Last week I wrote about the problems with Oakland’s transportation decision-making process. Existing problems include not only a lack of planning for future investment, but flawed approaches to oversight of public and private transportation projects for compliance with city goals, poor coordination with other cities and agencies, and an almost incoherent division of transportation responsibilities both within the bureaucracy and at the City Council level. A Transportation Commission is floated as one solution to that problem. Before thinking about what a Transportation Commission or other changes to transportation decision-making would look like in Oakland, it’s instructive to look at other cities’ approaches. I examined the transportation structures of a dozen West Coast cities, and Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan’s office shared their research on Transportation Commissions with me.

Rather than list all of the cities and their different approaches to transportation decision-making, I will summarize three different models of transportation decision-making and use representative examples. Many cities have advisory-only transportation commissions with no real power and a limited or unclear mandate for review, much like Oakland and its Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (which I chair). Some cities have Transportation Commissions with some real power, and City Council Committees that unify transportation policymaking. And two cities, Los Angeles and San Francisco, have powerful independent transportation authorities with a clear mandate and substantial, though appealable, authority.

Advisory-only transportation committees

Berkeley, Portland, and Seattle all have advisory-only committees. All three cities have both Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committees, with varying levels of oversight mandates. Portland and Seattle have regional transportation authorities, and don’t have city-level Transportation Commissions. Berkeley has a Transportation Commission, but its only role is advisory, and it doesn’t have a clear mandate (for example, the Planning Commission, not the Transportation Commission, reviewed both Bus Rapid Transit and the new ferry service). Berkeley’s City Council has no committees beyond Rules, so there’s no transportation committee; Seattle’s Council coordinates its transportation policy message to regional agencies with a Council Committee; and Portland has a very different governing structure than California cities. None of these cities encourage its transportation commissions to examine private development projects. All in all, these cities do not have a very different approach to transportation decision-making than Oakland.

Some independent transportation authority

Alameda, Long Beach, and San Diego are examples of a middle ground between advisory-only and authoritative Transportation Commissions. In San Diego, the Land Use and Housing Committee of the City Council hears all transportation-related issues, including parking and encroachments, making it easier to have a coherent policy. The city does not enjoy a Transportation Commission, or even a bike or ped advisory committee, but does have a Community Planning Advisory Committee and an Airports Advisory Committee, with substantial oversight over some aspects of transportation. Long Beach doesn’t have City Council Committees, but has an independent Public Transportation Commission that oversees its city-run bus system (Oakland, by the way, does have a city-run bus system, and is planning to expand it, yet has no transit authority figure).

Alameda’s Transportation Commission not only has a clear mandate to review transportation policy and the transportation aspects of major projects (and Environmental Impact Reports), but serves as the public appeal board for decisions made by the Department of Public Works. In Oakland, the Planning Director’s decisions are appealable to the Planning Commission, but other internal decisions are either unappealable or only appealable directly to the full City Council. By providing a venue to appeal decisions on minor encroachments, for example, the Alameda Transportation Commission relieves the City Council of some time-consuming tasks, while reinforcing the unity of the transportation decision-making. The Alameda Transportation Commission, however, has multiple vacancies, and Alameda does not seem to be doing a great job with transit planning (though at least they have some ideas!).

Transportation commissions with real power

Los Angeles and San Francisco have institutional structures devoted to transportation. The LA City Council has a Transportation Committee, and San Francisco has an independent Metropolitan Transportation Authority with significant power. Los Angeles operates a Department of Transportation (LADOT), unifying all transportation-related service in one organization, as does San Francisco, whose MTA arose from a combined Department of Public Transit Parking and Traffic and MUNI in 1999. LADOT has an advisory committee roughly equivalent to a Transportation Commission, with significant authority over transportation decision-making, including ambulance licenses, off-street parking, transportation planning, and encroachments; In SF, all such decisions are made by Mayor-appointed SFMTA. Both LADOT and SF have separate Taxi Commissions. The LA City Council and SF Board of Supervisors maintain ultimate authority over transportation decisions but rarely get involved on non-budget issues.

