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The Legacy of the SS Elizabethport
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V Smoothe
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September, 26 2007
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| Oak to Ninth From 1962 to Now |
| In September of 1962, the world’s largest freighter, the SS Elizabethport , sailed into the Oakland Harbor. It was the first container ship to call on the West Coast, and newspapers and politicians celebrated her arrival. But her visit was also the beginning of the end for the heart of Oakland's waterfront since the days of Jack London and schooners. |
Ninth Avenue Terminal: Built for a Boom that Never Came (V. Smoothe)
In September of 1962, the world’s largest freighter, the SS Elizabethport, sailed into the Oakland Harbor. It was the first container ship to call on the West Coast, and newspapers and politicians celebrated her arrival. But her visit was also the beginning of the end for the heart of Oakland's waterfront since the days of Jack London and schooners.
Less than a decade earlier, the Port of Oakland doubled the size of the Ninth Avenue Terminal, anticipating ever-more cargo flowing in and out of booming postwar Northern California. The new container ships were too large to navigate the shallow, narrow channel leading to the Brooklyn Basin and the Ninth Avenue Terminal just south of Broadway's terminus at the waterfront.
The Port prospered, but it was the deeper and wider Outer Harbor that saw the traffic. Container ships were a one-two punch to waterfronts like the area around Oakland's Ninth Avenue Terminal. Not only did the mechanization of containers make the terminals where longshoremen unloaded ships with hooks and pulleys irrelevant, but reductions in the cost of shipping from 15% of cost to 1% meant that industrial jobs left for places with cheaper labor.
For the next four and a half decades, the waterfront near the Ninth Avenue Terminal sank into a rusty oblivion. It wasn't until June 2006 that Oakland City Council approved a plan designed to bring people and jobs back to the blighted 64 acres of Port property just south of Jack London Square. The plan called for 3,100 housing units, 32 acres of parks, 200,000 square feet of commercial space, and two marinas. The largest project in Oakland since World War II, the development's final details represented four years of tough negotiations between local activists demanding jobs and affordable housing and a stubborn private developer, who sought to squeeze as much profit as he could from the colossal project on Port-owned property.
If the two parties thought all that remained was to start building the project known as Oak to Ninth after the City Council voted 6-0 to approve it, they were wrong. Four days after the Council's final passage of the proposal in July, a coalition including the Sierra Club, the League of Women Voters, the Oakland Heritage Alliance, and the Green Party, some of whom had opposed the proposal from its inception, collected the first of 18,700 signatures needed to undo the Council's vote and send the project to a citywide election. Days later, the groups filed two lawsuits aimed at stopping the project.
Over a year later, Oak to Ninth's fate remains stalled in the Alameda County Superior Courthouse. With no end in sight to the legal fighting, the housing, labor, and neighborhood activists who joined forces to demand concessions from the developer wonder if their work will be for nothing. At stake are not only the developer’s hope for huge profits, but 465 waterfront rental units priced within the range of Oakland's poorest residents, and 300 apprenticeships to the construction trades. If the project is quashed, it's likely that the polluted land wedged between Oakland's Inner Harbor and the Nimitz Freeway will remain essentially useless for decades to come. One need only consider how long it took the city to reach that vote in June 2006.
The Oak to Ninth Area Viewed from the Air
Windows to the Water
Some three decades after the SS Elizabethport made her port of call at Oakland, the city and the Port knew they needed to find a new purpose for the forlorn waterfront. As a first step, the city adopted the Estuary Policy Plan in 1999. The document was drafted by a 27-member advisory committee who met nine times over an 18-month period, and was based largely on a 1993 report written by the League of Women Voters looking at Oakland's more than five miles of waterfront along the estuary.
For the Oak to Ninth area, the Estuary Policy Plan mapped out a mixed-use space, featuring a series of parks and continuous waterfront trails. Hotel or conference facilities were suggested to anchor the project, and the plan called for concentrating building "along the Embarcadero Parkway, with 'windows' to the water at intermittent points." Specifically, the plan called for a series of well-defined parks, rehabilitated marinas, the demolition of most of the Ninth Avenue Terminal in order to create a large park for civic events, and the provision of permanent mooring for the now-defunct ArtShip. The Council adopted the plan, and the new vision was officially part of Oakland policy.
