Construction Project community meeting report
This evening representatives from the four local construction projects and the City of Oakland sat down for a community meeting with locals from Jack London District. Hot topics discussed were continuing problems with construction site workers, sub contractors and visitors using up short term parking spaces by local businesses, and developers desires to work on Saturday.

At the meeting last month Don Smith from the City of Oakland planning and building services department had agreed "No construction parking" signs in the hotspots close to construction sites would help with the parking problems. Locals complained that people associated with the construction projects are still parking for extended periods in short term green zones and claiming they either have no knowledge of the offsite parking they are supposed to use, or that they can't be bothered to park that far away. Actually due to union rules all off site parking is within 2 and 1/2 blocks of their respective construction sites - hardly a long walk, locals want to make sure everyone is aware that conditions of approval for all the construction projects require their workers to use those offsite spaces.

Claudia Cappio, the City of Oakland planning director agreed that no construction parking signs could and should be provided by developers and she would provide suitable wording to them the next day. Several of the developers also stated that their workers and sub-contractors have to sign an agreement to abide by the condition of approval and they have the power to levy fines on anyone how doesn't. It remains to be seen if these measures will do their job - no doubt at next months meeting we'll find out.

Another condition of approval that all developers agreed to was no working on Saturday until their buildings are enclosed. However it transpired that Webcor, builders of the 127 Second St project decided to break the rules this last weekend. The City of Oakland had previously told all developers that a special exception for Saturday working would only be granted if absolutely necessary and must have at least two weeks notice and community approval. Webcor said they didn't understand the process and decided the work had to be done so they just did it anyway and would "deal with the consequences afterwards". The for the community the consequences were a large number of complaints from Allegro residents. For the developer, well that's a different story...

At last month's meeting Don Smith had been at pains to explain a process for dealing with developer infractions would be created so that the City of Oakland was not seen to be a "paper tiger" regarding enforcement of conditions of approval. Unfortunately there was no evidence that anything has happened on this front. Consequently Webcor didn't even get a slap on the wrist for their Saturday working, at least not publicly. However Planning Director Claudia Cappio did make it very clear that in future there would be no Saturday working without following the rules previously explained.

So now both the City and the developers have each had a chance to slip up or fail to deliver on promises, hopefully these are just teething problems and the continuing best efforts of all to keep the community happy will in the end work out. If so the remaining 12 months or so of construction will be less painful than previous construction in the district has been. If not we certainly expect the community to light a fire under the paper tiger at future meetings.

The next construction project community meeting will be August 17th at 7pm and will be held at the Egghouse - 229 Harrison St and is open to all.

In the mean time if you have a problem with one of the construction projects you should contact the appropriate phone number listed on the signage posted at that site. It would help if you also report the problem by email to feedback@jacklondondistrict.org so we can keep track of incidents. For you reference appropriate contact information is listed below.

288 3rd St by Signature Properties - call 510-251-1983 or email the job site at 288third@sbcglobal.net

428 Alice St by Pulte Homes - call 415-748-1784 or email bromaeus@hswcc.com

127 2nd St by KSD group - call 925-827-0841 (Webcor)

200 2nd St by MV Jackson - call 510-444-0874 (Cannon Construction)

City of Oakland building services department: call 510-238-3381 or email Don Smith at dsmith@oaklandnet.com
Posted 7/13/2005