
Is really an environmental justice and equity investment
issue a needed connection community connection from
deep east Oakland to open space resources safe routes to school.
development opportunities.
Already we've seen in the city plenty of examples of successful public partnership
community volunteer projects such as the bridge view trail project.
Sausal Creek project the Montclair railroad path.
Temescal frog park those are some that I've are familiar with we have a chance here to
bring this type of project to deep East Oakland is is needed.
piece Oakland is is needed.
I think you're going down a slippery slope of people decide they want to start doing stuff that's the city's responsibility and say oh we can do it.
And that power thing that people have you know I can do this I can do whatever white folks mostly.
But anyway they have a liability issue that needs to be brought up.
When you allow non-city employees
to be involved in a project
for which there is the possibility of liability,
we taken responsibility for that,
or they taken responsibility for it.
I have never seen a rationale
for a contract having to,
an arrangement having to be 25 years.
But that's what power people need.
They need to have it for 25 years.
this arrangement with a non-public group of people,
a foundation.
And this goes back to that park and wreck advisory board
that y'all give power to, to decide on issues about parks,
issue about permits for trees,
it's about fencing, they've made decisions,
on a lot of things.
They don't have a right to do that.
Can somebody explain, any contract,
We're also working to make sure
that we're not taking the
responsibility of 25 years with
no performance evaluation
needed.
All right.
Good afternoon.
My name is Aja Jeffers-Farborough.
I'm showing up today as a
resident and co-director for the
East Oakland Neighborhoods
Initiative.
We're asking for your support in
approving the maintenance and
license agreement needing to open
the San Leandro Creek Greenway
Trail to the public.
Earlier this year we came before
you to present our community
stewardship program pilot
alongside the Tyrone Kearney Park
Oakland and foundational skills in site maintenance community ambassadorship and care at multiple sites in deep East
It was a success and its model will be carried forward by the Sibrani Park resident Action Council to support continued stewardship
We see this as proof that investing and collaborating with community is not just something we want
It's essential to the long-term care and sustainability of our neighborhoods
We're working to bring that same spirit of community stewardship back to San Leandro Creek Greenway trail
building on the project's original vision and to honor the many hands that have come together over the years to bring the space back to
life. As mentioned OPRF is willing to sign this maintenance sub agreement
has signed the sub agreement for Tyrone Kearney Park and is willing to do the same for the creek trail.
The infrastructure for long-term care is being laid and approving this license agreement is a critical step in moving that forward.
Ultimately our goal is to see Deep East Oakland be a place where people can thrive and where neighbors can afford to stay.
That means safe routes to schools, better connections between communities, meaningful
access to our land and waterways, and public spaces that are cared for by the people who
call these neighborhoods home.
The trail is already being activated in small but mighty ways.
We're committed to do this work, and we're committing to continue partnership with the
city to see this vision through and sustain it for many generations to come.
Thank you.
What's up with the trail?
How y'all doing?
My name is Keita Price, known as the Hood Planner.
working for all of that.
I grew up living between the shady 80s in Stone City.
I learned about the Sally Angel Creek via an engagement meeting
at Robin Freeman and Mayor's Students Hill at the East Oakland
Box Association about five or six years ago.
And I saw the youth engagement that was done.
I saw the opportunities to connect the hood to my favorite
place without taking the overly polluted Sally Angel Boulevard.
I saw the opportunity for workforce development and for
community city and for community city partnerships for maintenance.
And I just wanted to make sure
that they had an entity who can
police and maintenance.
And we always was making sure
that we can advocate for an
equitable partnership.
And the city had always known
about that.
This is the very first project
that I consulted on as a hood
planner, supporting community
engagement, design, and planning
and stewardship.
As a resident of the general
plan update advisory group, I'm
aware of and have contributed to
the priorities of shoreline
connections, including trails
and greenways from the hood to
the shore.
This project is in alignment to
And I believe that's what we're
going to be we're going to be
packing others from for some
time now.
We would appreciate the city
being more collaborative with
us in a community to in a
community to figure out long
term so we're sure.
The flood district has taken a
risk we have taken a risk and
exhausted tons of years of sweat
equity and now it's time for the
city to step up and join us we
understand a liability in the
single unorthodox but again.
The creek is being used is being
dumped in is being lived in
before construction and now that
this four point one million has
been invested in a trial is
state. Thank you at this time all names have been called
excellent thank you so much I'm councilmember Houston I know this this
is in district seven so wanted to make space to have you go ahead and ask any
questions you may have and through the chair I'd just like to thank for the
presentation I'd like to thank everyone that came in my district's been under
serve for so long Tyrone Carding Park was shut down for 23 years 23 years from
My friends being murdered.
I went over to, when Larry Reed was the council member,
I went up to his office, the one I'm in right now,
and asked him to shut it down.
He shut it down.
Now we have individuals that's gonna be embracing it,
keeping it clean, it's gonna be beautiful.
They held it back a little bit for the grand opening,
so be ready, because I'm gonna announce it.
It's gonna be the real grand opening.
So I want everybody to come out.
And about this trail, it's been dumped on.
You heard it, feces in it.
This is gonna be a beautiful piece.
And I heard Mrs. Asada also at the same time
mentioned some things.
When it comes to these nonprofit organizations
and individuals, and this is for you ma'am,
so can you step up?
Do they have to have a certain amount of insurance?
Because I remember when I was running a nonprofit,
I had a certain I had $2 million liability.
This, that, this, that, this, that.
Insurance on the trucks, on the cars.
It was just overwhelming.
So how do they address that
with being able to actually embrace these projects?
Through the Chair, the Oakland Parks and Recreation
Foundation does have to provide adequate insurance
per the city's regular contracting process.
It's the same insurance that they are providing
for the work that they're doing in Tyrone Kearney Park.
And so they are, they're using that
and they're also complying with all of the city's
other contracting requirements.
So this covers for the individuals
that's gonna be out there working?
Through the chair, yes it does.
Okay, and through the chair,
I heard you say before I ran up
about beautification efforts with Castlemont.
Yes.
My alumni, where I went.
I'm planning for justice.
All my folks work there.
So how's that working with them being engaged with this?
Again, through the chair,
the groups that have been working on this site
are very committed to the community
because they are in the community
and they have been working together
for far longer than I've been here.
They have been organizing together to care for this trail.
I don't know how the groups originally came together
because, like I said, their partnership
preceded my working on this project.
But I believe that the Institute,
the Broward-Delham Institute for Sustainable Policy Studies
and East Oakland Neighborhoods Initiative,
I think they brought in Planting Justice
and Planting Justice did all of the plantings
along the creek trail.
The trail is only on one side of the creek.
It's on the western side of the creek.
And Planting Justice is maintaining those plantings
through the beginning of 2027.
Okay, do you have a scope of work
for each department of what they're gonna be doing?
The scope of work is embedded in the contract
that is between the city and the county.
So the cooperative maintenance agreement
between the city and the Alameda County Flood Control
and Water Conservation District
specifies all of the maintenance activities
that need to occur along the trail.
And those become embedded in the license agreement,
And then I would like to ask
if there is a sub license
agreement that the city is
going to execute.
With Oakland parks and
recreation foundation if the
council.
Directs the administration so
through the chair send it to me
please.
Excellent and I know one of the
questions I was going to ask is
I believe that your office was
interested in doing a briefing
with council member Houston so
I imagine that more information
can provide be provided to
councilmember Houston and the
you know as was mentioned some amazing stakeholders that will be involved in
this project so I'm definitely supportive. I did read in the report that
the Coastal Commission grant needs to be spent by December 31st and so are you
are we feeling confident that that will happen? If we are able to execute these
agreements as rapidly as possible going through without without any delays on
on our end, the community groups have said
that they will be able to spend those funds
without having to return them.
And is that specifically going to just the opening or?
I think there are, there's a slew of activities
that will go on with that funding.
I'm not sure of the entire scope of it.
I see, okay.
The community members are here who have control of this.
Okay, excellent.
And so I'll make a motion to go ahead and move this to the October 20th City Council
meeting.
I just need a second from any of my colleagues.
Oh, sorry Council Member Fife.
Council Member Fife and then Council Member Houston, I think you had another question.
The question was, how much was the overall grant that was?
A hundred and seventy-two thousand.
And I'll happy to make a second.
And I did have one question about whether the volunteers, and I remember when Eoni was
formed, I was just starting as the director at ACE, and there's folks here that were part
of that process a long time ago, and I'm really happy to see people still working hard for
D.P.
Stokeland.
That's when we were doing the Congress and neighborhoods and all that stuff, so happy
to support.
that is that's what I would
like to hear from you.
I want to understand if the
volunteers that will be
supporting this project will
they be stipended or how will
is there any.
If you don't know shana then
happy to hear from.
Maybe some of the
organizations that are
participating I just wanted to
know if there's some kind of
compensation for the folks that
are helping to steward.
The land.
Through the chair I know that
that is the ultimate goal I
Allow for that, but there is ongoing fundraising our office sustainability resilience division is committed to fundraising with these groups
So I don't know if the funds that they have in hand
Will provide for that, but I know that that is the ultimate goal and that is what's happening with Tyrone Carney Park
excellent councilmember Houston
Excellent, I guess we have a motion in a second and no further questions from my colleagues. Okay. Excellent. Let's let's move on
Okay, thank you
We have a motion made by chair Brown second by council member five to approve the recommendations of staff and to board this item
To the October 20th 2026 City Council agenda on roll council members by aye
Ramachandran under and chair Brown. Aye Thank You motion passes with four eyes to board this item to the October 20th
City Council agenda on consent
reading in
item four
Adopt the following pieces of legislation one and Orsa resolution approving a termination plan for the Oakland redevelopment successor agency
Authorizing the transfer of all assets liabilities and interests of Orsa other than bond liabilities to the city of Oakland
Including all remaining active loans all disposition and development agreements and owner participation agreements and all real property assets
authorizing an assignment transfer
and a compensation agreement with the city of Oakland with respect to such transfers writing off uncollectible or salons as
bad debts and making related California Environmental Quality Act findings and to a
resolution authorizing the acceptance by the city of Oakland of all assets liabilities and interests of the Oakland redevelopment
successor agency
Other than bond liabilities pursuant to the orse determination plan including all remaining active loans all dispositions
and development agreements, and owner participation agreements,
and all real property assets authorizing
and assignment transfer, and compensation agreement
with ORSA with respect to such transfers
and making related California Environmental Quality Act
findings.
And there are two speakers that sign up for this item.
Perfect.
Thank you so much.
Maybe put 10 minutes on the clock for this item,
as there may be a lengthy discussion.
And so we'll hear first from Director Knitt,
as well as Patrick Lane, the city's former redevelopment manager.
Thank you, Chair Brown.
I'll be brief. Ashley Cannett, director of Economic and Workforce Development.
I just wanted to take just a moment to frame up why we're bringing this forward
to EWD at this time.