Of course, turning 64 acres of land contaminated by a hundred years of heavy industrial use is not an easy feat. The Port-owned property would require significant scrubbing before anything could be built. There was the need for infrastructure like roads, sewers, and storm drains, plus the not insignificant cost of building and maintaining the desired parks. In 2001, the Port Board of Commissioners decided that they were unable to fund development of the property, and sent out the call to developers seeking a plan for the land. The Request for Qualifications (RFQ) asked for mixed-use development ideas that included significant public open space.
Oak to Ninth as Imagined by the Estuary Policy Plan in 1999
The Contenders
The RFQ drew two responses, both from large, politically connected local companies. San Francisco office giant Shorenstein responded, as did Pleasanton-based developer Signature Properties. Signature modeled its proposal after successful waterfront redevelopment projects in San Diego, Portland, and Vancouver. Shorenstein put forward an office park that would allow the team to lease the land from the Port long-term, rather than buy it. But the Commissioners ultimately preferred the residential plan proposed by Signature. In September of 2001, the Board approved an exclusive negotiating agreement with Signature and Concord-based Reynolds & Brown, who together called themselves Oakland Harbor Partners.
Two years and one public workshop later, the Port Board of Commissioners unanimously approved an option to sell the property to Oakland Harbor Partners for a project that would feature 2,000 units of housing and 20 acres of parks. Independent appraisers Carneghi-Bautovich & Partners valued the cleaned-up land at $34 million. Instead of paying for the environmental remediation themselves, the Port decided to deduct $16 million to cover Signature's clean-up costs. The final price tag was $18 million.
Friends in High Places
Once the Port approved the sale, there was a matter of California state law to be dealt with. Nine acres of the land were subject to the State Tidelands Trust designation, which state law prohibits from being used for housing. State Senator Don Perata introduced a bill that would lift the trust designation from the property, allowing the Port to exchange it for elsewhere in the city. Although the move was not unprecedented (in the four preceding years, the legislature approved bills allowing similar exchanges on Treasure Island, San Francisco, Vallejo, and Alameda), opponents of the project complained that Perata was exploiting the public trust to benefit major campaign contributors. Over the past six years, Signature Properties has donated at least $500,000 to candidates, bond measures, and political action committees, including $21,000 to Mr. Perata.
The Containers that Killed the Ninth Avenue Terminal (Photo by V Smoothe)
It's this suggestion of public land swapped for cash that fuels much of the current opposition to the Oak to Ninth project. Days after the City Council approved the project, opponents launched a signature gathering campaign to put Oak to Ninth on a citywide ballot. The petition's accompanying literature told the story of a potential waterfront park stolen by greedy developers and their lapdogs in City Hall.
From the beginning of the referendum campaign, advocates of the development were decrying the signature gatherers' methods. Local bloggers bemoaned that petitioners lied to them about the amount of parkland in the project. And the leaders of the local coalition that had formed to wrest jobs and housing from the developer complained that the campaign put their years of hard work at risk.
The Referendum Campaign
On August 17, the referendum committee delivered the results of their campaign to City Hall, claiming they had gathered over 25,000 signatures. A few weeks later, City Attorney John Russo invalidated the petitions on the grounds that the petitions did not include the final version of the ordinance or maps of the project. A year later, the project remains embroiled in litigation and the referendum committee is furiously scrambling for donations (a letter mailed in early July claims they need to raise $40,000 over the next few months to continue their suit).
While the mostly well-heeled retirees raise money for their lawsuit, the local activists who formed what became known as the Community Benefits Coalition try to remind people of the considerable concessions they extracted from Signature Properties. Killing Oak to Ninth would eliminate the best chance to turn 64 acres of polluted land into an engine for jobs and housing for the poor.
Homes and Jobs
The battle to put pressure on Signature Properties started in 2001. When the Port Commission approved the land sale, Andy Nelson of the Urban Strategies Council delivered a letter, signed by local housing and labor advocacy organizations, laying out their own vision for the project, demanding "concrete commitments to direct benefits for Oakland's working families that include affordable housing opportunities, living wage jobs, opportunities for construction jobs in the development for residents of the adjacent neighborhoods." He told the commissioners "our support for this project will be contingent upon the extent to which the project conforms to this vision."
It was almost as if there were parallel planning processes running at the same time. While City officials held 17 packed public meetings in front of a variety of boards and commissions, and Oakland Harbor Partners hosted two community wide public forums and a series of small group interviews with representatives of 40 community groups, the Community Benefits Coalition held its own planning meetings about the future of their neighborhood.
