The zoning worksheet has been filed for an affordable housing complex at 606 Clara Street in Brookfield Village, East Oakland. The project will use $14.3 million in Homekey funds from the State to pursue the construction of 40 affordable homes dedicated to seniors experiencing homelessness. San Francisco-based DignityMoves is the project sponsor.
California awarded the funds to the City of Oakland in late February this year. 606 Clara Street will now be the ninth such project to rise in Oakland with investment from the Homekey program. In total, the nine projects have been aided by $109 million from the State to complete 467 affordable units. Each building varies in tenant outreach, ranging from formerly unhoused veterans, transitional age youths, or formerly incarcerated residents.
The preliminary application provides a few details about the future construction at 606 Clara Street. The site, also addressed as 9418 Edes Street, is expected to be developed with a 41-unit complex, which includes space for one manager’s unit and an ancillary support building with offices, a community room, laundry, and storage. Construction will use pre-manufactured modular components.
According to the application, Homekey, the City of Oakland, and the Housing Consortium of the East Bay, or HCEB, are funding the project.
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This is good news and bad news. Good to be housing the homeless BUT bad news because the city owned parcel is zoned for a much better use, that is, it can handle 100 units on this site. This small project takes away from more low-income housing units that is desperately needed. Why does the city not look at the whole picture? City owned land of this size parcel is very rare and it should have been put to better use. This is actually a poor use of this land and of these funds. Homekey funds would have accepted a larger number of units, why is this opportunity wasted? Why was this land use not evaluated better? Should not the best use of city owned land be important? Is the neighborhood happy with this lost opportunity for a better asset to their community?
Considering how dysfunctional the City of Oakland is, they could not possibly act in a rational way to do effective zoning that looks “at the whole picture”. Maybe this is a glass half-full project.