[sudo-discuss] WOSP – City of Oakland’s Plan for Gentrification: A Target For Anti-Displacement Activity : Indybay

[Jehan Tremback]

Romy, I'm pretty sure that all official municipal development plans have
always been public.


On Sat, May 17, 2014 at 11:37 AM, Romy Snowyla <romy at snowyla.com> wrote:

> It's interesting how you're all so quick to attack the article especially
> when it makes a couple of good points.
>
> Not all of it is valid but it provides a needed transparency ..
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On May 17, 2014, at 10:48 AM, Jehan Tremback <jehan.tremback at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Suburban living is the solution to population increase? Explain?
>
>
> On Sat, May 17, 2014 at 10:45 AM, Romy Snowyla <romy at snowyla.com> wrote:
>
>> I don't see anything wrong with Indy media although I don't agree with
>> everything they say. They aren't driving rent up though so don't place all
>> the blame on rent control. Any new real estate development will provide
>> relatively few affordable units for shrine class people
>>
>> My main motivation for passing the email along was just so everything is
>> clear and not obfuscated . The master plans in sf that have transformed the
>> mission like Godzilla were never very clear to the public
>>
>>
>> I don't understand the need to disparage calendar apps or apps in
>> general. Many innovations are through things like process or paper
>> checklists instead of 3D printers and drones. Being dismissive of those
>> innovations is illogical
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On May 17, 2014, at 9:30 AM, Sonja Trauss <sonja.trauss at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> This is an Orwellian notion of anti-displacement.
>>
>> In the face of increased population these people seek to build nothing
>> new. I really can't understand what they think is going to happen when the
>> population goes up but the housing stock doesn't.
>>
>> Sf tried that! Look what's happening there! It sucks!
>>
>> This is the saddest thing to me because all efforts like this do, is make
>> building more expensive and difficult. That means the only things that get
>> built are at higher price points. Or, if they're slightly successful,
>> whole projects are blocked, and they miss the opportunity to get capital to
>> build something useful, instead of something stupid like a new calendaring
>> app.
>>
>> On Friday, May 16, 2014, Romy Snowyla <romy at snowyla.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/04/18/18754399.php
>>>
>>> WOSP – City of Oakland’s Plan for Gentrification: A Target For
>>> Anti-Displacement Activity : Indybay
>>> [image: 1888463_10151853655272163_918216235_n]<http://advancethestruggle.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/1888463_10151853655272163_918216235_n.jpg>
>>>
>>> Advertisement for Public Release of WOSP in Feb. 2014
>>> March 29, 2014
>>>
>>> *Snapshot of the State and Capital in the Bay Area*
>>>
>>> If the Bay Area’s economy was compared to every other national economy
>>> in the world, it would be the 19th largest. The Bay has the highest GDP per
>>> capita in the entire United States, and even outpaces London and Singapore.
>>> It captures 40% of the entire flow of venture capital in the US (p11),
>>> which constitutes a higher amount of capital than that captured during the
>>> dot.com boom. While the Bay accounts for only 2.4% of the total jobs in
>>> the US, it has 12% of the computer & electronics manufacturing, 10.3% of
>>> software development, and 8.3% of internet related jobs (p13.) Seven of the
>>> top 10 social media companies are here – Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter,
>>> Linkedin, Zynga, and Yelp. In short, the Bay is home to one of the highest
>>> concentrations of capital in the world and mapping out the composition of
>>> capital is key for us to situate ourselves as we continue to engage in
>>> class combat. *(Footnote #1)*
>>>
>>> The regional state is well aware of its place within the world economy.
>>> Over the past years, city politicians from the greater Bay Area have come
>>> together to generate a 30 year strategy about how to restructure the
>>> region’s housing, employment, and transportation structures. Plan Bay
>>> Area <http://onebayarea.org/plan-bay-area.html> (PBA) was developed by
>>> the Association of Bay Area Governments <http://www.abag.ca.gov/>(ABAG)
>>> to carry out the tasks of determining how the state can support and
>>> facilitate the accumulation of capital throughout the region. In order to
>>> grease the wheels of the local capitalist economy, the PBA aims to
>>> redevelop housing and transit throughout the Bay; New units are set to be
>>> built, new transportation “hubs” developed, and both of these projects are
>>> to be coordinated across single cities and the bay area as a whole.
>>>
>>> PBA aims to align the various metropolitan areas of the Bay in their
>>> development of housing to match projected increases in employment.