My department, specifically the Public Private Development Division,
has been responsible for overseeing the wind down of the city's redevelopment
commitments, and we're looking ahead about 15 years to when the final
redevelopment bond obligations are due, and we wanted to begin.
identifying and documenting a plan for that transition. While the details in
the report are technical and there will probably be some discussion, we're
anticipating that full wind down will occur in 2040, so there's time to work
through questions in a thoughtful way. We also wanted to do this while we have
while we have key staff who have been instrumental in managing the funds or
managing these obligations while they're still here before their permanent
retirement so we can benefit from their institutional knowledge and expertise. So
So today's item is really about responsibly planning ahead.
I really want to thank our public-private development team and our colleagues in finance
and HCD for their collaborative work on this.
And with that, I'll turn it over to Patrick Lane, a former manager of the Oakland Redevelopment
Agency, who returned as an annuitant to help with this work.
Thank you.
As stated, my name is Patrick Lane.
I was a 30-year employee in redevelopment for the City of Oakland, and I'm an annuitant
today.
Writing before you requires two resolutions, the, forward, back, sorry, requires two resolutions,
one from the Oakland Redevelopment Successor Agency, an agency set up to wind down redevelopment
activities, that resolution allows transfer to the city of certain assets and liabilities
and other agreements, the city resolution accepts those and agrees to a compensation
of the taxing entities for certain of the revenue
from those assets.
So, I think I have it upside down, sorry.
So, the brief history of redevelopment is
for 56 years the Oakland Development Agency existed
and then there were a number of redevelopment areas
and projects over that time.
Then in 2011-12 the state defunded redevelopment
and dissolved all redevelopment agencies in the state.
And since that time, the city soon responsibility
for the successor agency,
Oakland Redevelopment Successor Agency.
This board sits as both the city council
and the board of the successor agency.
And in 2013 and 14,
the ORSA did a number of activities related
to completing the activities of the redevelopment agency,
including a bond expenditure agreement with ORSA,
whereby all the bonds that had been issued
were transferred to the city.
The city created a bond expenditure,
a bond spending plan that allocated these funds.
And then through the budget process is amended
that the Oakland Successor Agency continues to submit,
transfer bond funds to the city from program income.
next. It was mentioned that I'm retired and that I will stop working soon, that's
one of the reasons why we're doing this now, but I was actually brought back to
do this. There are a number of activities that I will do before I leave and then
there's a plan of what to be done in the next 15 years before it is able to be
terminated or so. The termination plan basically has three broad categories of
of assets that we transferred over their loans receivable.
This is payments due to ORSA from loans that were issued
by the Redevelopment Agency prior to dissolution.
Then there is also development agreements.
The issue on development agreements is
that these contracts require the agency to make statements,
stop-alls about the property condition under that agreement
And also at times amend the agreement.
Right now we're in discussion with the courtyard by Marriott
to allow them to change the use of that site.
Currently it has to stay as a hotel.
If it ever changed, it would need some kind of amendment
to the development agreement.
And then the last thing is property owned by ORSA.
And we can go over that pretty quickly,
but there's just a few properties left.
And then any other assets, it's just a broad category
in case we forget something,
and they could be in one of these three categories,
but they weren't on the list or anything else,
so that if it comes up in the future,
the city can take care of that,
and they will have the authority to do that.
So the loans receivable are three broad categories.
Active commercial loans,
there are three loans in this category,
and we're collecting that money,
and the net proceeds will be transferred
to the taxing entities.
Affordable housing loans,
These are loans that probably should have been transferred
to the city as housing assets,
but they weren't part of the Lomod Housing Fund.
These are other funds like Acorn and Central District
and regular redevelopment funds, but for housing projects.
So we're proposing those be transferred
to the city as housing assets and remain there as that.
And then the last one is Doubtful Accounts.
And just to be clear,
these are very old loans in some of them.
There's one broad category in the list of various loans.
Those have been listed as various loans for almost 20 years as doubtful.
They're way past the statute of limitations for collecting on those debt.
But it requires board approval to actually write them off.
And so this could have taken place any time in the last 20 years, but
it's part of the clean up, we're doing it for all the loans now.
And development agreements, we've talked a little bit about this.
A few examples of Swans Market, Uptown Residential Project, Preservation Park.
These are all old projects that have these development agreements on the land, and any
change into them has to be done by somebody.
If we transfer to the city, the city can do it.
And then the property is owned by the city.
There's only one major property owned by the city.
It's Franklin 88 parking garage.
When the project was developed, this was a surface lot in Chinatown.
We built public parking to replace the parking that was on the site for the community.
The demand for this parking has gotten drastically down.
went down in the big crash in 2008. It came up a little bit for until COVID and then it's just
non-existent since COVID. This garage is closed down and we have to sell it sometime in the near
future. And then there's seven scattered sites in West Oakland in the Oak Center project area.
These are small sites. There are road riding sites where there's a five foot strip along a property
that we own, there's little remainder sites.
These are not developable sites.
None of them's over 1,000 square feet,
but at some point we need to do something with them.
And if we don't do anything with them,
they'll go to the city.
There's no cost to the city.
We're doing nothing right now.
Most of the neighbors probably think that they're theirs.
And so, and then these actions that we're talking about
in the plan go into three broad categories again.
immediate action, later action, and ongoing until the end.
And so most of these activities are now,
we're cleaning up all the accounts and everything
in the near future, early next year, hopefully.
And then that includes transfer of most of the assets.
Transfer of the unknown assets is just a broad category.
And then the ROPS and loan payments and no,
ROPS and last and final ROPS.
Those can happen in the near future.
But it'll be one ROPS and we'll get payments from that ROPS.
It'll cover all the years until the end.
And the last payments for the bond,
which is most of the payments at this point, is in 2040.
Most of the payments will disappear in 2036.
There's one bond that's longer than that.
So they're gradually disappearing
and they will be paid off by 2040.
And then this is the agreement that's going to be between the Orsa and the city.
It's an assignment and transfer and completion agreement.
Basically lists all the things that are transferred.
It also pledges for the city to pay the net revenue from the assets to the taxing entities
who would otherwise get it from Orsa now.
the city is able to deduct staffing costs
from monitoring loans and selling property,
but the net money will go to the taxing entities.
And right now we have that same kind of agreement
on the long range property management plan.
In that case, all property purchased
with unrestricted funds, that is non-bond funds,
will be paid, is paid to the taxing entities now.
And there were only a few properties like that,
any bond funded properties the city keeps it and that's more revenue for the
bond spending plan and recommendation again is approve the two resolutions one
Orsa in one city and thank you if you have any questions I'm available wow I
think that that's almost a first you finish right at 10 minutes I was trying
to hurry that was really good thank you so much for a comprehensive breakdown
While I have you I did have a question about it says it's like 1.6 million and it's titled
various borrowers listed in the report and I guess so can you explain that and what that
means and then in addition as I was looking at the fiscal impact I wasn't able to determine
exactly which fund the 1.6 would be coming from in the report.
So first of all, let's answer the last question.
This is saying we will not receive this money.
This is money that's owed to the city
that we're not going to receive.
So we're just, and so that it would have been
a central district fund and it's an operating fund.
So it would be a fund that we wouldn't,
the city would never get the money from.
If the loans were repaid,
it would have gone to the taxing entities
and the city would have gotten,
I think it's 29% in the boomerang money.
So, it's not money that was for the city,
but EWD and finance put a lot of effort into finding these.
We traced this back almost 20 years.
It's been listed as a doubtful account
at various borrowers for that whole period.
So, we couldn't determine when it was done,
but it was listed as doubtful account.
was to pass the statutory limits to collect.
So legally, we weren't in a position
to actually collect it anymore.
But it required us to come to council
and do this action before we could actually
take it off the books.
So the finance department is asking us to do this
so that they could actually remove it
from the books at this time.
I see.
So the specific 1.6 of that, various borrowers,
we are never getting that money back but,
and so we're just at a loss exactly.
Yeah, okay. I got it. Okay, and and this allows us to actually say that officially in our books. I see. Okay. Thank you
Mr. Lane
Colleagues any questions or comments on this item?
councilmember five
Just one quick question. Mr. Lane. You said two things that stood out to me in your report. One is that
the people I guess the people living around these sites probably think they're theirs and
So just some clarity around what does that mean?
And then there are several parcels that are unusable
because they're a thousand square feet or less.
What is the plan for those?
So none of the parcels, all seven of the parcels,
none of them are developable.
A couple of them are from road widening
where there's literally a strip that's five feet wide
along a property.
So it's the full length of the property.
It's sitting next to them and nobody's using it.
And so it seems like it's part of their property.
I see.
small portions that are just like little corners and they're only like a hundred square feet.
So these are just remainders from the development 40, 50 years ago.
And so those will be written off?
They're going to be transferred to the city and the city is authorized to sell them, but
they don't have any real market value, but the city would be required to pay any net
revenue from the sale to the tax identities, but the city can sit on them or try to get
the adjacent property owners to buy them.
Those are like two options to me and and my colleague asks, where are they?
They're all in a corn. I know Oak Center, which is West Oakland between I think it's
something like 10th and
That's fine. I know what it is
Center Oak Center, it's all they're all in Oak Center. Okay, and then can we work together just or can you keep my office?
Abreast of reaching out to the adjacent property owners to find out if they're interested. Yeah, this has been on backburner since the
Transfer I can't help I don't think we have staff to actually do it. I can help them
We're just saying this will allow us to do something eventually. Thank you
Thanks, I'll second it councilmember Houston mr. Lane long time
When did you get back I work part-time. Okay. Okay. I remember you back what I want to age both of us
Right, so I have some pieces in my
District similar to that so similar to that that and I'll reach out to you about it though
But anyway, I just wanted to see how long you've been back cuz I know your face
I've been back three times since I retired okay, and then left again and then came back. All right. All right. Thank you. Thank you chair
Excellent, thank you so much. Mr. Lane council member Rama Chandra
Very quick question. I appreciate the presentation
Will all of these transfer so by starting this process now up until?
2040 which will go on will we will there be an anticipated?
Additional revenue coming to the city compared to before I know you mentioned staffing class, but that's probably pretty marginal
So so the only money that the only money from this
Transfers that will come to the city or the sales and the loans and we only money we can keep from those two
Are the net money for the staffing so there aren't there aren't any additional funds
from prior transfers there have been a lot of property and
Bond funds and there's continues to be bond funds from Orsa from program revenue
So we have some projects that are winding down and there's still revenue that money is coming to the city and it
goes into certain restricted funds. They're the
56 funds that are all redevelopment
Okay, and one but that's already been going on that's it's going on there. There'll be more there might be more of it
But we don't know the exact amount
Okay, when will we know how much would go into our respective?
