"What was the use of my having come from Oakland, it was not natural to have come from there, yes, write about it if I like or anything, if I like, but not there, there is no there there."
Editorial By bobby winston
Published: September, 2006
What was the use of my having come from Oakland, it was not natural to have come from there, yes, write about it if I like or anything, if I like, but not there, there is no there there.
— Gertrude Stein
Well, quite a where is planned for there. The Oak to 9th project envisioned for the Estuary waterfront stretches 1.4 miles from San Antonio all the way to the Jack London district.
It’s architecturally ambitious, provides lots of affordable housing and provides ample parks and open space.
So why is a small band of activists circulating a petition to mount a ballot initiative to overturn the plan?
A little history: Sunset magazine was started as a company organized by the Southern Pacific Railroad in the 1800’s. The reason was the railroad held vast land grants in the Central Valley and wanted to sell them for the highest possible price. Hired editors and writers were told to conjure up a California lifestyle (Sunset coined the phrase) to seduce passengers on the long ride from Chicago.
Sunset’s flacks succeeded all too terribly well. Bay Area communities, none more so than Oakland, turned their back on their dense waterfront communities, ripped out interurban rail systems and signed on full bore for soulless suburban living and ruinous oil dependence.
Oak to 9th, with dense transit-oriented development as a guiding design principle, represents a step back to the future. Indeed, one cannot care about issues like Iraq and global warming and not support developments like Oak to 9th. That’s why the Oakland City Council – with no dissenters – along with 100 community groups, environmental organizations, religious groups and business groups have endorsed Oak to 9th project.
Yet, a spurious group called A Better Oak to 9th has formed to block the project with lawsuits and a ballot referendum. If they succeed in gathering enough signatures (election officials were validating as Bay Crossings went to press), years of careful planning and community consensus building will be set back.
A Better Oak to 9th demands more open space at the expense of the density transit-oriented development requires. There is a Trotskyite quality to such shrill and pious calls for open space without regard to the greater good.
And, there must be raised the queasy issue of equality.
Consider Richmond, possessor of the most Bay shoreline of any jurisdiction in the region.
In giving up 2,000 acres-plus for just one of multiple bay front parks, Pt. Molate, Richmond forwent in perpetuity $50 million a year in tax revenues, monies desperately needed for social services. Richmonders get to ask why they should alone pay for such a rich regional benefit. More pointedly, they might wonder why the absence of a lobby for parks in the interior of Richmond proper.
At a time when Oakland’s Park and Recreation department is staggered by budget cuts, it is unseemly to call for more open space at the expense of desperately needed programs.
Oaklanders must not allow narrow interests to derail an important and worthwhile project.
Let Oakland lead the way to a sensible and high-quality way of life for the entire Bay Area. If, God forbid, the anti-Oak to 9th referendum does turn out to qualify for the ballot, vote No!
