Oakland Uptown update

On Dec. 4 Forest City conducted a community meeting on planning for its Oakland Uptown project.

We were worried that the developer wasn't giving adequate publicity to the event, and so the Northern Alameda Group worked to contact the e-mail list we had developed through the June 19 workshop we had sponsored along with the Oakland Heritage Alliance. As a result the Dec. 4 turnout was large and lively. One of the presenters, John Chapman of the East Bay Community Foundation, explicitly quoted comments from our workshop report.

The developer had incorporated one important change suggested at our workshop, namely relocating the park to 19th Street. The sidewalk in front of the commercial spaces cannot yet be called a "piazza", but it is inching up in width from 15 feet to 18 feet. If Forest City were to apply the standards adopted for the Transbay Redevelopment Area in San Francisco for the same kind of commercial uses, the width should be 32 - 40 feet. Lively street life depends on the creation of open spaces in which people will want to linger.

Forest City will be holding another community meeting. To receive a pdf file of the report of the June 19 workshop, and to get on our e-mail list for future workshops, contact Joyce Roy by (preferred) or (510) 655-7508.

Joyce Roy