Conclusion

It is apparent that there are several models for expanding and unifying transportation decision-making with an independent body. For City Councils, the LA and San Diego model of placing all transportation issues in one committee seems to work well. But there is a huge difference between the SFMTA, whose decisions are hardly ever appealed to the Board of Supervisors, and the Alameda Transportation Commission, which is clearly subservient to the City Council and doesn’t have much budgetary authority. LADOT’s Board of Transportation Commissioners are invested with similar powers to the SFMTA, yet their decisions are more explicitly subject to City Council review.

The virtue of creating an independent authority would be to tap expertise in the community while relieving the Council of some of its more mundane duties, like examining encroachments. The BPAC is meant to advise city staff, yet has no mandate over anything but the bike-ped program so has to resort to wheedling to hear private or redevelopment projects. The LA Commission is structured to advise staff, but in reality has similar powers to the SFMTA, which is meant to be the final word. Both the Alameda and Berkeley Commissions are mandated to merely advise the Council, yet Alameda’s Commission has real power and unified authority while Berkeley’s has neither. Other cities vary in their Transportation Commission’s bureaucratic placement (ie, advising staff versus advising the Council), power and mandate, and scope of authority. Oakland has many models to examine when planning its own Transportation Commission, but which one is best?

The lack of coordination on transportation extends to the City Council level. Transportation issues are split up among different Council Committees, making it harder to have a coordinated policy: parking fees are at Finance, investments and most policies go to Development, most right-of-way issues go to Public Works, and taxi regulation goes to Public Safety. Meanwhile, Oakland’s representatives on major transit agencies are scattershot: Rebecca Kaplan is our representative to ACTIA (the County’s main funding agency for transportation), Jane Brunner is our representative to the MTC-ABAG Joint Policy Committee, and CM Reid is Oakland’s voice on the Congestion Management Agency, which is the County’s transportation planning authority. A casual observer of transit issues will know that these three Councilmembers don’t see eye-to-eye on transit issues.

Though Oakland’s economy and cityscape is defined by transportation more than any other factor, the city has ignored transportation planning and has no coordinated or formalized means of addressing a whole host of transportation issues, from parking ratios for new buildings to bus stop locations. There is absolutely no planning whatsoever for transit improvements, and, frankly, CM Reid seems to be intent on preventing Oakland from making any transit investments now that he has approval for the Airport Connector, using his positions on the Congestion Management Agency and the Bus Rapid Transit Steering Committee to undermine BRT without doing anything that his bus-dependent constituents would even notice. In 2006, the Mayor’s Transportation Task Force recommended (PDF) creating a Transportation Commission “to develop. implement, and prioritize transportation strategies,” yet this idea was only half-formed and didn’t address many of the problems outlined above.

Can these problems be addressed with a Transportation Commission? Does the City Council have to restructure its own appointments and committee system in order to address transportation issues? Do City agencies need to be reorganized in order to create a Transportation Department, or can the Task Force’s suggestion of a “go-to person” and a working group be sufficient? Do you agree that the issues outlined above are real problems, or is Oakland doing just fine transportation-wise? Like almost everything else that came out of the Mayor’s Task Forces, the Transportation Commission idea has gone nowhere, but if the idea is worthwhile, there may be an opportunity to revive it. But that begins with identifying the problem. In this case, the problem may be bigger than the proposed solution.

UPDATE: I added a link to the Transportation Task Force report (PDF).

Safeway on Claremont Environmental Impact Report

At a contentious meeting last week, the Planning Commission listened to public input on what should be studied as part of Safeway’s Environmental Impact Report for expanding their store at Claremont and College. Dozens of neighbors lined up to say that they don’t want outsiders coming to their neighborhood to do grocery shopping, and that somehow Rockridge’s small-shop character is best enhanced by a gigantic surface parking lot at a prominent intersection.

