Development

Across from Highway 880, a non-descript five-story beige building with few windows sits on a corner in downtown Oakland. For years, this was the place where many foster children and their biological parents would have to meet if they wanted to visit each other. Now, there’s a new visitation center in Alameda County–called the Gathering Place–and it had its grand opening on Wednesday.

The city of Oakland wants to put its energy and climate action plan into practice, and you’re part of it. The plan aims to reduce Oakland’s greenhouse gas emissions 36 percent by 2020 and requires individuals’ help to get the job done.

Oakland-based solar company Sungevity announced on Tuesday that it will partner with the Sierra Club, an environmental organization headquartered in San Francisco, to launch a campaign asking homeowners to install solar panels on their roofs. Sungevity will donate $1,000 to the Sierra Club for every Sierra Club member who leases or purchases a solar energy system from the company.

A giant excavator was parked in the yard of a motel near the MacArthur BART station on Monday afternoon, where dozens of people were taking pictures with the machine that may soon start tearing down the motel rooms. The MacArthur Transit Village project will eventually transform a 7.76-acre site near the MacArthur BART station into a mixed-use area with new housing units and retail shops, along with restaurants and possibly a day care center.

Oakland officials including Mayor Jean Quan and Council President Larry Reid return from a trip to china meant to encourage trade. As China’s capital grows, more and more investments will be made in the U.S., said Quan, and “We’d like a share of those.”

More than two years after a recession-induced merger, People’s Federal Credit Union is striving to break even. To sustain the cost of providing financial services for West Oakland’s low income residents, People’s must revive its sluggish loan income, says Self-Help Federal Credit Union of North Carolina, the parent company helping West Oakland’s only thrift back to health.

What would happen to the water supply if a major earthquake struck the Bay Area? According to the East Bay Municipal District, which supplies water to most of the East Bay, there is a 32 percent chance of a magnitude 7 earthquake occurring along the Hayward Fault in the next 30 years. In a worst-case scenario, the Claremont Tunnel, which runs directly through the Hayward Fault and provides water for 800,000 of EBMUD’s customers, would be out of commission for 6 months.

Open up your daily newspaper and there’s no doubt you’ll find a story about a greedy bank, home foreclosure or some aspect of the financial crisis that has left people reeling. But this isn’t one of those stories. It’s a story about banks supporting a project even though they wouldn’t necessarily earn a profit from it, about a community organization helping those in need, and about people coming together and making what seemed like an impossible project succeed.