>>> Internet, computer and electronics manufacturing, along with professional,
>>> scientific and technical services are accounting for some of the largest
>>> contributors to job creation here. PBA states that between early 2011 and
>>> late 2013 the Bay Area added more than 200,000 jobs, an increase of 7.5
>>> percent that is well above the state’s average of 4.5%. PBA is projecting
>>> that this area will continue to outpace the rest of California and the US
>>> in its share of job growth due to the heavy concentration of tech related
>>> industries which forms part of the economic base of Bay Area political
>>> economy. *(Footnote#2)*
>>>
>>> *West Oakland Specific Plan – One Part of Capital/State’s Total Plan*
>>> [image: opportunitysitesWOSP]<http://advancethestruggle.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/opportunitysiteswosp.jpg>
>>>
>>> “Opportunity Sites”
>>>
>>> We find ourselves in a city that’s clearly at the crosshairs of the
>>> system’s plans for intentional development and displacement: highly
>>> concentrated capital in the Bay Area and projections of millions of jobs
>>> being created in the next 10 years; a strategic plan by city politicians
>>> across the Bay to house these new high wage workers within its multiple
>>> cities; and the ongoing displacement of low wage workers and unemployed
>>> people. This is the situation Oakland Mayor Jean Quan references when she
>>> states that she’s seeking to bring in 10,000 new residents to Oakland<http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-Mayor-Quan-unveiling-her-own-5292079.php>while saying nothing about keeping long term residents and working class
>>> people in Oakland.
>>>
>>> The city of Oakland has developed a number of “Specific Plans” for the
>>> Coliseum, Lake Merritt and West Oakland in order to smoothly facilitate and
>>> attract investment by retail and tech companies, develop new housing units,
>>> and restructure the local transportation systems. The West Oakland
>>> Specific Plan, WOSP<http://www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/PBN/OurOrganization/PlanningZoning/OAK028334>(really Jean Quan?!), is one local example of the city’s plan for carrying
>>> out this program of urban capitalist development *(footnote #3). *
>>> [image: fig31wosp]<http://advancethestruggle.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/fig31wosp.jpg>
>>>
>>> Emeryville part 2?
>>>
>>> The West Oakland Specific Plan is the City of Oakland’s plan to help
>>> developers and incoming high wage populations (both different types of
>>> gentrifiers – *see footnote #4*) speed up the accumulation of capital
>>> in Oakland. It essentially acts as a one stop shop for financial and retail
>>> capitalists to invest in West Oakland without having to go through the
>>> “nuisance” of making Environmental Impact Reports – EIRs – or dealing with
>>> zoning regulations. Instead of having new developments require zoning, and
>>> environmental impact regulations, the WOSP does it all for them and
>>> therefore saves money for the developers, retail chains, and financial
>>> interests seeking to build in and make massive profits in West Oakland. It
>>> is the state facilitating the accumulation of capital and dispossessing
>>> long term, and historically black, residents in the process by bringing in
>>> new investment that will increase property values while doing nothing to
>>> keep rents for existing residents from going up.
>>>
>>> The WOSP highlights four “Opportunity Sites” as the specific areas of
>>> West Oakland to be developed. The Four areas are the Mandela/West Grand
>>> area, the San Pablo corridor, the area around the BART station on 7th
>>> Street and the area next to the Port of Oakland around 3rd Street. These
>>> “Opportunity Sites” are determined to be the specific places where transit,
>>> new housing, light industrial and retail outlets will be developed.
>>>
>>> In order to “revitalize” these areas, the architects of WOSP have
>>> identified various barriers to development such as “graffiti,” “homeless
>>> encampments,” “crime of all types,” and “blight.” In the eyes of the
>>> architects of WOSP, once the barriers to development are gone there will be
>>> a flourishing of “new growth.”
>>> [image: fig327thstreetWOSP]<http://advancethestruggle.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/fig327thstreetwosp.png>
>>>
>>> Right . . .
>>>
>>> What does this growth look like? A glance at the video accompanying the
>>> presentation of the WOSP to the Oakland Planning Commission featured the
>>> familiar architecture and spatial layout of Emeryville mixed in with your
>>> typical Whole Foods store. The development that’s presented is about
>>> attracting an influx of capital investment – retail, industrial, and high
>>> wage residents – and transforming West Oakland into a center of commerce
>>> for a new set of residents. New growth is about raising property values and
>>> attracting new residents and businesses, not improving the situations of
>>> those who already live there.
>>>
>>> But the planners who put WOSP together would disagree. They are quick to
>>> point out that they have “Chapter 9,” a section of the report that
>>> addresses equity and social justice issues. This is where they explicitly
>>> state that they hope to mitigate the “impact of neighborhood change and
>>> displacement on longstanding residents and businesses” (WOSP 9-1.) However,
>>> what one finds in Chapter 9 is little more than an inventory of existing
>>> city agencies and non-profit organizations that provide services to working
>>> class people. Rather than focusing on the needs of long-term and working
>>> class residents, WOSP is re-writing the rules for developers and financial
>>> capital to ease their access the city by re-writing the zoning regulations
>>> and providing them with a pre-packaged Environmental Impact Report. All
>>> that’s provided to working class people and renters in West Oakland is a
>>> list of the declining base of social service programs that already exist.