They get swept annually and so in
Around June they for the financial year
they figure out how many is in or says accounts and they sweep it over to the city that as much as possible and
it gets added later to the
City's budget in those funds. So they they appropriate the funds in the future based on actuals. Thank you
because calling in the names I signed up to speak on item number four missis
sada olavala and blair beakman so I've become fixated with this idea that we
only have 32 percent of our city employees that live in Oakland so when
people come up and they give a presentation I'm constantly saying do
they live in Oakland and it just seems like people that don't live in Oakland
making decisions about what's best for me in Oakland is problematic now he did
say in his report that the 88 garage parking facility eventually we're gonna
have to eliminate that or get rid of it so how do you get rid of a garage what
do you do with it what do you do with it especially when it's connected to a
building a condominium I think. So my question is are we is it are we gonna
get rid of it or are we gonna be stuck with it? And what other properties can we
look at and say we probably not gonna be able to get rid of this we're gonna be
stuck with that and so being stuck means we have a maintenance obligation we have
I don't know what other obligations we have if we have property that we can't
to get rid of?
And how do we deal with that?
Thank you for your comments.
All names have been called.
And we do have a motion.
We have a motion made by Councilmember Fyfe, seconded by Chair Brown, to approve the recommendations
of staff and support this item to the October 20th City Council agenda.
On roll, Councilmembers Fyfe.
Aye.
Ramachandran.
Aye.
Unger.
Aye.
And Chair Brown.
Aye.
Thank you.
to the October 28th City Council agenda on consent.
Reading in item five, receive an informational report
on the results of the transient occupancy tax
sharing agreement with Oakland Pro Soccer, LLC,
Oakland Roots and Soul Soccer Club,
and we have four speakers that sign up
to speak on this item.
Excellent, thank you for this item.
We will hear from Director Cannon again.
Thank you, good afternoon.
Ashley Cannon, Director of Economic and Workforce Development.
the costume change for this item, gonna dawn it.
And as the presentation is coming up,
last year around this time we were getting really excited
about World Cup coming into the Bay Area.
The Roots and Soul Soccer Club were considering
throwing their name into the hat and competing
to have their practice facility selected by a World Cup team
to be used as a base camp during World Cup.
The expense incurred to the Roots and Soul
would be significant, but we anticipated
that there would be substantial positive economic
and fiscal impact.
So EWD introduced a resolution, it was co-sponsored,
by Councilmembers Ramachandran and Gao,
that would authorize staff to negotiate
a transient occupancy tax share agreement
to incentivize the Roots and Soul Soccer Club
to work to attract a World Cup team to Oakland.
The city administration and the Roots and Soul
subsequently entered into a tax sharing agreement
on May 12th, 2026, and the agreement stipulated
that if specific performance targets were met,
the city would share back up to $300,000
of incremental general fund TOT revenue
generated above the June 2025 baseline.
And that June 2025 baseline amount is $1.35 million.
That was the June 2025 baseline,
and we would compare that to the June 2026 revenues.
So the month of June was selected as a baseline
because while the tournament officially began on June 11th,
teams report to their team base camp early in the month.
And then the last local game was played
at Levi Stadium on July 1st.
So the month of June made it easy for staff
to identify and isolate the impact.
Oops, I'm sorry.
Fast forward a year, oh, I was on the wrong slide.
I'm sorry, here we are.
Fast forward a year, the Oakland Roots and Soul Soccer Club successfully met all performance
targets outlined under the agreement.
They secured an official FIFA World Cup team to reuse the Roots and Soul facility as the
team base camp during World Cup 2026.
The Australian men's national football team, the Socceroos, that's the scarf here.
They delivered community access through public watch parties, local neighborhood activations
and international business networking and generated room night demand within Oakland
and hotel stock to exceed the target TOT increment threshold.
One of the tools deployed was the East Bay soccer trail that matched World Cup games
to events and watch parties in the East Bay.
You could go online and search out a game you cared about, for example, and find venues
that were hosting events around that particular game.
Dozens of Oakland businesses availed themselves of this promotional opportunity.
And here are just a few pictures of events and activations at Romandi, at Needo's, at
at the Oakland Athletic Club,
there was an open practice
at the Roots Practice Facility,
celebrations at the Aloha Club in Lot 2270.
Even convenience store markets benefited
from World Cup fever.
What's the picture in the lower left-hand corner?
And all of this economic activity generated sales
for the businesses and sales tax revenue to the city.
But it's difficult to isolate the sales tax impact
and attribute it just to World Cup.
And it's why the agreement focused
on transient occupancy tax.
So as I noted before we selected the month of June 2025 as our baseline, and the agreement
was structured so that the city would not be worse off relative to June 2025.
The first condition is that we needed to collect at least $1.35 million in base TOT, and our
agreement was that we would share up to $300,000 of increment above that June 2025 baseline.
We ended up collecting in the neighborhood of $1.735 million in June 2026.
So we, the city's general fund, retained the base amount of $1.35 million.
The roots in Seoul received the next increment of $300,000 that we had agreed to.
And then the city retained an additional $80,000 above that.
I think what's notable is that even with five fewer hotels in Oakland's inventory
between June 2025 and June 2026 and 360 fewer hotel rooms, visitor activity in June 2026
was so substantial that it increased TOT by 28% in that month.
A large part of this is attributable to the fact that the socceroos and their entourage
all stayed at the Claremont Hotel, TOT comes to Oakland from the Claremont, and data shared
by visit Oakland indicates that occupancy was up from about 67 percent in June 2025
to 73.6 percent in June 2026, and the average daily rate increased from 128 dollars per
room to 147. That's June over June. I've also been in touch with Kevin Bolin, the general
manager of the downtown Marriott, and while he wasn't able to come here today to speak
on this item, he wanted me to share that, quote, the FIFA World Cup provided a significant
tailwind for the Oakland Marriott City Center. The event generated both direct
demand from international visitors attending matches and indirect demand
from travelers displaced by sold out conditions and neighborhood markets.
I'll also note that the 3% measure C TOT that benefits visit Oakland, the zoo, the
Oakland Museum, Chabon, fairs and festivals increased proportionally as
well. So today's informational report was requested by CED as a condition of
Forwarding the item to the City Council and recommending approval and even though it's just an informational item
There's no action before you today
The item will need to be heard by the full City Council as a public hearing that would be consistent with section
53083 of the California government code that puts certain requirements in place when a local jurisdiction local jurisdiction grants and economic development
Subsidy and with that I'll take any questions. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you so much for the update
Councilmember Ramachandran. Thank you for the update and big big appreciation to the Oakland roots for
going above and beyond to
activate the entire city and
really
You know you became event planners
You carried the burden of a lot of other entities that probably should have been helping with this effort a whole lot more
as someone that was deeply involved in
Helping see how we can take Oakland to the next level and use this opportunity for economic development
the Oakland roots played such an
Pivotal part of that so I'm glad this is going to be able to help your efforts
Well in recouping the money that you already spent to build up this training facility
Of course, I know there's other fact. I when I first heard the numbers
I thought, well, I wish it could have been more.
But I did do a lot of comparisons to other cities.
We're not in New York City.
We're not in LA.
But even cities as big as those did not
get a lot of the revenue that they expected because
of ticket prices, because of FIFA policy.
So I know that a lot of what I think
even might have been anticipated by me, for example,
was a little out of our control.
So given what we had, I think we did quite well.
And again, the roots, you really took the lead on these efforts, and I appreciate that.
My question to Director Kannett is, my understanding is Alameda County and the City of Alameda had
similar agreements. Did they fulfill theirs as well, and will they be giving the roots a share as well?
It may be that the roots and soil were able to speak to that during public comment.
I know that the City of Alameda had offered up to $150,000.
and I do believe the partnership with the county
was more around the provision of sheriff
and security services,
but perhaps Lindsay can speak to that
if she speaks during public comment.
Thank you for the question.
Excellent, and I'm open to inviting Lindsay
to come up and share briefly to answer
Councilmember Ramachandran's question
and any additional information you want to provide.
Sure, thank you very much, Madam Chair.
We did have a similar arrangement with Alameda City,
and we do expect that they will be,
sharing their TOT revenue with us.
We haven't received those finances yet,
so I can say an amount.
The county did not have a similar arrangement in place
and did not participate in funding this effort.
All right, thank you, thank you so much.
Yeah, I think that the activation
across the city of Oakland for the World Cup
was just really dynamic.
I was just gonna share that there's a beautiful picture
actually from lot 2270.
I didn't know that that lot could hold so many people
for one of the World Cup watch parties.
It was like hundreds of people there activated in that space.
So, you know, all in all, I'm glad that this agreement
worked out in order to support the Oakland roots
and just really support, you know,
giving the city of Oakland the visibility, right,
that it definitely deserves and so yeah super excited very grateful that this
worked out excellent councilmember five this is tangentially related through the
chair director can it do you know if Berkeley gets TOT do we have to split
TOT with Berkeley when people stay at the Claremont Hotel or does that all
come to the city I believe it all comes to the city of Oakland yep the street
And so I think I have the
opportunity to take the address
as city of Berkeley and I think
a lot of people think the
Claremont hotels in Berkeley
but we have the T. O. T. from
that.
I know the property line it
splits splits through both
cities so in parts of the
structure I was just curious if
we have to split any of that T.
O. T. with my understanding is
no but I will check that and
follow up thank you.
Councilmember Houston so so I'm
one tunnel Road Berkeley California 9 4 7 0 5. It's not
Oakland.
I'm sure. Yeah. I was going to say I remember when this item
came before us a year ago. I believe that was one of the
questions that were raised. And I believe it's definitely
Oakland. But go ahead council member. It is entirely in
District 4. There is a small portion of the parking lot
That's in Berkeley, for, that was one of my questions
almost four years ago when I became
the District 4 Council Member.
All legal, it is entirely in the legal jurisdiction
of Oakland and in District 4.
There is physically a small part that falls in Berkeley,
but for example, I have over 1,000 addresses
in Oakland's District 4 that have a Berkeley postal address,
residential addresses as well.
I don't know why that is.
Residents have lobbied the post office before.
Even just a couple of weeks ago there was a homicide
in people thought that was Berkeley.
It ended up being in Oakland.
The residential address was Berkeley
and it's near Berkeley's campus
and oddly enough you need to drive through Berkeley
to get there but it legally falls
under Oakland's jurisdiction as does the Claremont Hotel.
Right, so through the chair they need to correct that
because that's very confusing to the people
and even to me, right?
So and then when we speak about hotel usage,
that's Claremont, right?
What about District 7, right?
We have hotels.
How do we identify which hotels were used in District 7?
I know this is about Oakland, I got it.
But the Coliseum is in 6 and 7, right?
So I wanna know how and the breakdown
on what District 7 benefited from their hotels,
which we've had five hotels closed.
That's very important to me.
And what's important to me also is that
the Roots is now in Alameda, right?
So those hotels in Alameda around where that facility is
is gonna benefit, it's not gonna benefit my district seven.
They're not gonna come there.
How do we work that out where if they're rooted in Oakland
but they're in Alameda, how do we still benefit
if they're coming back?
we don't know what it is but
I don't know the situation.
But I do know this does the city
of Oakland still on plan to
give them some money is it
something that they're supposed
to be given the rules from this
tax on revenue.
Through the chair.
Do they are they still owed some
money.
And through the chair we've
completed the terms of our
agreement so they do the chair
they receive their money.
Correct all right so because I'm
to be a part of the city of
alameda county.
So I just wanted to find out how that's going to be reimbursed
too and given back.