You can write a letter to Planning Staff and the Commission outlining what you think should be studied. If you support the new store, you could emphasize that the pedestrian impacts of the no-build option are important to study, and that study of land-use issues or impacts on all of North Oakland (as requested by some neighbors) is unnecessary. If you oppose the project, feel free to think of the craziest thing you can imagine, and ask that it be studied. You can find contact info for comment on the Planning Commission’s November 18 agenda (PDF).

Toll increase on Bay Area bridges

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission burns through billions like it’s monopoly money, and though constantly short-changing public transportation, can’t even manage its pet highway projects well. Thus, the MTC is facing a severe deficit for the seismic strengthening of many bridges, including the Bay Bridge. True to form, rather than look for more efficient solutions, the MTC just wants more money. Currently the Bay Area Toll Authority, which is more or less the same as the MTC, is seeking public comment on a toll rise for state-run bridges (eg, not the Golden Gate Bridge or Fruitvale Bridge). This would be the first toll increase in almost twenty years that would not be endorsed by voters and would not include funds for improving public transit. On the other hand, the MTC is considering congestion pricing, which is very efficient. Comments can be addressed to the Bay Area Toll Authority before Dec 21. And if you’d like to know more about why these toll increases are needed, consider donating to McSweeney’s Bay Bridge seismic retrofit investigation, pitched on Spot.us.

AC Transit Service Changes

V Smoothe has been covering AC Transit’s service changes extensively for several months, and today writes that the final adjustment plan, released last week, is a triumph for careful consideration of public input, providing a model for other agencies. By contrast, BART slashed off-peak service 25% without even a ridership survey, and the Oakland City Council tries their darnedest not to implement inevitable service cuts. Be that as it may, the final service adjustment plan is out, and it’s open for comment. Highlights include improving service along the 51 corridor by splitting the line in two at Rockridge (which I do not like at all), and expanding service to educational destinations in the East Hills, including new service to Skyline High School, the Oakland Zoo, and the Chabot Space and Science Center. You can provide comment online, or in person at a meeting on December 1.

Union Pacific Railroad Right-of-Way Feasibility Study

Union Pacific Railroad is in negotiations to sell its “Oakland Subdivision” right-of-way to Alameda County, which would use a portion of it to recreate passenger rail connections on the Dumbarton Bridge, in South County. Union Pacific would like to sell the entire subdivision, though, and so the County is looking at possible changes to the use of part of the subdivision, which in Oakland mostly runs below the BART tracks along San Leandro St. The main thrust of the study is to make bicycle and pedestrian paths, though I don’t find the underside of BART tracks to be very scenic. In any event, it’s an interesting idea, and planners are looking for public comment. They are particularly interested in whether bicyclists would prefer Class I (grade-separated) or Class II (on-street) bike lanes as part of the project. Check out the study and leave your comments, at Alameda County Public Works (it’s the first item under Community Updates).

Oasis Dancing Permit Appeal

Though the claim that Oakland shutting down clubs with violent incidents is an elaborate racist conspiracy is far-fetched, it is certainly true that the city is not supportive of late-night businesses even as the General Plan and other policies encourage a “24-hour city.” From the smoking ban to cabaret permit application fees to pinball bans to the city-created taxi shortage, Oakland does not make it easy for nightlife venues to be successful. But when, against all odds, a dance club is successful yet does not lead to shootings in the neighborhood, one would expect the city to be pleased. One would be quite wrong.

The Oasis, a somewhat run-down club with a wonderful space and an unique music selection, is appealing its denial of a cabaret license to the City Council tonight. Essentially, the owner’s permit was yanked because his almost hundred-year-old building didn’t pass all inspections, and he continued operation. Undercover police found after-hours operations and “the scent of freshly burnt marijuana” as well. When contacted about needing a permit (after four years of operation and business tax payments), the owner applied for a permit. His permit was rejected because he was operating without a permit. You can read the entire Kafkaesque saga in the staff report, but suffice to say that there are no allegations of violence or anything more serious than folks dancing without a permit.