>>>
>>> *Strategic Orientations for Fighting WOSP*
>>>
>>> We seek the defeat of the WOSP in all its forms. Given the multiple
>>> challenges facing West Oakland, the burgeoning national and international
>>> debates around the hyper-gentrification of the Bay Area, and the ways in
>>> which the West Oakland Specific Plan is being promoted, we recognize the
>>> urgent need for a radical critique and effective action against
>>> gentrification and displacement. However, given these circumstances, we
>>> also recognize that simply being “anti-development” is not the most
>>> effective strategy, nor is it adequate to addressing the structural and
>>> conjunctural problems in West Oakland that have both shaped adverse
>>> conditions for local residents and made it a ripe ground for gentrification.
>>>
>>> Our orientation towards this struggle is built around the following core
>>> strategic goals:
>>>
>>> *Reframing the Discussion About Development*: We want to re-frame the
>>> discussion about gentrification and improvements to neighborhoods. The city
>>> and investors want to convince us that they know what’s best for West
>>> Oakland, and that they can make the type of improvements that residents
>>> really want. The truth is that West Oakland has been devastated by decades
>>> of economic and racial exclusion – for instance, the creation of the West
>>> Oakland BART station destroyed 7th Street as a center of culture, black
>>> owned businesses, and centralized location for community interaction; the
>>> 980 freeway cut off West Oakland from downtown so that white city officials
>>> could distance themselves from black “blighted” neighborhoods in the 1970s;
>>> the creation of the Post Office on 7th street bulldozed three blocks of
>>> residential housing with no relocation support for residents.
>>>
>>> Residents have real desires and needs for their community to be better
>>> served, and “no improvement” is not a viable option as an alternative to
>>> gentrification. However, though we do want improvements, we don’t want the
>>> type of “improvements” that the city and its developer allies seek to
>>> impose on us. The development plans of the city and capitalist real estate
>>> developers are NOT the way to create safer, more vibrant, and economically
>>> dynamic neighborhoods. (Footnote #5)
>>>
>>> *Gentrification as a Question of Power*: Many people in West Oakland
>>> want development, so the question isn’t so much do we want improvements or
>>> not. The question should be: who gets to benefit and make use of the
>>> developments? Is it going to be long term black, latino residents and
>>> working class people, or middle class, often white, newcomers who landlords
>>> and developers cater to in order to accumulate high rents. Long term
>>> residents want development like well serviced and fully funded schools and
>>> parks, fixed roads, improved plumbing, clean air, and access to affordable
>>> healthy foods, while developers want development that looks like biotech
>>> campuses, an increased police presence, and cafes that sell expensive
>>> coffee. Some of the questions we seek to put out there are: On whose terms
>>> will urban development proceed? Who decides what is implemented and where?
>>> Who benefits from urban development?
>>>
>>> *Community Control over Community Development*: If gentrification and
>>> urban development is an issue of power, therefore, we argue that the only
>>> way towards a positive outcome in West Oakland is for the people themselves
>>> to take control of the redevelopment process. ‘Community input’ in an
>>> otherwise top-down, technocratic planning process has proven to be a
>>> useless endeavor – mere lip service to inclusivity and equity. The real
>>> needs of the poor, black and brown and working-class communities in West
>>> Oakland have either been ignored, or worse, twisted and used to justify the
>>> aggressive neoliberal development strategies put forward by WOSP. By
>>> invoking the classic Black Panther slogan of ‘community control,’ we are
>>> also recognizing the need for a strategy that is locally rooted in
>>> Oakland’s Black proletarian constituency and its historical memory of
>>> struggle; one that emphasizes and prioritizes the material needs and
>>> political empowerment of the most oppressed sectors of urban society. *(Footnote
>>> #6)*
>>>
>>> Our on-the-ground strategy is to mobilize activists and community
>>> members on two fronts:
>>>
>>> *Kill the WOSP*: We seek to build a strong, vocal force of opposition
>>> to the West Oakland Specific Plan by staging interventions at all city
>>> planning meetings, developing and presenting a clear and coherent critique
>>> of the Plan at every point in the approval process. The mass displacement
>>> and “hyper-gentrification” of San Francisco has given us the opportunity to
>>> show what this new mode of urban development looks like, and why it must be
>>> stopped: “West Oakland Will NOT Be the Next San Francisco!” The immediate
>>> goal is to defeat or delay the final vote on WOSP’s Draft Plan and EIR.