But I just want to know how this benefits and how do you do
the breakdown to show that district seven, district seven
benefited not across the whole city because that's what needs
it the most.
Thank you so much council member Houston for the question.
I think in this moment the item that is before us is around the
I have a question about the
agreement that the council passed
a year ago.
And so I feel like there's a
broader question that you're
asking around.
Hotel stays potentially district
seven.
I think that's separate
Give that to my office. Please stay excellent council member five and
My question was strictly if there's any percentage of tot that has to go to Berkeley. That was my questions
I know in West Oakland. I have so I actually lived in an address
Nine four nine four six. Oh eight zip code that was also listed as Emeryville
So I have that same phenomenon of the split
That said I will make a motion to receive and forward this item to the October 20th full City Council meeting as a public hearing
There we go
Thank you so much and then did we have public speakers
Yes, calling in the names that sign up to speak on item number five, Mississauga. Ola Bala and
Blair Beekman
Sorry, there were a couple other names. I missed Damian Ramey Raney Lindsey
Barks. Yeah, sorry
Being a politician
Which y'all have to say?
Anyway this item you gave
$700,000 for
the
Repair or remodeling of the training facility the arrangement was the city of Alameda
You and the city of Berkeley were supposed to equally contribute to that.
The city of Alameda gave $300,000.
The city of Berkeley gave zero.
So you spent out $700,000 and you subtract that from whatever the amount is and
what you're left with. That's your profit.
$1.1 million you have there take 700,000 away.
And how did we benefit?
Watch parties were free.
All the other stuff about making arrangements
to do business deals.
We didn't make any money off of that either.
So it was a wonderful opportunity.
It was a great event.
I learned how to appreciate soccer,
but we didn't make no money.
And so don't try to be,
and we got shafted because Berkeley didn't contribute.
We gave 700,000 an alameda
where the site is located,
the Roots Training Camp is in Alameda.
They just gave 300,000.
And the Claremont Hotel, the address is Berkeley,
address this Berkeley.
Good afternoon, I'm Lindsay Behrens,
President of Oakland Roots & Soul.
Thank you to the committee and to Director Kennett today
for this opportunity to chat with you all.
When FIFA chose the Bay Area as a site
for the 2026 World Cup,
We set out to make sure Oakland and the East Bay
shared an economic impact and the community energy
of the world's largest sporting event.
The surest way to achieve that was to host a national team.
We were proud to secure an official FIFA base camp
designation and host the Australian men's national team.
The soccer ruse lodged in Oakland at the Claremont
and flew in and out of the Oakland airport.
In addition, during the World Cup,
we hosted the East Bay soccer trail,
which promoted World Cup activities at local businesses
across all seven Oakland City Council districts.
We hosted 21 watch parties for more than 15,000 fans,
all free.
We hosted community days, supported other events,
and supported eight tournaments and clinics
that brought out local players and food trucks.
Finally, in partnership with the Oakland Parks
and Recreation Foundation,
we unveiled a fully renovated foot salt court
at Rainbow Recreation Center,
with a new ground mural designed by international artist
Shepherd Ferry.
We are very grateful to the city of Oakland
for its partnership in facilitating our home base
and World Cup efforts.
We are proud of the economic impact and community building
we accomplished in connection with this year's events.
Thank you for your time.
Hi, Damien Raney.
As I was going through the report,
there was a note in there about the actual revenue
that could be attributed to the World Cup.
For instance, it said that the World Cup event days,
the revenue wasn't as high in the hotels,
and they attributed that it could be possibly due
to more so events in San Francisco.
So I think just the point I'm really trying to make,
and it feels kind of weird to be making this
in the economic development committee,
but a lot of times we get locked into thinking
that sports and other cultural activities
should produce an immediate economic benefit
or being able to point to the ROI in a certain way.
And it's great that we were able to tie this back
to some boost in hotel revenue,
but I would think I would consider in the future
being a little more holistic in the approach.
So for instance, maybe not sticking straight to well,
we gave them this much money,
they brought this much money back,
but thinking about that larger holistic effect
that it had on the community as it's been pointed out.
And there's a historian who kind of looks
at the history of Oakland and they talk about
how a lot of times we learn the right lesson
but apply it to the wrong instance.
I don't want the lessons from our other interactions
with sports to affect this.
Thank you for your comments.
that concludes all speakers on this item
and we do have a motion.
We have a motion made by Councilmember Fife,
seconded by Councilmember Ramachandran
to approve the recommendations of staff
and to receive and forward this report
to the October 20th City Council agenda
as a public hearing.
On roll, Councilmember Fife?
Aye.
Ramachandran?
Aye.
Unger?
Aye.
And Chair Brown?
Aye.
Thank you, motion passes with four ayes
to receive and forward this to the October 20th
City Council agenda as a public hearing.
Now reading in item number six,
adopt a resolution allocating funds
for Measure U housing bond and other non-bond funds
in a total amount not to exceed $50 million,
inclusive of administrative expenses
to fund affordable housing programs,
including new construction
of multi-family rental affordable housing,
rapid response, homeless housing, and home key,
acquisition and conversation to affordable housing,
and rehabilitation of existing affordable housing
and authorizing the city administrator to allocate
and reallocate budgeted affordable housing.
Funding from impact fees, program income,
loan repayment and other available
affordable housing funds as funds become available
and authorizing the city administrator
to make development loans and grants
under the affordable housing programs
contingent on funding availability
and authorizing the city administrator to reallocate.
Previously authorized funds among measure you tranches one two and three and amending resolution numbers
eight six one two eight CMS eight six three six six CMS and
eight nine six zero five CMS
To allocate an additional amount not to exceed two million dollars to the health and safety rehabilitation program contingent on
Funding availability and there are nine speakers on this item
Excellent. Thank you so much. So for this item, we'll be hearing from ACD
I believe it's Deanna Talavera and then just a note to my colleagues. I believe
Potentially you all should have received an email with amendments on this item unless you all have printouts to provide we have
So good afternoon chair and members of the committee
I'm Deanna Talavera housing development services manager with the city's HCD department
Today, I'm asking the committee to recommend that the council authorize Measure U Tranche
3 funding and other department capital funds for affordable housing.
I'll ask.
There we go.
So before I walk through the recommendation, I wanted to flag a few corrections to the
resolution language before you and read it into the record.
In the first resolved paragraph of the resolution before you, we added contingent on the issuance
and sale of Measure U Tranche 3 bonds in a sufficient amount and approval of the final
project funding authorization legislation at the end of the paragraph.
In the second, for the resolved clause of the resolution, clarifying language was added,
noting as consistent with Measure KK and associated resolutions approving the final project and
program funding.
And finally, in the fourth, for the resolved clause we added and as consistent with Measure
You and associated resolutions approving the final project and program funding for each of the funding tranches
With those corrections read into the record will also recommend that the committee make a motion to approve the resolution with the amendments
read into the record
So here are the recommendations that the resolution supports
As part of this year's budget process the city council approved and appropriated 50 million dollars of measure you tranche three funds for affordable housing
programs similar to the allocation authority granted for tranches 1 & 2
staff is returning to request that council allow for the allocation of up
to 50 million dollars and measure you tranche 3 funds for affordable housing
programs to allow allocation of other HCD capital funding sources for
affordable housing programs authorizing the city administrator to enter into
development loans and grants allow reallocation among the tranches 1 2 &
without increasing the total amount, and to recapitalize the health and safety loan program.
Every project awarded this funding will still go through our normal competitive process.
The same program specific no fun RFPs will be in place and
this request carries no new fiscal impact.
It's allocation authority for funds that have already been approved and appropriated.
HCD will report out on how this funding is used through our annual reporting process
and the iBond committee updates, just as we do today.
And with that, here's how this fits into HCD's broader plan.
Here on this slide you'll see our Strategic Action Plan.
In plain terms, this is how we prioritize every dollar.
More than three-quarters goes to permanent supportive and low-income housing, and Tronch
3 is anticipated to follow this same formula.
Here's what that formula has built through our programs.
Our new construction NOFA funds ground-up, fully affordable rental apartments.
And that program alone has committed $180 million, creating over 1,300 units and helping
468 people move out of homelessness.
Five projects have been completed, four are underway, and six more are coming online.
Our acquisition and preservation program, also known as a CAH, allows for the acquisition
and conversion of existing buildings
and has committed $30 million to date.
Our R2H2 and Home Key program,
which pairs housing with supportive services
for people exiting homeless,
has $18 million, $18.5 million committed,
and seven more to be committed.
It's resulted in 147 units and 147 homeless exits.
And finally, our rehabilitation program,
which protects the affordable homes
that we already have in our portfolio.
This program has seven million dollars ready
for its first NOFA funding round in 2027.
So for us in HCD, these aren't just numbers or line items.
They're individuals and families
that through these programs
will have keys to their own homes.
I'm going to briefly hand it off to my colleague,
Shalon Garcia, our HDS manager for the R2H2 program
to tell you what that's looked like
for some of our R2H2 residents.
Thank you, Deanna, and good afternoon council members.
My name is Shalon Garcia,
and as Deanna said, I'm the homeless housing
development manager.
I manage both the home key and the R2H2 program
that she was speaking about earlier.
And part of why I'm here today is just to share
in support of what Deanna is recommending,
some outcomes that we've had with,
or the success that we've had at some of these sites.
Just recently our program started our race
and equity impact analysis across our home key projects
across our R2H2 projects, and we have more than about 50% participation from the residents
living in the properties, so these are first-hand accounts of what their experience has been,
not what you've heard in the media or from here say, but directly from the residents.
And what we got overall was an overwhelming sense of gratitude to the city of Oakland
for bringing housing developments for people who are unhoused and for bringing opportunities
for the services that were provided that came with that housing.
Most of the residents reported that their stress has gone down, their overall mental
health has improved.
A lot of them, a majority of them reported that they were able to get access and set
up for benefits through this programming support.
And from getting access to their benefits, they've also been able to get tied to medical
appointments or doctor's appointments to get health care services.
And so great to hear the only complaint that we had
is that some of their friends had been,
they were wanting us to have more housing
in order to get their friends off of the street.
That was the only complaint
that we had actually heard across the board
is we wish you could do more
because a lot of them were lamenting
or filling some remorse for their friends
who had been left behind
or not able yet to access the housing.
And I know this has to be super brief,
but I just wanna share one success story if it's okay.
It's our transitional age youth housing at the Friendly Manor.
I just wanted to share this.
Since July, yes, clap.
You can clap for this part for sure.
Since July, it's only been since July.
This property, which is located at 2298 San Pablo,
serves 26 units with 52 beds to serve transition age youth.
And since July, they've had 10 of the youth
actually obtain full-time employment.
Of the 10 that have obtained full-time employment,
two have actually gotten positions as chefs working at,
I wanna say the right place, Kitchen of Champions
with St. Vincent de Paul.
Another two secured full-time positions as paid
sous chefs and paid sous chef internships
at the Oakland Dream Center.
And then the rest are actually either
in a security guard training program
to become security guards with the promise of jobs
being offered at the completion of their training.
