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End of Oil and Other City Council News
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V Smoothe
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Last Updated on June, 03 2007 at 02:10 PM
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It's a busy time of year for City Council. When it comes to their summer vacation, it seems like they look to their counterparts in France for inspiration. Our full-time Council will soon be embarking on a month-long vacation. That means they have a lot of business to plow through in June.
From new city-subsidized storefronts near the Coliseum to preparing for Peak Oil, the City Council has a full agenda on Tuesday. City hall reporter V Smoothe brings us some highlights. |
Painting by Aaron Gaudamuz. Courtesy: Rock Paper Scissors Collective
It's a busy time of year for City Council. When it comes to their summer vacation, it seems like they look to their counterparts in France for inspiration. Our full-time Council will soon be embarking on a month-long vacation. That means they have a lot of business to plow through in June.
From new city-subsidized storefronts near the Coliseum to preparing for Peak Oil, the City Council has a full agenda on Tuesday. City hall reporter V Smoothe brings us some highlights.
It worked downtown, why not near the Coliseum? The Council will probably approve Façade Improvement and Tenant Improvement Programs for the Coliseum Redevelopment Area. Façade and Tenant Improvement Programs are funded through the Oakland Redevelopment Agency (separate from the city budget discussed here last week), and already exist for several other redevelopment areas. These programs aim to eliminate blight in commercial areas by reducing retail vacancies and encouraging small businesses. Many of the older commercial buildings in Oakland are underutilized due to the prohibitive costs involved in renovating the outdated structures. These programs lure new tenants to such spaces by matching owner and tenant costs dollar for dollar, handing out up to $30,000 for façade improvements and $45,000 for interior improvements. The city also provides $5,000 for architectural design per project. Façade and Tenant Improvement Programs have proved to be an extremely effective method for retail revitalization in other redevelopment areas, most notably downtown, where 87 new businesses have moved in since the inception of the TIP, and the retail vacancy rate has dropped from 25% to 8%. The benefits of additional retail are not merely aesthetic – new stores contribute to the bottom line by increasing sales and business tax revenues.
Last year, the Council approved District 3 Councilmember Nancy Nadel's resolution to create a task force designed to help the city become oil-independent by 2020. The task force was originally scheduled to present an action plan explaining how the city should go about accomplishing this goal in July. They have now decided that their responsibilities are more daunting than they anticipated, and formulating the plan will require "numerous working group meetings" and "substantial research." Ms. Nadel is requesting a four-month extension of the life of the task force, allowing them sufficient time to create a realistic strategy for making Oakland oil-free in the next 13 years.
District 1 representative Jane Brunner has proposed an Oakland Ambassadors Program, which the Council will also be considering this week. The proposal has two goals: to provide an alternative to criminal activity for Oakland's at-risk youth, and to reduce the perception of crime among residents and visitors to the city. Oakland residents ages 18-24 would work in teams of six between dusk and 8 PM, escorting commuters from BART stations to their cars, giving directions, and cleaning up trash surrounding the stations. Although early evening is not a peak time for criminal activity, it is among the busiest parts of the day for BART stations, and is therefore ideal for maximizing the Ambassadors' visibility. Ms. Brunner suggests the city pay for the program through a mix of unidentified private funding and redevelopment funds, although the report does not explain how this program qualifies for redevelopment money, or how programs at BART stations that are not in redevelopment areas would be funded. Presumably, these issues will be discussed during the meeting. Ms. Brunner says the program will provide long-term benefits for Oakland's at-risk youth by providing the Ambassadors with valuable work experience and job skills in customer service. Ambassadors would have access to support services from several local youth-oriented non-profits, and would be required to spend a minimum of 15 hours per week in either GED study labs or attending college classes (the equivalent of about 5 courses per semester at Laney).
And what would a City Council meeting be without a development debate? Representatives of the San Antonio Neighborhood Association have appealed the Planning Commission's approval of a three-story residential building on a currently vacant lot on East 24th Street. The four-unit building would feature two floors of residential units atop a single story garage. The appellants, who have been fighting the project throughout the permitting process, claim that the building would have negative impacts on the neighborhood by bringing in too much additional traffic and taking up already scarce parking spaces, and contend that the street in front of the building is too steep for potential children residing there to play on. The group is also appealing on the grounds that the building will exceed the street's 30-foot height maximum by two-feet, a variance granted by the Planning Commission to allow for a more aesthetically pleasing roof pitch. In 2001, two of the appellants applied for and received a three-and-a-half feet height variance for an addition to their own home down the street. But we can assume that their own children (if they have any), were not forced to play on steep sidewalks. |
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RECOMMEND
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OAKLAND
REAL ESTATE
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