>>> We’ve approached this goal thus far by organizing small, but vocal,
>>> interventions at the presentation of the WOSP to the city Planning
>>> Commission and the Parks and Recreation Commission.
>>>
>>> *A People’s Plan for West Oakland*: As an alternative to capitalist
>>> visions of urban development, we plan to deeply engage communities in
>>> organization and dialogue towards articulating their own vision of the kind
>>> of city they want to live and work in. Inspired by urban struggles across
>>> the world, we are attempting to facilitate the organization and empowerment
>>> of residents to create urban space themselves; to foster the imagination
>>> and social power capable of asserting the power to shape the city according
>>> to the needs, wants, and rhythms of their everyday lives. This is a
>>> longer-term community planning process that will hopefully be realized in a
>>> radical, innovative, and concrete strategy for West Oakland’s
>>> redevelopment. *(Footnote #6)*
>>>
>>> —————
>>>
>>> *Footnotes:*
>>>
>>> #1: All statistics and information in this paragraph drawn from the “Bay
>>> Area Job Growth to 2040” document prepared for the Association of Bay Area
>>> Governments –
>>> http://www.onebayarea.org/pdf/3-9-12/CCSCE_Bay_Area_Job_Growth_to_2040.pdf
>>>
>>> #2: All information about Plan Bay Area taken from their “Draft Forecast
>>> of Jobs, Population, and Housing” document –
>>> http://onebayarea.org/pdf/Draft_Plan_Bay_Area/Draft_PBA_Forecast_of_Jobs_Population_and_Housing.pdf
>>>
>>> #3: By “urban capitalist development” we refer to the ways in which city
>>> policies and programs are directed toward the benefit of businesses that
>>> engage in retail, financial, and real-estate growth. Cities in the Bay Area
>>> are strategic sites for businesses to invest in because higher wage workers
>>> are moving here in order to work at tech companies in Silicon Valley and
>>> San Francisco. This facilitates the creation of a base of consumers who buy
>>> expensive commodities (coffee, clothes, condos, cupcakes, etc) and pay
>>> higher rents. All of this helps businesses in the city generate flows of
>>> money, which then provides the city with a higher sales tax and residential
>>> tax base, hence the “urban” in capitalist development. The city deals with
>>> its declining budget from the state by welcoming wealthier residents,
>>> rather than fighting banks, ports, developers and corporations for higher
>>> tax rates that could fund services for working class people.
>>>
>>> #4: By “gentrifiers” we refer to three groups: a.) the capitalist
>>> developers who flip houses, redevelop properties, build condos, and
>>> rent/sell their properties to high waged workers and wealthy people; b.)
>>> the state bureaucrats such as city planners and other planning agents who
>>> produce documents such as WOSP in order to attract capital to the city, as
>>> well as passing racist laws and zoning regulations; and c.) the individuals
>>> whose high wages allow them to pay higher rents and in an overall sense
>>> benefit from redevelopment projects such as these. This third group, the
>>> individual gentrifiers, is controversial because it is argued that these
>>> people do not accumulate capital in the same way that private developers
>>> do. While this is true, we still refer to them as gentrifiers because of
>>> the problematic role that they play once they move into a neighborhood.
>>> Some issues associated with high wage workers moving into neighborhoods
>>> such as West Oakland involve calling and collaborating with the police on a
>>> more frequent basis than long-term residents and organizing private
>>> security firms to patrol neighborhoods. Additionally, many of these
>>> “individual” gentrifiers also are/become petty-bourgeois business owners of
>>> high priced organic food shops, cafes, and clothing boutiques. We recognize
>>> the challenge of using gentrifier as a term because it encompasses such a
>>> wide range of people and lacks specificity, while also seeing the value of
>>> its accessibility. Throughout this essay we’ve attempted to refer to
>>> specific groups, but we still retain use of gentrifier term because of its
>>> wide use.
>>>
>>> #5: We completely acknowledge that there are many different sets of
>>> people who compose any community. Our understanding of the needs and
>>> desires of residents comes from our experiences working alongside long-term
>>> residents, organizing around housing issues, working with young people in
>>> the community, and researching the WOSP and its background alongside people
>>> whose lives are directly affected by the plan. Putting forward the “needs”
>>> of West Oakland as a whole is an ongoing project that many are already
>>> engaged in and that we seek to support.
>>>
>>> #6: When we say “community control” and “people’s plan” we refer to
>>> processes where working class and black/brown residents, unemployed people,
>>> and youth put out their visions of how the community should be changed.
>>> Historically, terms like “community” and “the people” have been used in
>>> ways that obscure and diminish class differences within a given set of
>>> people, and have also been used in ways t
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>> https://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://sudoroom.org/pipermail/sudo-discuss/attachments/20140517/357c0557/attachment.html>