And then another eight have been outside of the 10
that I mentioned, eight were in temporary paid internships
for a community outreach event that they volunteered to do.
Well, they volunteered to do, but they got paid.
So just wanna share that the housing
with supportive services and these operating subsidies
and funding that you guys approve are,
is really having a great impact,
a positive impact on the residents that we're serving.
So I'm gonna stop there and turn it over,
turn it back over to Deanna.
Thank you, Shallon.
If I can bring back up the PowerPoint please.
Thank you.
Thank you, sorry, just needed the clicker.
So as Shallon mentioned, demand continues
to outpace available funding.
As I'm sure the committee is aware of that fact as well.
Our last new construction NOFA round drew 24 applications
With funding requests totaling $424 million of city funding,
of which we were able to fund $144 million.
Since then, the project list of potential affordable housing
projects has grown to about 15 to 20 projects,
totaling around 1,200 units with roughly $350 million
in funding still needed to move those projects forward.
Deploying our funding to some of these projects
is how we help close the gap.
And timing just got a little bit more important.
The state is rolling several of their funding sources
into one new application process
through its newly established
Housing Development Finance Committee, or HDFC.
If November's statewide housing bond passes,
that funding will move through this process.
Committing our local dollars early
will allow Oakland's projects to be more competitive
for state financing.
And that's why this upcoming new construction NOFA round is designed to have projects ready
for the state's first HDFC round in April.
So as mentioned, HCD plans to open the NOFA and we plan to open it in January.
We're hoping to commit funding in March and have projects ready to apply
to the state's first round of funding in April.
The new construction NOFA will be open to new applicants
and projects already in our pipeline,
scored on a variety of areas including,
but not limited to, readiness, funding leverage,
and the other criteria listed on the slide.
Moving at this pace means every HCD program
needs to be funded and ready,
including one that is running on empty.
And that program is our health and safety loan fund.
It provides up to $250,000 per project interest free for emergency repairs.
All existing funding has been expended.
If a roof were to fail tomorrow, we don't have the funding to respond.
So recommendation five is seeking to add $2 million back into this fund from available
HCD capital funds, so that we can respond quickly if needed and deploy the funds in
these emergency situations.
On this slide here, we're showing the bigger picture.
HCD's full portfolio totals 175 properties
that have affordability covenants,
152 of them are city funded,
and about 9,000 units in total.
There's housing from this portfolio in every district today
and closing the gaps,
bringing more units to the districts that need them most
as part of what this funding plan is built to do.
Here's roughly where the $50 million of Measure U will go.
We are anticipating about $35 million
towards the new construction NOFA process.
$5 million each to R2H2 and ACAW,
and 2.5 million going towards administration costs.
The numbers will likely deviate slightly
as real projects come in and the funding needs are realized.
So next steps, again, the NOFA will open in January, 2027,
and we are doing this to align with state HDFC
applications cycles and tax credit cycles.
On an ongoing basis, staff will make awards and allocations
based on application scoring and underwriting.
We will come back to report out on progress regularly
through the I-Bond Committee and our annual report process.
And with that, we are asking for the committee's
recommendation on to council.
one and two again every dollar will still be competitively
awarded every result will still be reported back to the council
um and I'm available to answer any questions excellent thank you so much
very comprehensive and in detail appreciate you um did at the top
detail appreciate you councilmember Unger thank you so it looks like you're
spending 30 you're asking for authorization to spend the last 50
million dollars 35 million of which will go to just sort of general new
construction the remaining 15 I'm a little less clear about how you plan to
spend that I know you it was five million for home key like is there an
an actual budget, or is that just sort of a wish list?
So through the chair, we have our various funding pots.
One is the new construction NOFA process.
It's a competitively awarded process.
The ACAA program also has their own process
to award funding based on projects submitted and vetted,
and the same for R2H2.
So each of these is a standing program.
It's a competitive process,
and that's how funding will be deployed.
Okay, and after this $50 million, you're out.
We are out.
And tell me what happens to the world
of affordable housing in Oakland once we're out.
Thank you.
Through the chair, Emily Weinstein,
director of housing and community development.
After this tranche, there will be about another 50 million
that would be part of, we presume, tranche for,
but that depends on the budget, the biennial budget process,
and we would allocate it basically to kind of fill in
the end of our strategic action plan.
So it's a combination of looking at how we prioritize
in the strategic action plan,
and so how exactly those funds would be divided
while also looking at what's happening at the state.
So as the state changes and some of their programs
are capitalized, they may have more funding for,
they may have more funding for like portfolio rehab
than they do for new construction.
Or they may have more money that we can leverage
in new construction than they do in portfolio rehab.
So we would stick to the prioritization
of the strategic action plan with some,
so that's kind of the science of it,
and then some art to make sure we can leverage
as much state or county funds.
Is this a, well let me speak for myself,
this feels like a crisis to me
that we're about to be out of this money.
I mean you guys have done a great job
of getting the money out the door,
that's exactly what you're supposed to do.
but we have not solved affordable housing.
I mean, are you worried about what comes next?
Through the care, yes, we will need additional sources.
Okay, thank you.
Councilmember Ramachandran.
Thank you, a couple of questions.
First, following up on Councilmember Unger's,
the 50 million you expect in next year's biennial budget,
where does that come from?
Is that based on an anticipated bond sale?
because my understanding was that from the past bond sale,
it's been exhausted.
So through the chair,
the 50 million we're discussing today is tranche three,
tranche one and two have come in completely allocated
or awarded to programs.
So there's some, and then this is the third tranche.
What remains based on the total
for measure U is 350 million.
So in the tranche one and two, we spent 248 million.
this is the additional 50 million,
so we have about another 50 million
that would come in the tranche.
But that would require the bond sale to occur,
because we don't have that.
Correct.
And we need the bond sale for this tranche,
and then in the future, we would need the bond sale
for the fourth tranche.
Great.
So can you explain the ACAH program a little more?
What does that involve?
Because I could be wrong, but I feel
like I recall the last round of funding
was all to new construction, or predominantly?
Through the chair, Council Member Ramachandran.
The first tranche all went to new construction.
The second tranche was divided
based on our strategic action plan
through a variety of the different programs.
30 million of that went to a CAH.
That program, we have a partnership
with the Housing Accelerator Fund.
We work with them, the goal of the program
is to acquire properties that are on the market,
to take them off the spec.
It's kind of our naturally occurring
affordable housing program.
So it's purchasing or helping developers
or community land trust co-ops, emerging developers,
acquire properties that are on the market
and ensuring that they remain affordable housing.
So through the funding, we then put a deed restriction on
so that they're affordable for the next 55 years.
So it's basically purchasing them at market rate
and then making sure they're affordable for then onwards?
I wouldn't say that that's market rate.
It's what's on the market.
But it obviously depends on the timing of the market.
Coming out of the recent market where it has been depressed
has been a real opportunity.
So it was great to have the partnership
and to be able to roll out the funding at the pace
of the market to take advantage of the soft market.
And then the last question is the rehab. I'm excited about that one. I think that we have
thousands of properties here that could become affordable. How would this one work? Through
the chair, Councilmember Ramachandran, the rehab portfolio is specifically designed for
projects that are in our portfolio, which means either the city has invested in them
the last year. And we're
looking at. The housing
development. Some of them in
the past. Or there's there's
some sort of a regulatory
agreement that the city holds
so they're existing affordable
housing like big a affordable
as opposed to a car which is
kind of little small a
affordable. Housing- and so we-
just recently conducted a
survey and we're digging into
that information to have a
sense of. What the capital
needs are for those properties.
At the same time like we
And I think we have a chance to
do that.
And there may be additional
opportunity for rehab dollars
through tax credits as well as
other subsidy programs.
So at this point we have $7
million for the next NOFA.
And then likely in a fourth
tranche there would be additional
funds that we would put towards
rehab.
Great, thank you.
Excellent, thank you so much.
I definitely agree with a lot of
to what councilmember Unger said you all are doing an amazing job of getting the dollars out of the door tickets to support key projects and
I was really appreciative of attachment a that lists out all of the various projects whether it's new construction or to h2
Etc. I am curious
As I was kind of diving into the various projects across the city of Oakland
And and I know that Deanna mentioned just the strategy that you all are using in order to
Move forward with some of these projects. I'm curious what it looks like to
Focus in on, you know, maybe more new construction in district seven district six as I'm looking here
It looks like there's only one project which we're all excited about which is the liberation park which is in six
And then even for the R2H2 nothing in six or seven and then in addition for the ACAA
only one project in district six nothing in seven
So just really seeing a huge gap in like all the categories as it relates to like East Oakland development. Yeah, absolutely. So
In our NOFA, we have additional points that we weighted points for projects that in an area of high displacement
and we are trying to line up the funding from the state
so that they would be competitive with the state.
At this point, one of the reasons why the city
is at a real disadvantage has to do with the state's use
of the high opportunity maps, and we've discussed that,
and the current draft guidelines for HDFC
has put back those opportunity maps,
and so that is an area where we are really advocating.
So there's kind of the priorities that we wanna set
that we have as a city but the
realities of needing to.
Leverage our funds basically
five to one with state funds
and tax credits and so which is
a matter of kind of like.
Threating that needle and
making sure that we do fund
according to our priorities but
also ensure that those projects
can move move forward it doesn't
help.
Anybody to kind of tie up our
money and projects that won't
move forward.
Yeah and then with some of the
items that have come before this
committee specifically around
like the.
Transit oriented development and
and some of those changes- are
of also working through that process with like planning
and building and even with our local developers as well.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean the more we can encourage development
in those areas the better in terms of, you know,
our role is really about like the, you know,
how we are spending the funds and then making sure
that we're advocating for Oakland's needs
across the different funding sources.
And so staying clued into the like ASIC program at the state
or the various different kinds of programs at the state
and ways that we can continue to benefit projects
that are near transit.
Excellent, hopefully I know that all of us
will be offering up our, you know,
recommendations to Townsend, right, at the state level,
so hopefully there could be some advocacy
around, you know, new construction, et cetera,
even the R2H2 program as well around in East Oakland,
advocating for East Oakland could be a good priority,
but also thank you so much for everything.
Council Member Fife.
Hand it out, thank you.
Thank you for the presentation, super thorough
and sweet spot for the development friendly manner
that happened for the young people, appreciate staff
and the tour that was done to show what is possible
when we put our money where our concerns are.
And I know all of the young people that recently
got access to these jobs and job opportunities
are going to see the benefit of having
that permanent supportive housing for youth
that are experiencing homelessness.
So thank you for adding that to your report.
And aside, we wanna clear up that park
at San Pablo and West Grand for the babies too
because they shouldn't have to walk through that
when they're trying to get to creating a new life
for themselves, so we can talk more about that later.
That said, do developers or does the city
have additional points for developers
that wanna do new construction in certain districts
or is there some preference that they get
for being in locations that are high need
for various categories, economics,
are there additional points for their projects?
Through the chair, Council Member Fyfe,
it would be the same thing about looking at
the areas that have high displacement pressures.
