At the previous town hall meeting, residents were told that the two towers were being erected to provide affordable housing for senior citizens, with possibly 10%–12% allocated for low-income/affordable housing. Yet this evening, District 1 Councilmember Zac Unger stated that the developer was not “engaging in a bait-and-switch” by saying that the towers were not intended to provide affordable housing. BULL! There was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle stating that providing affordable housing was the reason the developer gave for building here in Rockridge.
Also, the impact fees have been used as a way for developers to renege on their “promise” to add affordable housing.
What is so affordable about a $1 million buy-in with a $10,000-a-month fee when you don’t own the property and it is not rent-able? What kind of nonsense is that? It sounds like a scam, and that leads me to what many people at that church felt tonight.
Here is my main takeaway from the evening’s town hall discussions:
- Zac Unger and City representatives all act as if this is a done deal and danced around the idea that we, the residents of Rockridge, were powerless to do anything to stop the demolition of Trader Joe’s and the erection of two outrageously inappropriate buildings in Rockridge.
- If the developer had no intentions of providing affordable housing in Rockridge, why is the City (even though there are laws supporting developers) throwing up its hands? The laws, as most people understand them, are to make it easier for affordable housing to be built, not to build some Mar-a-Lago-style country club. As a matter of fact, Zac Unger initially described this tower project as just that—a fancy country club.
- Several people whispered that they believe Unger, as well as Buffy Wicks and several other so-called representatives of Oakland and Rockridge specifically, are taking kickbacks. I don’t have any evidence to that effect, and I reiterate that this was just something said by several very disgruntled people.
- There were several notebooks passed around to sign your name, provide email addresses and phone numbers, for the purpose of having people join together to protest the towers. Also, there was discussion of recalling or voting out of office those people who are supposed to represent this district but who seem to be uninterested in doing so.
The general feeling was that if we want those towers gone and Trader Joe’s kept in the neighborhood, then organizing and protesting are necessary. And it’s no good for Unger to say that “we need more housing,” because Oakland surpassed San Francisco, Berkeley, San Mateo, San Jose, Fremont, and other Bay Area cities in providing housing five years ago. A case in point is all the new buildings lining 29th Street, Alice Street, and other streets close to Lake Merritt.
Many of those buildings are still one-quarter vacant, as are the buildings that were erected across from the MacArthur BART station. I checked with the rental agency in charge of those buildings, and even though they were completed approximately eight to ten years ago, they still have a 15% housing vacancy rate and 60% vacancy for ground-floor commercial/mixed-use space. The problem is that they are unaffordable for most renters.
Again, what is Zac Unger going to do to fix this horrendous situation? Is he going to acknowledge that the residents were lied to regarding affordable housing? Is Zac Unger going to continue to act as if there is nothing we can do to stop this project from being built to provide the developer and its investors with a big payday? Is Zac Unger going to grow a pair and point out the unnecessary erection of a building that will take out a Trader Joe’s and replace it with a "fancy country club" where the residents don’t have to ever leave the building to meet their service needs?
Does he realize that we, the voters, put him and Buffy Wicks in office, and we, the voters, can get enough signatures for a recall and vote them out of office and replace them with someone—anyone—who will do the job of representing Rockridge and its residents for the betterment of all? He kept talking about a $20 million fine the City might have to pay if “we” prevent the towers from going up, but why is he using this potential fine as a deterrent to we, the people, exercising our rights as taxpaying citizens?
And finally, HOW DOES THE ERECTION OF THESE TWO TOWERS HELP THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF ROCKRIDGE?
Just asking!!