Uptown parking lot

Late last year, Forest City Development asked for a three-year extension on its agreement to build a tower on a city-owned parcel at 19 and Telegraph. The Redevelopment Agency could ask for almost anything as a condition of extending their lease, but chose to ask for a surface parking lot. Ever since then, area residents, clubbers, and concerned citizens have been fighting this very visible step backwards for the Uptown neighborhood. Much has been written about this proposal, but it is important to note that, whether the parking lot is ever built or not, the only effective plans for increasing area car parking have come from pedestrian advocates opposed to the surface lot (including keeping the Franklin lot open later and installing signage). Tonight the Council will hear Redevelopment Agency’s request to apply to the Planning Commission for permission to build the lot; if they vote to move forward, it will likely be back before them in six months when either residents or the Redevelopment Agency appeals the Planning Commission’s decision.

So downtown nightlife lovers will congregate tonight, not at Somar, but at City Hall. There may be an after-party, but the meeting’s liable to run past bar closing time. If we’re successful, there will be other chances to party. After all, the City Council doesn’t meet every night!

Three years ago today, V Smoothe and I started this blog, FutureOakland (then on blogspot). We were disappointed by media coverage of the mayor’s race, and felt the minority of Oaklanders opposed to growth and revitalizing the city were completely dominating the public discussion of Oakland’s future. Under the reactionary handle of OaklandNative, I hoped to help move public discussion in favor of a more informed and more hopeful vision for this beautiful city’s success. Three years later, that goal has been largely realized.

It was not long ago that any discussion of redeveloping downtown was clouded by the angst of those wishing to preserve the failed past. Now, Oakland and East Bay residents take justifiable pride in the rebirth of Uptown as an entertainment destination, and countless neighborhoods have rediscovered their identities and are demanding their rightful share of city attention. Three years ago city government was regarded as problematic because of the influence of “greedy” developers; now the public is aware of the timidity of our elected officials and the enormous self-imposed barriers to economic success. Wednesday night’s meeting of the Planning Commission on the downtown zoning update feature a much younger and more hopeful crowd than perhaps the commission has seen in its history. While I may not agree with everyone who was there, I agree that they should offer their practical and optimistic vision to public officials. I am sure that this blog helped drive the ever-higher public meeting attendance that Oakland has experienced for the last year or so.

I don’t necessarily mean to take credit for the dozens of committed activists who have shaken up a complacent City Hall in the last few years, or for the New Media explosion allowing Oaklanders to understand the context and impact of city policy and cultural change for the first time in perhaps decades. Maybe I was just a little ahead of the curve. Of the three major Oakland blogs that predate mine, one is still kicking. But, as I am often reminded by longtime politicos, Oakland’s public discussion is light-years ahead of where it was when Ron Dellums was elected Mayor on a platform of nonsense.

Real change, whether you call it shaping the future of Oakland or creating a better Oakland, does not come from reporting alone. Since starting this blog I have become not only more informed, but more engaged. I have joined several civic organizations, taken leadership roles, and found my political niche. I have learned that, while full-throated advocacy (always nuanced and well-founded, to be sure) may make for exciting blogging, making a positive impact in the community means working with others. We Oaklanders are a clever and mostly well-meaning lot; civic engagement has been rewarding and thought-provoking.

So while I am thrilled that so many bloggers are lighting up cyberspace with a wealth of thought and information about every facet of life in this complicated city, and of course everyone should totally follow my Twitter, I ask the reader to do more than just read these brilliant blogs, but to take a more active role in the future of our great city. Volunteering, attending public meetings, starting a neighborhood organization, cleaning a local park on Earth Day, and emailing city councilmembers are the tools with which we make a stronger, healthier Oakland. Individually, we each only have so much time and so many issues that excite our attention, but together, we contribute to creating a thriving community.

