Housing
A proposal to speed the conversion of apartments to market-rate condos hit resistance at Oakland City Council committee meetings Tuesday, with housing advocates calling for a comprehensive reform of the city’s affordable housing rules.
Oakland is finally updating residential and commercial corridor zoning regulations that haven’t been touched in more than 40 years. A weekend gathering in North Oakland showed off early proposals that could change building heights, restrictions on commerce, and other kinds of zoning rules.
In Mosswood Park’s community garden, two local businessmen have installed a growing area that displays their new eco-technology. It’s got vegetables, goldfish, and self-contained watering–and it’s set off deep divisions among the neighbors.
In the last three weeks, seven new families have finally won the right to move to Oakland. The most recent family arrived October 7, and like the others, was picked up at San Francisco International Airport after a 16-hour flight, taken to a sparsely furnished apartment on 19th street in East Oakland, and given a week’s expense money. With this final trip up I-80 and across the Bay Bridge, a journey that began in the depths of the jungles of…
By Puck Lo/Oakland North
“I am one of four thousand people in Oakland who will be foreclosed on,” announced East Oakland homeowner Karen Mims. The middle-aged, bespectacled African-American woman spoke with passion, and her voice reverberated in the auditorium-sized room.
Most people would probably find the early-morning sound effects at Marie Henderson’s new place in Sobrante Park yesterday– hammers pounding on a roof, construction voices calling out to each other, and the whirring of power drills—a bit of a nuisance. But to Henderson, they were music to the ears: she was helping build her own home. “My house is progressing very well,” she said happily, brushing off her hands and adjusting the red bandana tied to her head beneath a…
It’s all part of an evening’s work at the Oakland City Planning Commission meeting. by SHILANDA WOOLRIDGE
Funded by various local organizations and staffed by local volunteers, Rebuilding Together Oakland (RTO) offers free home make-overs to the city’s elderly. Watch as volunteers rehabilitate 92-year-old Oakland resident Henry Buford’s home of 54 years.
Gabriel De Jesus is bent over a laptop, eyes moving back and forth between the screen and the stack of forms on the desk next to him, jotting occasional notes. An older man knocks on the door and says he’s there to pick something up; De Jesus has him sign in on the sheet outside while he looks for his file. The phone rings; he answers, “Citizens for Education, this is Gabriel.” De Jesus works four days a week here…