Over the course of three years, the Coalition grew to encompass 800 members who lived near the decaying industrial zone. In July 2005, they issued a report stating their concrete demands. The document was signed by the Asian Pacific Environment Network, the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, East Bay Asian Youth Center, East Bay Housing Organizations, Eastlake Merchants Association, Just Cause Oakland, Oakland Coalition of Congregations, Oakland Community Organizations, the Oakland Green Party, Urban Habitat, and the Urban Strategies Council. They were united by their recognition that Oakland needs jobs and housing for the poor.
Oak to Ninth is in a redevelopment area, which means that the city would have to build affordable housing equal to 15 percent of the project. But the units could be built anywhere between Lake Merritt and San Leandro. And they could be designated for people earning up to $90,000 a year. The coalition wanted one in four of the project's units made available to families earning between $10,000 and $50,000 a year. In short, they were asking the Pleasanton developer to set aside 755 waterfront homes for Oakland's poorest residents. They also wanted multi-lingual jobs programs and parks. They were asking for a lot. They almost got it.
One day before the City Council's June 21st vote to approve Oak to Ninth, the Community Benefits Coalition triumphantly announced they had reached a agreement with Oakland Harbor Partners. Oak to Ninth would include 465 units of affordable rental housing, all designated for households bringing in less than $50,000 a year. Half of the units would be two and three bedrooms to accommodate families with children, and a quarter would be earmarked for seniors. The developer also agreed to provide 300 construction apprenticeship placements for local residents, allowing those with no previous skills to learn the trade.
The Developer's Rendering of Oak to Ninth
There was more. It also included $1.65 million to fund construction training programs for immigrants and ex-convict populations, most of which was restricted to residents of the neighborhoods closest to the site. The developer would pay for the installation of 32 acres of parkland, as well as all roads and sewers on the site, and would pay for park maintenance in perpetuity. In a landmark step, the contract was legally binding, with specific financial penalties if the developer failed to deliver.
While these concessions were attractive to locals seeking jobs and affordable housing, they did little to placate activists who wanted more parkland or who wanted to see the 76 year-old Ninth Avenue Terminal preserved as landmark of the city's maritime history.
Naomi Schiff of the Oakland Heritage Alliance opposed the project from its inception, calling it "wildly premature" and "unwise" at the initial Port Commission meeting on the sale, but asked that if the Port did go through with the sale, the Ninth Avenue Terminal remain standing. Ms. Schiff repeated this request at meeting after meeting, rejecting the analysis that determined reuse of the terminal was economically infeasible. In the end, the Council declined to strike the infeasibility finding, but did agree to issue a request for proposals looking for someone willing to develop the space.
People or Parks
Oakland's League of Women Voters jumped into the fray at the end of March 2006, signing on to an appeal of the Planning Commission's approval of the project. On April 3rd, they sent a letter to the City Council with their own demands. The requests included "a minimum of 30 acres of new open space," "adequate access to area," "a significant number of affordably priced units," "a school for children," and careful consideration of reusing the Ninth Avenue Terminal.
Even with the appeal to consider, the project looked like a sure thing by the time it finally reached the City Council on June 21, 2006. It had the support of the Community Benefits Coalition and had gathered an impressive list of endorsements, including 68 local organizations and a nearly 100 community leaders, including school board members Alice Spearman, David Kakishiba, and Kerry Hamill. The ordinance passed unanimously, with Councilmembers Jean Quan and Desley Brooks abstaining.
If the Oakland Heritage Alliance, the Green Party, the Sierra Club, and the League of Women Voters are successful in their suit, the project may have to go back for another series of negotiations. But this time the emphasis will be on extracting open space for recreation from the developer's plans rather than housing for the poor and jobs.
Railroad to Nowhere (Photo by V. Smoothe)
The entire project could also end up in front of Oakland voters. If that happens, Oakland will have to decide what it stands for as a city. It will be forced to articulate its mission as a metropolis some 45 years after the SS Elizabethport docked here. Is Oakland still a city where poor immigrants can find a home and a foothold in a well-paying profession, or is it a city that would rather keep things as they are for the benefit of those who have prospered the most? |
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The Publisher's Letter
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Welcome to our new web site -- NovMetro has now become The OakBook! The old stories are all here. And we're still the same people on the same mission -- bringing you fascinating Oakland stories.
But it's a new look -- and there are some new things that you'll find as you play around -- the Sudoku, for example. Click on a pen and start playing! Let us know what you think about this. We'd love to hear from you.
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