Tuesday January 20 2009 the Oakland City Council will vote on final environmental and legal approval of the showcase Oak-To-Ninth (O29) development on two peninsulas comprising 64 acres immediately east of the Jack London District straddling the Lake Merritt Channel. 170 boat slips in two marinas, 200,000 square feet of retail space, 32 acres of waterfront parkland and bike/ped trails, and 3100 homes (including 465 low-income family-sized apartments), will transform a long-abandoned break-bulk cargo facility. Despite the obvious benefits of such a landmark development, the small group of activists who waged a referendum and then a lawsuit attempting to halt the project are still objecting to its construction.

Yesterday, Joyce Roy published an op-ed in Berkeley’s NIMBY mouthpiece, the Planet. She rehashed many of the false and misleading claims of the anti-O29 referendum committee, who grossly oversimplified redevelopment agency financing and mischaracterized the open-space and transportation elements of the plan. A brief rebuttal: the city is not paying out-of-pocket for the affordable housing, the land price is discounted because of enormous environmental cleanup costs, living near a freeway is normal in Oakland, and AC Transit and Signature are committed to establishing new transit service once the area is developed. This blog documented these falsehoods during the referendum campaign, and using the same arguments City Attorney John Russo successfully defended the city against the referendum. With a few technicalities left for the city to clean up, opponents still haven’t given up.

Oakland’s neighborhood listserves have for about a month hosted a concerted campaign to stir up opposition to O29, seemingly to little success, perhaps because Oaklanders have other things on their minds. This week, some called for the delay of the Council’s vote, because their meeting on the 20th conflicts with Barack Obama’s inauguration as President and so would inconvenience those who want to speak on the item. But the City Council meeting Tuesday evening does not conflict with the inauguration, which is in the morning. One does not have a constitutional right to party. The vote was not rescheduled. In contrast, the sidewalk liability ordinance was delayed by Jane Brunner’s Rules Committee, presumably to provide more opportunity for public input.

Because there has been plenty of public input on the Oak-To-Ninth project. One the petitioners’ more outrageous claims was that there had not been adequate public involvement in planning the O29 area, invoking one of Oakland’s sacred cows. To the contrary, O29’s plan was developed with three years of public and private meetings between Signature Properties and community members and groups, in addition to the formal planning process which provided a dozen opportunities to plead one’s case to decision-makers. Not only did Signature carefully develop a landmark plan with extraordinary public involvement, but they struck a deal with a large coalition of special interest groups to provide community benefits in the form of apprenticeship and local hiring programs, and to ensure that the affordable housing truly serves community needs (unlike, say, BMR condos).

The real issue on the table is not whether O29 inappropriately demolishes a 1950s warehouse or should contain 540 housing units instead of 3100. The court did not void the approvals of the project or uphold many of the opponents’ claims. Basically, three parts of the Environmental Impact Report were found inadequate: analyses of cumulative impacts, of earthquake risk, and of traffic. After receiving further technical studies, the city found that cumulative impacts are insignificant and earthquake risks are mitigated by California’s strict building code. The city did, however, find that traffic delays at five intersections would be unacceptable in 2025. That means that drivers in the future (assuming that people don’t drive any less) may have to wait two minutes to pass through a green light. The Oakland City Council is asked Tuesday night to legally declare, “tough titties.” It’s time they did so.

While blogging by nature is an art rooted firmly in the present, this blog is called FutureOakland because it covers current controversies that shape the future. Yet to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, a knowledge of history is necessary. As 2008 draws to a close, the year that Oakland’s blogosphere broke through to the mainstream also saw bloggers put aside media criticism, and begin to use their unique platform to write and to build Oakland’s history.