So we have used that map to gauge
where there's high displacement pressures
and that's where you get additional points.
Again, that's also weighted with the competitiveness
at the state, as well as we look at, you know,
resources around the area.
We look at availability of transit.
We also look at emerging developers,
partnerships, we have sort of a,
and then also specific populations.
So projects that are focused on TAY or seniors also.
Is this a part of the?
Ria, I apologize, is this a part of the,
and I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right,
the racial equity impact analysis.
Is it Ria or Raya?
How do you all say it?
You know, we say Rhea.
We say Rhea.
So as part of the Rhea, we had a Rhea conducted for our new construction to evaluate our scoring
criteria and ensure that it is working to reduce the racial disparities.
And then like Shallon just mentioned, we're in the process of doing the community engagement
for our 2H2 Home Key program.
And based on the findings, based on the data and the findings and the community engagement
so that they'll have recommendations
for how we adapt our scoring criteria.
Okay, and so I'm happy to provide a motion
to move this to the full city council on April 20th,
and I do just also want to say thank you for your work
with the ACAA program, formerly the PATH program,
because we were able to help renters
throughout East Oakland keep their homes,
because when their owners were trying to sell their properties
But these some of them were immigrant populations, but most like working class families and East
Oakland back when we started this program saved countless people from ending up homeless
and that's part of our the three Ps which is preservation.
So just hats off to you all for all of that work.
Thank you.
Excellent.
And with the amendments as well.
Those are staff amendments just to.
Yes.
So we read them into the record.
I defer to the clerk on next steps.
No, that's fine.
I just wanted to know.
Yes.
Yes, with the amendment.
Second.
And then we can hear from the public speakers.
Thank you.
Calling in the names that signed up to speak
on item number six in no particular order,
you can come up to the podium.
State your name for the record before making your comment
or raise your hand on Zoom to be easily identified.
Teslan Ikaru, Sharon Lye, Faith Kirkpatrick,
Jessica Lynn top us a solder olibala Jeff Levin Angelina cornejo David Peters and Blair beak man
Good afternoon chair and members of the committee. My name is Tesla Mecaro executive director of supportive housing community land Alliance
We are a nonprofit community land trust based in Oakland
we serve individuals with serious mental illness, but create a
plethora of different housing options in Oakland
We have accessed the ACAP program and seen the benefit of that program and worked closely with HCD
the R2H2 program has created a
valuable resource for individuals with serious mental illness with extremely low income
We have worked with
Kate Hartley and and half as a partner
Who's funded a project in a high-opportunity neighborhood in Oakland?
But we see this program being highly beneficial to many developers across
The city and so are in strong support of this item
Thank you, hello, I'm Faith Kirkpatrick director housing finance at related, California affordable related, California
Has developed over 22,000 units of affordable and mixed income housing in California over the past 36 years
I'm speaking today in support of $50 million of Measure U funding.
Local funding sources are critical to allow affordable housing developments to compete
for state and other funding sources at the county, or as people mentioned, hopefully
we get a state housing bond in November.
We appreciate the high standards and hard work of the Oakland HDC to facilitate a competitive
awards process for the Measure U money, and Measure U has been a key component of Oakland's
to fast track a number of affordable housing developments over the past two
years and to keep up that momentum is really critical. As you may have heard
the time to build affordable housing is always yesterday so we commend you for
taking action today moving this forward among all your budget priorities and we
really need the 50 million dollars. Thank you. Afternoon. My name is David Chen. I'm
speaking on behalf of Sharon Lai on behalf of the East Bay Asian Local
Development Corporation. We want to appreciate the city for its partnership
on, you know, as many of you may know our portfolio is probably about 90% here in
Oakland. We've got over 2,000 units and a very strong incoming pipeline as well.
And we are in full support of advancing the 50 million dollars from Measure U to
continue to produce and preserve more affordable housing
for Oakland residents,
and definitely want to echo what the HCD team said as well
around definitely urging the city
to continue to expand future opportunities
beyond the measure of your resources in order for us
and other developers like us to stay competitive
for state and federal resources,
definitely gonna be critical
to have, you know, additional local, uh, funding available to, uh,
to our strong pipeline of projects going forward. So, um, yeah,
strongly in support of this, of this measure. And, uh,
just echo many of the things that the HCD team spoke about. Thank you.
Hello. Well, my name is Jessica Lynn Tubas.
I represent satellite affordable housing associates and we're in support of item
six allocating fund for funds from measure you to fund affordable housing
programs including new construction. Oakland has a robust pipeline of
affordable housing projects that need local support to move forward and
leverage state resources to move into construction phases. An example is 125
East 12th Street which SAHA plans to develop on city land after a
long-standing grassroots movement in District 2 to utilize public lands for
public good in partnership with Eastlake United for Justice. It is a prime
location and will provide 95 much-needed affordable housing units to families at
at extremely low and very low incomes.
This project has been entitled since 2024
is in a transit rich location
and well poised to leverage state resources.
Thank you in advance for your support
of this item like this items.
So projects like this can move forward.
Thank you.
So how much money are you getting from MeasureU 50?
50 you said 50 million.
Well, it could have been 80 million
because you did not need to give 30 million
to the Friends of Chinatown, what is it called,
Lincoln Library?
No, the Lincoln Park, what is it called?
Rec Center.
They agreed to build that by raising the money
some kind of way.
Y'all decided to give them 30 million from Measure U.
Your plan was to renovate that facility.
So we could have had 80 million.
But that favoritism that's always in the room
while giving money to certain groups.
So here's the issue.
You are a city with 27% immigrant community.
And you have some data that allows you to see
who needs housing from that community.
Like we have 1,508 Ukrainians, 1,911 Yemeni,
nine thousand two hundred and four from Africa
that's the day that you have
but we got people that are here unauthorized we have no data on that
so we live in the midst of we don't know how many housing units we really need
because there's no data
that is there to provide for that group
at the same time some
thank you for your comments moving to zoom user jeff
You can unmute yourself and begin your comments.
Jeff Levin, you've been unmuted.
You can begin your comments.
Last call for Jeff Levin.
Sorry, I'm here.
Okay, you can begin your comment.
Thank you, good afternoon.
Jeff Levin with East Bay Housing Organizations.
We are strongly in support of this item.
We first wanna thank staff for the detailed information
on each of these affordable housing development programs
past reformants. While Oakland, like most cities, is not fully meeting its RINA targets, which are
quite large, it is firmly on track to exceed affordable housing production in the previous
housing enrollment cycle, and this would not be possible without Measure U's funding. Last spring,
we urged the City Council to ensure that this year's budget included $50 million of Measure U funds
to be issued as part of Tranch 3 and the budget was adopted with this appropriation in place.
Today's action will ensure the city can quickly commit those funds in a way that maximizes
opportunities for developers to leverage state and federal tax credits and state housing funds
and move forward quickly to actually build these units, including housing for unhoused people and
other extremely low-income households in accordance with the city's policy priorities.
We do want to underscore that the city will only have $15 remaining in Measure U funding,
so it's not too soon to start thinking about what we will do next to maintain our pipeline.
Lastly, I just want to say, because we didn't get a chance to sign up, we are also in support
of item 7, which makes funding available for things that cannot be funded from bond fund.
Thank you for your comments, Chair. That concludes all speakers on item 6, and we do have a motion.
We have a motion made by councilmember five seconded by chair brown to approve as amended the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the october 20th
city council agenda with the following amendments
Adding to the first resolve clause contingent on the issuance and sale of measure uchonch's three bonds in
A sufficient amount and approval of the final project funding authorization legislation
adding to the second reserve further resolve clause
Consistent with measure KK and associated resolutions approving the final project and program funding and
in the fourth further resolve clause striking among and replacing that with from and including and
as
Consistent with measure you and associated resolutions approving the final project and program funding for each funding tranche
On roll council members five aye Ramachandran hi Unger hi and chair Brown
I thank you item six passes with four ayes to be forwarded as amended
To the October 20th City Council agenda on consent now reading in item number seven
adopt an ordinance amending chapter fifteen point sixty two of the Oakland Municipal Code to allow affordable housing trust funds
From funds distributed to the city under redevelopment
Dissolution laws to be used for operating and rental subsidies for housing serving people
experiencing homelessness and households with extremely low incomes and removing the
2027 sunset date on
Using such funds for anti-displacement and homelessness prevention services and there are four speakers that sign up to speak perfect
Thank you so much. So keeping in mind public safety committee will start at four
Let's keep our comments short.
And we'll have Caleb Smith from ACD.
Good afternoon.
Caleb Smith, Senior Advisor for the City of Elkins Housing Community Development Department.
Thank you for the slides.
So this ordinance is to update the ordinance for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
Now today's council action is going to be doing two main things.
It is going to repeal an existing June 30th, 2027 sunset date on using funds in the Affordable
Housing Trust Fund for Homelessness Prevention and Anti-Displacement Services, which we're
going to be discussing in more detail in a moment.
This will also, a new feature, allow Affordable Housing Trust Fund monies to be used to invest
in affordable housing as operating subsidy for those projects, as well as the existing
allowed capital use.
To be clear, this change today does not have any fiscal impact, because there's no changes
to the amount of affordable housing trust fund monies that is going to be made by this
change and then also this is not affecting any service contracts that would have to be
a separate council item and would be subject to separate council review.
Now the affordable housing trust fund also known as fund 1870 was originally created
to collect affordable housing impact fees when redevelopment agencies were abolished
something I know you all heard a lot about earlier today a stream of property tax revenue
that previously went to the redevelopment agency was returned in part to the City of
Oakland and the City Council set aside a portion of those funds to fund the Affordable Housing
Trust Fund. Subsequently, impact fees were moved into a separate account for clarity
of bookkeeping, and therefore the Affordable Housing Trust Fund is currently funded by
these former redevelopment funds. Now, under the existing ordinance, the Affordable Housing
trust fund can be used for capital investments in affordable housing as
well as staff costs for those who are working on affordable housing and until
June 30th, 2027 it can also be spent on the city's investments in homelessness
prevention and other anti-displacement services. Now in terms of the current
fiscal year 26-27 budget which is just a hair under 17 million dollars, slightly
less than half of that goes to staffing costs in the housing community
development department funding a wide variety
of the work necessary to implement our housing investments.
A portion of this also covers non-HCD staffing costs
for a few different departments,
and there's also a particular note
under the operations and maintenance line item,
there is $2.3 million for homelessness prevention,
$1.4 million for eviction defense,
and then some other key support costs
for the work that we do,
such as you heard in the previous item.
there was also a city transfer out to non-HCD uses
as part of the budget balancing strategies.
Over the past five years, we've seen a reduction
in the availability of 1870 budget
from just under $25 million to where we are today,
around 17 million.
And also, I should highlight that we have not had
much capital investment in affordable housing recently,
only about $1.3 million in these past few years.
This is a bit of a change from what was previously spent
from the affordable housing trust fund.
Now, as we look over this longer time series,
we're able to see in a little bit more detail
how the critical role that the affordable housing trust fund
is played as the only flexible source available
to the Housing Community Development Department,
which has been able to step up and serve
this growing city role in investing
and homelessness prevention and these anti-eviction supports.
