“Affordable housing is such a huge need in Oakland right now,” she said. “Do I expect the Oakland A's to solve the housing crisis? No. Do I expect them to be a part of this community and to be at least a little bit transparent and come to the table with at least some ideas? Sure,” she told me.
Wong recalled one example from a public meeting last July: The Chinatown working group had specific questions about transportation issues around the proposed ballpark. During the public meeting, Kaval said that the team had studies it could share, but Wong never got anything — even after following up with Kaval and fellow A’s representative Taj Tashombe.
Lake, city staffers and contracted negotiators are tasked with giving the city council periodic updates. “Right now, I hear one thing today and next week and the other week, and then I ask the city staff and they just roll their eyes. That's where we are,” Councilmember Noel Gallo told me, adding that he believes the team is using Oakland as leverage to move to Las Vegas.
Councilmember Loren Taylor agreed. “It's important that we hold firm to a serious number in terms of committing to affordable housing. And I think the 15% is where we should be. Honestly, we should be pushing for more, figuring out a way to create more. I think 15% is a reasonable amount to expect to be built into this project,” he told me.
Yeah shit like that happens when cities ask businesses to foot the bill for their failures. The CITY not the A's created this mess, they can help pay to clean it up or lose all sports teams while the city murder and crime rate climbs and more jobs are lost!
Oakland will never learn. As if losing the Raiders wasn't enough now the city is forcing a plan that failed decades ago when willie Brown tried it in SF. 15% will make 100% of the development a crime ridden housing project. Nobody who can afford it will buy.
This is common sense. Fisher and DaveKaval don't want POOR people living in or near their waterfront high-rise condo complex. They were hoping to leverage A's fandom to force Oakland gov't to do their bidding. Didn't happen, Fisher and Kaval now taking out on the fans.
Good for them. They should get out now to a city that wants them