Food security emerged as a major issue in 2008, thanks to local activists and political campaigns, and also because elite foodies finally found a sympathetic cause. Brahm’s Blog recording the travails of the People’s Grocery, the Inadvertent Gardener’s quest to get space in a community garden, and Urban Farmer raising animals and vegetables in the heart of Ghost Town, explore today’s local urban agricultural and food access issues. But as A Dish A Day lovingly documents, the present is played out against Oakland’s past: its legacy of historic fast-food joints.

Other subjects of public discussion explicitly seek legitimacy in history. Oakland’s identity is always a furiously debated topic, whether the subject is gentrification, “East” Oakland, or negative media portrayals. But since highways displaced and divided nearly every part of the city, Oaklanders have searched for and contested neighborhood names, from Lower Bottoms (vs. Prescott / Oakland Point) to Rockridge (vs. Temescal) to Jingletown (vs. Kennedy Tract or just Fruitvale). A skilled researcher goes to the source, and that’s exactly what City Homestead did in her excellent rendition and map of historic neighborhood names gleaned by reading a century’s worth of Trib articles, including real estate listings and society columns. She also pieced together a complete history of her own home in the Westlake district. Some highlights: Auto Row has been named so since 1913, the Planning Commission quit en masse in the 1920s, high-density housing was once restricted narrowly to the Lakefront, and proximity to rapid transit as well as having a chicken coop were a Realtor’s favorite amenities.

A good grasp of the past can inform debates about the future, but it’s also necessary to understand conditions of the present. Unfortunately, that’s often missing from debates over transportation. Even as the Planning Commission routinely rejects NIMBY arguments that a less car-oriented future is wishful thinking, their Zoning Update Committee expressed amazement when I told them that I don’t have a car and in fact most of my friends rarely use a personal car. Similarly, when MediaNews published a casually-written editorial in favor of a multi-billion-dollar public investment in electric-car charging stations, championed by all three Bay Area big-city mayors, they failed to note that electric cars do not exist. Bike/ped/transit advocates may squabble with each other over sidewalk bulbouts versus bike lanes versus Bus Rapid Transit versus light rail, but those entrenched in car culture will continue to fight all alternatives. Oakland’s past and much of its present is built around mass transit and walkable neighborhoods: rediscovering this history, for example by watching a digitized pedestrian safety film from 1948, illuminates the shared goals of bike, ped, and transit advocates.

This blog is not meant to be a roundup of the best posts of 2008, but certainly there were many excellent entries about Oakland’s past, present and future. This year, the blogoaksphere expanded several times over: my favorite new blogs include City Homestead, 38th Notes, Oakland Space Academy, Oakland Streets, We Fight Blight, and Brooklyn Avenue. Some blogs met their demise in 2008, including Beautiful West Oakland, Dogtown Commons, and The Grand Lake Guardian. A Better Oakland once wrote that much of Oakland’s “news” is something that also happened many times before, so after writing enough blogs, she can just begin to repost them. With an ever-expanding blogosphere allowing for the presentation of in-depth research and an ever-lengthening record of debate, there are more opportunities than ever to know Oakland’s history, and so avoid being doomed to repeat its sorrier episodes.

The downtown zoning as currently proposed has two parts: a height and form map, and a use map. The two parts aren’t completely separated: the use map contains FAR maximums that interact somewhat confusingly with the different height areas allowed by the form map. Remaining topics of public controversy have to do with the height map: should tall buildings be further restricted from the lakefront, and should the height map be more specific to “protect” pockets of historic structures? Otherwise, there is broad agreement over the use map.

The use map does not strictly separate uses such as residential and commercial, and rightly accepts that uses downtown can and will be varied and intensive. The most restrictive element is the CBD-P (Pedestrian Retail) zone. It forces new construction on designated streets to meet design requirements for ground-floor space, and limits ground-floor uses to pedestrian-serving retail and restaurants. There is broad agreement among all parties in the zoning process that CBD-P zone is good to go (some say it should extend a bit deeper toward the Lake along and above 19th, and I think all signage should be permitted outright). Staff did an excellent job identifying the active and potential retail corridors, and the design requirements come straight from the Conley Report and the city’s new Broadway Retail Interim Zoning. Yet the use map is being held up along with the rest of zoning. Unfortunately, this is allowing undesirable uses to come into downtown.

