Rockridge residents urge city to stop tower development and save Trader Joe’s

At a packed town hall meeting this week, Oakland residents urged City Councilmember Zac Unger and city staff to stop the Rockridge Trader Joe’s site from being redeveloped into high-rise apartments for seniors. 

Joined by city staff, Unger fielded questions at St. Augustine Catholic Church in North Oakland Monday but said City Council could not stop the project, given state laws that promote such developments. 

San Francisco-based Align Real Estate has filed a preliminary proposal to develop the property at 5727 College Ave., near Rockridge BART, into 415 housing units — 371 independent living units, 18 assisted living units and 26 memory care units. The housing plan, filed in April, would be exempt from a lengthy environmental review process and local caps on building heights. The company is planning to develop two towers: one with 31 floors and the other with 25, with the highest reaching 352 feet. The local height limit for a building in the area is 95 feet. 

About 100 people attended the meeting, nearly all of them against the plan. Their main concerns were that the development would change the character of the neighborhood and increase traffic near the site. Most importantly, residents would lose a beloved grocery store and neighborhood landmark.

Unger said he has urged the developers to put the Trader Joe’s back on the ground floor, but that’s all he can do. The property is owned by Albertson’s LLC, a subsidiary of Albertsons Cos., the parent company of supermarket chain Safeway, a competitor of Trader Joe’s with a store in Rockridge. 

Neither Trader Joe’s nor Albertsons responded to Oakland North’s request for comments. 

Tom Dolan, an urban designer and long-time Oakland resident, said the idea of a 31-story building in that location “is just an insult to the neighborhood.”

Align has said the project is being “developed in partnership with a leading Bay Area nonprofit senior living organization with more than 65 years of experience serving older adults” but did not name the entity.  

The company also has plans to turn a Safeway in San Francisco’s Marina District into a housing project, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. 

“Our state Legislature in Sacramento have been writing a series of laws over the last couple of years to address housing and to try to make housing production faster, denser, more complete, more thorough, more efficient,” Unger said, adding that the laws make it harder for local governments to challenge development plans.

“And quite frankly, a big part of those state laws has been to take rooms like this out of the picture,” he said, referring to the town hall. “And to take elected officials like me out of the picture.”

Unger was referring to a state housing laws designed to prohibit local jurisdictions from blocking approvals, and to provide exemptions from the California Environmental Quality Act for qualifying projects.

Align cited those laws in its response to Oakland North but did not address questions about local opposition to the project.

No one at the town hall spoke in favor of the development, though some acknowledged the city’s need for more housing. 

“We’re in a severe housing shortage. It’s causing a lot of homelessness and displacement, and causing people difficulty in terms of the cost of rent and home prices,” Oakland resident Paul Bickmore told Oakland North after the meeting. 

‘As much housing as possible’

Michael Branson, a senior deputy city attorney, said there are several state laws that give developers flexibility in the rules laid out by the city.  

“We just want to acknowledge the frustration and it’s something that we as city staff deal with,” he told the audience. “It is difficult to really find a reason to deny the project, especially at the time where the state is really telling us we need to apply these laws in a manner to allow as much housing as possible.”

The state can penalize cities that “unnecessarily block” projects like this, and Oakland could face fines of more than $20 million for putting roadblocks in the development, Unger added. 

“Developers get extra bonuses if they are near BART. They get extra bonuses if [units] are affordable. They get extra bonuses if they are senior housing,” he said. “They can literally stack bonus on top of bonus to get more square footage and more height.” 

Diane Livia, another resident opposed to the project, asked why the developer was not including affordable housing units. 

Unger said a developer is not required to include affordable housing units if they pay an impact fee. The impact fee can run into millions of dollars and is calculated per square foot, which varies depending on the location. For this site, Unger said, it would be upward of $10 million. 

Cathy Leonard, who was born and raised in Oakland, called for an increase to the impact fee as a way to encourage building more affordable housing. 

“I think about that with my young nieces and nephews. Where are they going to live? This is the place where they were born and they love this city,” she said. “I think we need to pay attention to our state legislators too, because they’re selling us down.”  

Unger highlighted Oakland’s record in building housing, including 2,500 units of affordable housing in the last few years. 

“That’s ahead of our goals,” he said. “That’s ahead of our peers.” 

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