The Jack London News
Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Planning Commissioners give resounding support for community input on The Jack London District Redevelopment Project
A special meeting of the City Planning Commission was held today to discuss the Jack London Square Redevelopment Project, a $300 million project set to redefine the face of Jack London Square with nine new buildings totaling almost one million square feet of office and retail space and elevations of up to 174 feet along the water front. Up for discussion were the Final Environment Impact Report (FEIR), the draft developer agreement (DA), conditions for approval and design guidelines. During the three hour meeting the developer gave a presentation on the project, public speakers gave their comments, and the commissioners gave their opinions on the project and responded to some of the public comments.

Seventeen public speakers took the opportunity to comment on issues ranging from archaeological investigations of the site, the design of specific buildings, impact on current buildings, public space concerns, impact on boaters, environmental impacts and living wage requirements. Of particular note were comments by Former Planning Commissioner and architect, Glen Jarvis. Jarvis spoke eloquently about the need to design a "square" as part of the project, at the foot of Broadway, with a carefully designed and well-thought-out link to the new Jack London Plaza in front of Heinold's at the foot of Webster Street. Without this, he said, "there is no square there."

In addition three speakers spoke in support of having the developer sign a labor union "peace agreement" for the proposed four star hotel at Site F3 (where the Jack London Village used to stand). This would avoid labor disputes, picketing and boycotting as have recently occurred at The Claremont Resort and Spa.

This meeting demonstrated significant positive sentiment from the planning commissioners in favor of the many issues they have raised over and over during the past twenty public meetings regarding the Jack London Square Redevelopment. It was clear that the planning commission still had many issues they wanted resolved and that the project design required more detail and improvement in significant areas.

So the public remains hopeful that in spite of the developer's continued pleas to hurry up the process there is still a chance that many of the community's concerns will be addressed and there will be sufficient due process to give us the world class development at Jack London Square that the City of Oakland deserves.

Future meetings regarding the Jack London Square Redevelopment Project are coming soon and you are encouraged to attend and give your comments, or even just lend your support by ceeding time to other speakers. For more details see The Jack London District Calendar (www.jacklondondistrict.org).

For those unable to attend tonight's meeting here is a summary of the commissioners comments:

Michael Lighty

Commissioner Lighty supported addition of open space between the proposed Harvest Hall (Site F1) and the foot of Broadway. This would require the elimination of the "mall" proposed along Water Street outside of Barnes and Noble. This would help alleviate Glen Jarvis' fears that Jack London Square would become a place where “there is no Square there".

Lighty made positive comments regarding Steve Lowe's pleas for a specific plan for the Jack London District to unify all developments in the area. Although he believed it was too late to delay the JLS redevelopment, it could be included in the developer agreement that a specific plans be developed for the area over the next five years.

Expressing feelings that the project should be more inclusive of the surrounding neighborhood and pedestrians he made a number of suggestions including more dynamic and distinctive crossings over the rail road, ensuring that neighborhood serving retail, in particular the grocery store for site G was a requirement. He also suggested defining the BART shuttle route in more detail, including perhaps expanding it more points around the district and having distinctive stopping points as a feature of the development.

Lighty added that he didn't think parking mitigations were clear and that thought the new Jack London Plaza needed to reach out to the residential areas near it.

He expressed concern that C45 rezoning was not appropriate and that Oakland should be aiming for zoning appropriate to a neighborhood shopping area like Rockridge. To tie the design of all buildings in the project together Lighty suggested the commission should request thematic elements that occur in each building and this should be added to the design guidelines. He also felt that the design should maximize view corridors more than it does at present.

Echoing public concerns about the garage at Site G he requested that there should be explicit guidelines for sites along Embarcadero including Site G to help them reach out to the surrounding areas not in the project.

Lighty agreed that comments regarding a labor union peace agreement were relevant and that public benefit would be undermined if there was no union peace agreement required. He also concurred with public comments about the living wage requirements and thought the developer agreement was currently "only paying lip service" to living wages for employees in the new development.

He agreed that required archaeological investigations of the site should be carried out and that if there is a shell mound then just developing over it and having an artistic rendering in its place as found in the Emeryville Bay Street Mall would be "kind of hokey".

Finally, in a blow to residents close to the proposed construction in particular The Landings, Lighty suggested that City limits on noise could be waived if exceeding them during pile driving was a problem (lets hope this doesn't happen!).

Colland Jang

Commissioner Jang said that the project deserves more public process in particular more discussion of the design of the garage at Site G and the treatment of the foot of Broadway.

Jang expressed what many of the members of public had said previously when he stated “there has to be a suspension of disbelief" that LOS F traffic conditions after mitigations suggested in the Final EIR would in this case be deemed “acceptable”. Remember LOS F means “Level of service F” characterized as “significant delays and unacceptable to most drivers".

Adding weight to the many public comments that doubted the mitigations in the environmental impact report Jang said he, “was distrustful of professional judgment regarding pedestrian safety issues relating to the project.” This was in light of current efforts in Oakland to implement a pedestrian plan to enhance and improve the pedestrian linkages throughout Oakland.

As many other Commissioners stated, Jang wanted to hear more input from former planning commissioner Glen Jarvis who had stated in public comments his concerns that this design leads to the observation “there's no square there!”

Showing that persistence sometimes does pay off, Jang said he “was more and more convinced by comments from Steve Lowe regarding the need for a specific plan for the Jack London District”. However he was not sure what the correct forum for developing such a plan was and that it shouldn't be in the developer agreement but should be a city obligation.

Nicole Franklin

Commissioner Franklin stated that Oakland was “facing an absolutely fantastic [development] opportunity” but was instead redeveloping essentially all of downtown Oakland in a piecemeal fashion. In doing so this "would overlook a great pportunity to make Oakland a vibrant place".

Franklin said she supported use of local and diverse labor and drawing on local businesses in the project.

She also said she thought they need to look at how to bring people to Jack London Square and leave their cars outside the project such as including additional off-site parking. Adding to this her personal statement that she doesn't go to Jack London Square much anymore because it was "such a hassle".

Finally in a daming statement Franklin said, "This can't be a design review because there is no design to review".

Suzie Lee

Commissioner Lee lead out by saying she had a lot of empathy for the community and its concern over current level of detail for the project design. On the other hand she stated that development over such a long period of time (up to fifteen years) needed a significant amount of flexibility due to evolution of design standards and styles over time.

Lee applauded the public interest in the project and encouraged them to "Keep at it" to take the time and energy to keep up their involvement.

Lee wasn't sure she understood Jarvis' point about there being “no square there" and requested more dialog with him on how to define the square. Apparently Jarvis has already had meetings with the developer and Planning Director Cappio on this point.

Clinton Killian

In what he described as "a reshaping of a major site in Oakland" Commissioner Killian said that he was not bothered by a developer agreement without specific designs as he also recognized a project a duration as long as this one required such flexibility.

He was also not nearly as troubled by a lack of a Square in a Jack London Square redevelopment. This was because he viewed the project as not a single development of buildings around a single square, but a one along an east-west pedestrian corridor.

With this in mind he went on to iterate some measures the developer could take to enhance the East-West flow of pedestrians in the project including:

Posted 2/25/2004