While the downtown pedestrian zoning is strict in design and use, it only applies to specific streets. Currently, ground-floor commercial is required everywhere downtown, resulting in poorly-designed and isolated ground floors spaces that are unsuitable for retail and restaurants (Jack London Square and Old Oakland contain excellent examples of this). Focusing retail in specific areas, such as 14th St to the Lake or the core of Old Oakland, creates a destination that allows for transportation and marketing synergies. Yet without the zoning in effect, some developers are ignoring retail in potentially disastrous ways. A proposed senior housing project on the corner of 17th and Harrison contains no retail space. 17th Street, while fairly successful, is limited to the block between Franklin and Webster because of the surface parking lot at Harrison, to be replaced by this project, killing the pedestrian experience (also, that horrible American Cancer Society building at Webster). Building nice retail along 17th in the next block, combined with street trees, would allow the SOBO shopping district to expand by one block, increasing its potential by double or more. But because the developers’ application has already been submitted, the 17th St proposal is not required to contain retail spaces, just a “community space” with no design standards.

Construction is one part of retail zoning: use is another. In the CBD-P zone, not only would ground-floor spaces have to design for retail (high ceilings, high-quality materials, storefront windows, prominent entrances), but they would have to contain retail as well. Old Oakland’s main barrier to success is that most of the beautiful Victorian storefronts on 9th St are occupied by offices. The neighborhood is hoping, and the CBD-P zone is intending, to transition the street from office to retail. But in the absence of new zoning, a real estate office has moved into a Washington St space formerly occupied by a store that sold, among other things, discount designer sunglasses. Not only is the lack of updated zoning preventing the transition to retail, it has allowed a step backwards.

The entire proposed DTO use map, following the General Plan’s designation of downtown as a uniquely transit and pedestrian-oriented district, explicitly bans surface parking lots and auto-oriented uses from all of downtown (except gas stations, which are conditionally permitted). However, since it’s not yet in effect, someone just built a new surface parking lot on Franklin between 11th and 12th! Surface parking is exactly what we don’t want downtown, not only because it’s a terrible use of land but also because it creates pedestrian dangers by cars crossing the sidewalk, by killing the continuity of street frontage, and by creating dead zones that criminals can  hide in (Chauncey Bailey was assassinated in a downtown surface parking lot, where a friend of mine was mugged the year before). Because of the zoning update’s delay, we’ll have one more dangerous and deleterious downtown lot. Every day the zoning isn’t passed is one more day undesirable uses can come to the DTO: the retail-free 17th St project, the delay in bringing retail to Old Oakland, and the new surface parking lot may not be the last developments to undermine Downtown’s goals.

Ada Chan’s controversial Planning Commission nomination was rejected by the Oakland City Council on a vote of 3-4-1 not long before midnight last night, after the City Council heard more than twenty speakers. City Councilmembers said their decision was based on a lack of community consensus and the need to attract more investment in Oakland, as well as discomfort with advocacy work she’d done in San Francisco.

Ms. Chan’s opponents made a clear and convincing case for consensus on Commission candidates. They pointed to missed meetings and bad experiences with organizations she worked for in San Francisco. Ms. Chan’s supporters were pretty strident and made the mistake of coming off as somewhat anti-development. The mayor’s legislative liaison, Miguel Bustos, presented a letter from Dellums praising Ms. Chan as a step toward comprehensive long-term planning, which made her sound like a document.

Oddly, several of Ada Chan’s supporters felt the need to dispel a “rumor” about her residency, confirming that she does indeed live in Oakland. Ms. Chan addressed the subject in her poised presentation, admitting to living in San Francisco for two years (the shame!) as the result of an eviction. Further distancing herself from the stain of San Francisco Supervisor socialism, she allowed that such policies are not desirable in Oakland, but did compare her work in the Mission to Oakland’s recent tussle over industrial land-use.