We also see that this continues to be a critical source
supporting housing community development departments.
Staffing, you can see consistently over these years,
but we get a lot out of it.
In addition to a lot of the critical roles associated
with spending down our Measure U Bond funds
and supporting other programs
like our home rehabilitation funds,
this also helps our department
to go pursue additional funding sources.
And staff funded by this Fund 1870
We've actually brought in more competitive state and federal funds to Oakland than the
staff cost of all the staff over this five year period.
So we are getting a pretty good return on investment from that.
And then you'll also see that there's that city transfer out to non-aged city uses.
Because of the fiscal emergency over the past three years, over $10 million has been redirected
from fund 1870 to other city line items.
We've also seen a decline in the fund balance over the past five years from about $50 million
to where we are today at $12.3 million, though a portion of this is also due to the splitting
out of impact fees and the former redevelopment funds.
Now the current fiscal year fund balance of $12.3 million is fully committed.
Yes, as we can see here, there's a little bit more of a breakdown about how it's committed.
We see that actually there's a difference about $300,000 between the current fund balance
and our existing commitments.
And you can see, again, in a little bit more detail that city transfer out on a year-over-year
basis.
Now, it's the funding that comes from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to fund things
like homelessness prevention and other anti-eviction services really plays a critical role in the
city's broader anti-displacement strategy.
We know that these are our top priority investments in our city's existing anti-displacement
strategic plan.
And we also know that this is a critical component of the city's homelessness strategic action
plan, as these are some of the most cost-effective ways of addressing homelessness by preventing
people from becoming homeless in the first place.
And then, for the benefit of our audience, we have a little bit of information here,
just recapping that our current program is really focused on providing flexible financial
support to address a variety of needs for those who are at imminent risk of
falling into homelessness and over the past year this has helped over a thousand
Oakland residents our city investment and the leveraged investments of our
partners to stay housed in Oakland. We also know that this program is doing a
very good job in reaching those who are at greatest risk. Over 84% of those
served told an independent evaluation that they likely would have lost their
housing if it hadn't been for this intervention, so thanks to a large
coalition of community-based organizations that we work with in the
implementation of these programs, they are doing a good job in reaching the most
vulnerable Oaklanders and have helped contribute to the most recent decline in
the point in time count, which was very noteworthy. I want to particularly
highlight today the important role that the Affordable Housing Trust Fund has
played in urgent needs to respond to displaced households
who are at imminent risk of unsheltered homelessness
due to disasters.
Unfortunately, we've had four significant apartment fires
that our department has responded to so far in 2026,
affecting over 100 families.
Due to funds from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund,
we've been able to work with our partners
to rapidly provide assistance to those displaced households
to ensure that they can have a continuity of housing.
However, we don't have any other flexible funding sources
that would have been available to program for this purpose.
So by removing the sunset date,
by providing the flexibility to continue to use
affordable housing trust funds for these purposes,
we will ensure that we are in a position
to respond to, God forbid,
any similar events occurring in future.
So in conclusion, again, today's item
is narrowly focused on two things.
It is removing that existing sunset date in the ordinance,
the June 30th, 2027 sunset date.
So council has the flexibility to continue
to authorize funds for homelessness prevention
and anti-displacement services.
It will also allow for affordable housing trust funds
to the extent that they may become more available
in future for investing in new development projects
to be used as operating sources as well
instead of just capital sources.
And this flexibility is useful.
You were hearing earlier about how there's a lot
of changes afoot in how the state is prioritizing
its affordable housing investments,
and we have reason to believe that there may be
an advantage to our Oakland projects
if we're able to demonstrate that kind of operating support
as well as that kind of local capital support.
So as part of our broader logic to try to make our projects
as competitive as possible to leverage the state funds,
This could help us in future with that effort and again this isn't changing the overall budget and any future changes to service contracts
We'll need to come to the City Council for the regular review and approval as has been the case in the past
So that just about concludes the presentation. We're now pleased to take any questions. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you
Order in the chamber any questions colleagues on this item we can hear from the public speakers
And I thank you very much.
Thank you for having me.
Calling in the names of sign up to speak on item number six,
Logan McDonald, David Peters, Asada Olavala, and Blair
Beekman.
Happy belated birthday.
Thank you, Councilmember Brown.
I appreciate you.
Good afternoon, Council and staff.
I'm Logan McDonald, Regional VP at BACS.
I actually just want to take time out to thank you.
We first kicked off the Homelessness Prevention
We saw a significant bottleneck in the inflow of homelessness.
We're only increased by 9% after seeing it jump by 26% and 47% years prior to that.
We knew that for every person that got placed in the housing, two fell into homelessness,
and then we jammed that revolving door because of your investment between 2024 and 2026.
City of Oakland saw a 20% decrease in homelessness.
In that window of time, we had targeted 1600 households in the most distressed neighborhoods,
the black neighborhoods to prevent the loss of housing.
It's also why the percentage of black unhoused residents
has reduced in the past 10 years.
It was 70% in 2019, it's about 50% now.
Black residents make up about 60% of all new entries
in the homelessness and because of our targeting efforts,
over 70% of the households we serve are black.
Preventing homelessness is a fraction of the cost
of getting someone back into housing.
Please keep building on your efforts
and make sure fun 1870 keeps Oakland housed.
At some point, you're going to have to address the language where you are comfortable saying
resident.
Resident is not sufficient to make sure people who should be prioritized are being prioritized.
So citizens of the city of Oakland have priority over people who are non-citizens.
We don't all get in the line together, and whoever gets up to the front first, that's
the way it works.
I am a citizen of this country and of this city, and I should not be expected to get
in line behind anybody that is not a citizen, but that's acceptable to you.
It's not acceptable to me.
Then the other thing is the gentleman just got up and spoke to the situation with black
are people who are descendants of slavery.
I hope that's who she's talking about,
saying that this is a targeted group.
But when he gave the report, he didn't say that.
He said we're dealing with the most vulnerable Oaklanders.
So when the staff gives the report,
if the outstanding need community is descendants of slavery,
and that is the group, say it.
It's very seldom that they speak to the homeless, this.
And you gotta remember,
a lot of those homeless people are veterans.
Thank you for your comments.
Last call for Blair Beekman and David Peters, okay.
At this time, I'll name something called.
Excellent.
Any questions or comments on this item?
Seeing none, I'll make a motion to move this
to the full council, council member Unger.
I'll second that.
Thank you, we have a motion made by Chair Brown,
seconded by Council Member Unger,
to approve the recommendations of staff
and to port this item to the October 20th
City Council Agenda on Roll Council Members, five?
Aye.
Ramachandran?
Aye.
Unger?
Aye.
And Chair Brown?
Aye.
Thank you, motion passes with four ayes
to port this item to the October 20th
City Council Agenda on Consent.
Now reading in item number eight.
Adopt an ordinance amending Oakland Municipal Code 1.08
to raise maximum civil penalties for nuisance
to up to $2,500 per day for repeated
or continuing violations, and up to $10,000 per day
for unabated nuisances on real property after notice
and an opportunity to abate.
And we have two speakers on this item.
Perfect, so we'll hear from Councilmember Unger and I believe that there are amendments on the item as well
Great
Thank you
So we all know we've had a lot of laws in Oakland
but our laws are only as good as the enforcement behind them and enforcement only works if the cost of paying the fine is
Hurts worse than simply chalking it up to the cost of doing business
So in Oakland, we set the maximum penalty for a lot of our code violations at a thousand dollars a day
and we set that number in 1968 and a lot of things have changed since then, but
our thousand dollars a day fine level hasn't and it's gotten to a point where
some of our worst offenders just continue with their bad behavior because
they know they can do it. We would like that to end today with this legislation
that our district one office is introducing. We're increasing the fines
for the worst offenders from a thousand dollars a day to ten thousand
dollars a day and we're not doing this lightly. We're not talking about somebody
Somebody who hasn't cut their grass last weekend or somebody who left their garbage cans out
for an extra day.
We're talking about the worst offenders.
We're talking about the absentee owners who leave their vacant buildings falling into
disrepair.
We're talking about someone using our public sidewalk as a storage area slash junkyard
for broken down cars with the engine oil running into the street.
the unpermitted construction project that just keeps going unsafely despite repeated
stop work orders.
These are people who get repeated notice from the city over and over again, who know exactly
what they're supposed to cure and who have apparently decided that paying the fine is
worth the cost of doing business.
So we are not interested in creating a system that is haphazard or unfair.
This legislation still allows people to come into compliance in good faith.
It still has an escalating ladder of fines before we get to ten grand and it still gives
the city administrator latitude to work with offenders in order to get them on the right
side of the law.
But it allows no tolerance for offenders who thumb their noses at those of us who work
hard to be in compliance with the mutual standards of our community.
It's not 1968 anymore, a thousand bucks isn't what it used to be and I'm proud to introduce
this legislation and I urge its support.
So let's enforce our laws for real.
We do have a couple of minor amendments to this.
K-Top, I don't know if you have them.
This is just making it clear when we give notice to people.
So there's still this is, you know, we're not going to be imposing this on people without
notice.
This is this is just for folks who are repeatedly refusing to come into compliance.
That's what I got.
Excellent.
I also had gotten a note during my CED briefing that there was an amendment to the word major
like for the first major violation.
I think we were able to get that into the packet and don't need to do it as a separate
amendment.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Okay.
Excellent.
Councilmember Huy.
Yes.
Through the chair to Councilmember Unger.
Could this address issues of blight under the definition of like graffiti?
Yes.
But again, this is not, we're not like somebody who is in good faith trying to come into compliance.
This is for people who are essentially saying, we know what we're supposed to do.
You've told us a dozen times that we're not doing it.
My district will love this, but I am in the process of examining all of the emails and
calls that I get about graffiti abatement, where it really is the business that's the
victim.
So I'm just trying to consider.
And the city administrator and the code enforcement folks have discretion about when to enforce
this.
This is not like an automatic, you know, you've got graffiti for seven days.
It's going to be enforced.
This is essentially the same system that we have now where we enforce the highest fines
on the people who are, you know, the worst scoff laws.
It doesn't change that.
We still, it just increases the fine to a 2026 level.
And then does it also address noise?
Because it's also something that's really, I mean I represent a district that has a lot
of entertainment venues.
And we've seen petitions this year of how some business owners feel that the enforcement
that they receive is very racialized.
So I want to be clear that there is an opportunity for the city administration to weigh in and
view these on a case by case basis so that individuals who are victimized or even if
that's their perspective, have an opportunity to petition
the city for some review.
Yeah, absolutely.
It doesn't change the petition process,
it doesn't change the city administration
or code enforcement's discretion,
it just modernizes the fine amount.
Okay, I'm happy to second.
Thank you.
Council Member Ramachandran.
Thank you.
I support this as well, but have a few,
Well, I have a couple of clarifying questions.
There's a lot of things that could fall
under public nuisance.
Before this comes to council,
is your office or the city administration able to give
like a comprehensive list of examples?