Besides the expectation that Planning Commission candidates not meet widespread opposition, the biggest reason the Council declined to confirm Ms. Chan is the work she did for activists in San Francisco. The planning policy proposals she promoted in the Mission and SOMA are radical even by San Francisco standards, and clearly turned off most of Oakland’s City Council. Indeed, Councilmembers Kernighan and Chang cited the Mission Interim Zoning Controls debate, also referenced by a developer stymied by MAC years ago, as evidence that the developers’ fears were well-founded.

Jean Quan said that the Asian Chambers of Commerce shouldn’t expect so much of a candidate just because she’s Asian, and suggested the Chinatown Chamber seek to meet with all candidates for important offices (I think they do). Jane Brunner, after complaining about how Ignacio “organized” for the meeting, said that she wanted to confirm Ms. Chan because she’s tired of the “Old Boys’ Club” where “young people get on a Commission because they had a drink with the right people.” This intrigues me. No, not the implication that everyone who’s currently on important commissions is unqualified. With whom can a young man like me have a drink to get on the Planning Commission, Ms. Brunner?

Last year, two Planning Commissioners sparked a stir when they attempted to hold up Trader Joe’s liquor licenses in an attempt to bully the store into accepting unionization. Recently, Inclusionary Zoning representatives told the Zoning Update Committee that they “demand” their pet policy as part of citywide zoning updates. This has led businesses to fear that political groups want to use the Planning Commission to force developers to implement policies they can’t get through the City Council, greatly complicating the already difficult zoning update. Tonight, the City Council will debate an appointment that crystallizes these fears: Mayor Dellums’ nomination of SF “anti-gentrification” activist Ada Chan to the Oakland Planning Commission (pdf).

The battle lines are starkly drawn. Ideological organizations have scheduled an evening rally outside City Hall, with anti-development group ONWRD joining with labor unions to press for Ms. Chan’s confirmation, and the top anti-development lobbyist, Margaretta Lin of the East Bay Community Law Center, working overtime for Ms. Chan. Jean Quan’s staff, Ms. Chan herself, and Joel Tena of East Bay Housing Organizations are promoting her appointment on District 4’s neighborhood listserves, leading some insiders to speculate that she is being groomed to replace Ms. Quan in 2010. With large and controversial projects moving through the pipeline (including four buildings that would be the tallest in Oakland), the stakes are high and developers are scared.

It doesn’t help that Ms. Chan, emphasizing her devotion to anti-development policies she worked on with Supervisor Chris Daly in the Mission and SOMA, won her nomination over a West Oakland resident who stressed the need for Planning Commissioners to live in areas impacted by development so they have a better understanding of the importance of design and context (Ms. Chan lives in the Laurel District). The Oakland Builders’ Alliance and the ethnic Chambers of Commerce, worried by Ms. Chan’s policy record as well as her refusal to meet with them to discuss her nomination, are explicitly opposing her appointment in an unusual and risky move. The scuttlebutt is that the Council is split along familiar lines, with Jane Brunner, Nancy Nadel and Jean Quan supporting the nomination, and Ignacio de la Fuente, Larry Reid and Henry Chang opposed, leaving Pat Kernighan and Desley Brooks as the deciding votes.

With the players aligned as in other controversial development issues, the fight over Ada Chan’s nomination increasingly appears to be a proxy fight over Inclusionary Zoning and other expensive policies that developers oppose as unduly burdensome. But that is not how Planning Commission appointments should be made. Planning Commissioners are not supposed to create de-facto development policy using the heavy hammer of planning permission, but to interpret the existing policy and apply it to specific projects. The groups pushing for anti-development policy along with this nomination clearly expect Ms. Chan to behave differently if confirmed to the Planning Commission.