We can, it's the same items that are currently listed
under public nuisance, we're not changing those,
we're just modernizing the fine level.
So it is the existing structure of items
that can fall under there.
But we can, I mean, we would just be referencing you
to our public code.
Okay.
The second question I have is,
so if I get this, if this is clear to me,
initially when you're found to violate a public nuisance,
you'll get the civil fine of $1,000 a day,
and then the city administrator gets to review it
to decide whether to bump it up to $2,500 or $10,000.
I think in general what happens first is that there's written notice to give you a chance
to cure the offense before a fine is we're not trying to, the goal here isn't to collect
money, the goal is to cure the problems.
And so I think the first step that code enforcement usually does is to notify the potential offender,
hey, you've got this thing, clean it up.
And then if they don't, then that's when the fine structure starts kicking in.
Got it.
Whether it's 1000 or 2500 but there'd be more notice for 2500. Yeah, so we have there's three levels here
It's thousand 25 10 grand. Okay, great. Thank you
Excellent. And then the only question I had is just about maybe similar to council member fives question
But I was here is what community engagement community stakeholder like any feedback that you received on
The increase in fines and we discussed it with
several chambers of commerce and they
They understand that like a lot of their members are trying really hard to do the right thing and it's super frustrating for them
To watch other people do the wrong thing
And so they are in support of this. Okay, excellent. And then I think maybe lastly
You know, I I get the opportunity to be on a lot of various emails citywide
Under this umbrella, which is very broad, right? We heard about blight. We heard about noise
there's a lot of community engagement.
I feel like a lot of times when we hear about these issues,
it's coming from community members.
And so as we send this to the full body,
I hope that my colleagues in districts six and seven
can also just have some awareness around it
and also let the community members know
about the shifts and change,
because I imagine they will have some feedback
maybe on both ends of the spectrum.
And I know that a lot of times,
the opportunity is actually assessing these penalties.
And I think community members
want there to be accountability.
So we had a report from code enforcement a while back.
And I can't remember the number of complaints
they get every year.
It was some insanely large number.
And they actually send somebody out
to investigate each one of them.
So this is a tool that they are excited to have
to bring the worst of the worst into compliance.
I'm mostly excited that this legislation has given me the opportunity to say scoff law over and over again
Cuz that's just a cool old-timey word
Awesome. Thank you. Councilmember Unger and we can hear from the public speakers. I think that councilmember fact. Did you know the question? Oh, I'm so sorry
There you go
No worries
I just wanted to share with the assistant city administrator because we've been in conversations with businesses
Who feel like they're being targeted by the city for enforcement that if there is an opportunity
For the council district offices to weigh in or be made aware of because I don't want to get a call saying
Why are you doing this to me? And I don't know
That you know, these fines have been applied. So if there's an opportunity through the chair to
City administration and to councilmember Unger to try to figure out what that process looks like. I think it would be
Prudent for us to do that. Yes. I think it's always
Nice to get the local council member involved. I do want to
Not put all of us in the position of you know
Waving people's fines and telling people that you know, no, I don't I'm not trying to wave it
I'm not trying to do any favors. I'm just saying I need to know if
There's a business this happened to Jeffery's for Jeffery's inner circle for years
And there are several other businesses like him that are like the city's trying to put me out of business
Because I don't fit into the changing dynamics and demographics of the city
so I'm saying if this is moving forward in order for us to do the political work of being engaged in a process where
You know certain businesses are experiencing these fines
I just want to figure out how we can be made aware not necessarily to intervene, but hey you should know that this is happening
Yeah, so again, we're not we're not changing that the current system the current structure people can still appeal to us
As before I think we had a couple of it. Were there a nut was there another amendment that needed to get read in Matt
Can can you do you have it? I think there was one word in a whereas clause that we needed to change
Once a member is that Congress office, this would be the third to last whereas clause
it would read whereas fines increase above the
$500 limit are only given after receiving the initial fine and after sufficient time to rectify the violations is made
administrator Baker
Thanks chair and through the chair just to address
The concerns that you mentioned and brought up a council five the idea the sentiment behind this
Amendment is to provide more levers for larger businesses
to be able to enforce it ministerially where there may be difficulty in securing legal
Judgments, etc. Which are time-consuming and still do not necessarily affect the behavior
So we see this as an additional lever for those businesses that are repeat offenders
To be able to enforce again ministerily
With with a greater set of fines, that's the sentiment behind the amendment. Yeah, and I just think that there's like a communication gap
Sometimes on these items
what sometimes the notices go out to the owner like the owner of the property versus the person who's operating the business and
And so I think you know, maybe we can discuss how I think that's part of the process concern
Whereas in this moment, I recognize what we're doing around the increase and again, that's why there's discretion
You know, I don't think that anyone wants to impose large fines willy-nilly. I think there is always
Sometimes maybe even too much of an attempt to work with with folks who are
Willfully violating our laws, but the goal is to get them to come into compliance not to find them
Sounds good. So the proper amendments are good to go one more on that as well, too
Okay, so this one we just changed the definition in our legislation to call it a major violation instead of just a violation
So we're making sure that's reflected in in the ordinance as well, too
So for this nice one except as otherwise permitted by law civil penalties
Excluding accruing interest shall not be assessed at more than $1,000 for a first major violation
nor more than
$500 for each subsequent or continuing major violation in a calendar year
If responsible person has failed to abate a public nuisance on real property after notice and an opportunity to abate
Civil penalties of up to $10,000 per day may be assessed until the nuisance is wholly and permanently abated
Civil penalties shall not exceed
3,650,000 dollars even till the each calendar year for an individual parcel or separate structure there on or for any related series of major
violations.
Excellent.
Thank you so much.
Council Member Ramachandran.
Thank you.
A quick question more to the city attorney's office who I assume was involved in this process.
I know there have been fines and fees struck down for not being grossly proportional under
the California constitution and other things.
Does this seem within the realm of not likely to be challenged?
the chair to Council Member Ramachandran. I'd like to ask supervising City Attorney
Laura Lane who's on Zoom to respond to that, to come, a question?
I'm sorry, can you repeat the question please?
Sure. I know there's, there's case law that, and decisions that have struck down certain
local fines and fees being not grossly proportional per the California Constitution and other
things and I want to get a sense of does this range of fees in your opinion
make it not likely to be struck down if challenged? Well in each case staff will
have to consider the factors that are set forth in the ordinance when
assessing the fees. So the ordinance sets forth six factors that have to be
considered, the duration and frequency of recurrence
of the major violations, the detrimental effects
on the neighborhood, history of compliance effort,
the viability of the penalty to effective abatement.
And we've added a new one, whether the nuisance resulted
from commercial activity or financially benefited
the responsible person.
And we also added other factors that serve justice,
including equity considerations.
So, in each case, if it's, yes,
if the staff were to assess a $10,000 penalty
for minor blight, that would be subject to challenge.
But all these factors should be taken
into consideration in each case.
Can some member longer?
Also just using CPI $1,000 in 1968 is 9,700 today.
Excellent, thank you so much.
Public speakers?
Oh, council member Fyfe.
Just lastly, and forgive me if this is being redundant,
but I do want to stress through the chair
to the city administrator
that because we are changing the fines,
we just want to be as communicative
with the public as possible.
So even though this is just simply
about increasing the fines, we should message
to the public through memos or even the city
of Oakland's social media pages that this is going to change.
And so that needs to be broadcast widely
because if the processes are, I mean the fines are changing,
then the process for letting residents know
and businesses know that it's changing should be made readily
apparent to everybody.
I think that will help manage some of the confusion
because even though some folks are scofflaws
and I appreciate being able to say that as well,
we wanna just be overly communicative
and I think I'm done.
Did I say we need to be communicative?
Because I think we need to be overly communicative.
Thank you.
Excellent.
Administrator Baker.
I appreciate that.
Council Member Fife.
There's also additional,
additional changes that we've already made ministerially.
We are now moving towards a proactive
Inspection model versus solely a reactive inspection model based on complaints because we know complaints aren't necessarily
You know submitted
From equal communities if you will right and so when we shifted earlier this year from only
Reacting to complaints to actually proactively
Doing inspections and we increased the number of inspection officers. That was a step in the right direction to
Equity, right? So we've done that and so we'll announce that as well. There's other measures in addition to that one
But that's one that I want to point out
so I'd like to
move this to
full council as a public hearing if possible
Yeah, I think we had a motion in the second through the chair just one minor clarification
Council member Unger for the first amendment that was read into the record for
section C of
1.08 0.0 60 what is currently in the printed agenda packet is that
penalties in excess of
$2,500 per day shall not be assessed without notice and an opportunity to a bait just wanted to clarify that you would like that to be
amended to be
Is that the final amendment so there are three amendments?
Correct.
Okay, so one is in section C of 108.0.6.0.
So instead of $2,500, it's 1,000, and then the other two that were subsequently read.
Okay.
Correct.
Thank you.
Excuse me.
I'm sorry.
This is Laura Lane.
Yep.
That creates an inconsistency.
been a mistake. It's either that the first correction that was read into the
record at the beginning of the of the meeting was incorrect. The ordinance
provides that penalties in excess of $2,500 a day shall not be assessed
without no notice an opportunity to abate. So Attorney Lane would you like
to just state the if you want to change it to a thousand then we need to take
away the correction that I made to know I think I think 25 is fine yeah okay
okay let's hold at 25 okay so they're here 26 so of the three amendments the
very first one that was read was incorrect so only the last two
amendments which were shared yes I apologize for the confusion okay so that
would mean the very the third whereas recital fine increases above now it
should be twenty five hundred dollars not one thousand okay and then the
second amendment only is that in section B of one point oh eight point oh six oh
the word major should be inserted so it should be one thousand dollars for our
first major violation and then similarly twenty five hundred dollars for each
Subsequent or continuing major violation in calendar year. There's only two amendments
Excellent. Thank you so much
Moving to the public speakers on this item missus out of all in Blair Beekman
Okay, mrs. Sottable labor time
So then we have a motion made by councilmember Unger second by councilmember five to approve as amended the recommendations of staff
Support this item to the October 20th City Council agenda as a public hearing
With the amendments read into record by the parliamentarian on roll council members five
Hi, Rama chandrin. Hi younger. Hi and chair Brown. Hi
Thank you motion passes with where I support this to the October 20th City Council agenda as a public hearing now moving on to open
forum
Calling in the names that sign up to speak missus sada olavala and blair beekman
I just want to give you an example of how people try to avoid talking about certain
things.
The most popular high school sport in America is football.
But if you notice here in the Bay Area, six teams have withdrawn their teams from participation
because of low participation.
And they're saying it's because people are worried about these concussions.
That's not true.
What we've had in the Bay Area is a very large culture change
of demographics.
And the majority of young people who are in our school districts
are from our Latino community.
And they don't favor football.
And so we've had a great reduction in participation.
Skyline has 12,000 students, and they couldn't get 20 students
play football. So my point is thank you for your comments miss olavala chair
that concludes all speakers. Excellent thank you so much this meeting is
adjourned.