Where does Oakland plan to build 36,000 new homes over the next decade?
To ease its deepening housing crisis, Oakland is planning for as many as 36,000 new homes over the next decade — potentially expanding the total number of households in the city by almost a quarter.
Where will all of that new housing go in the city of over 440,000 residents that has long struggled to build enough affordable homes and prevent gentrification and displacement? The answers are beginning to emerge in a 132-page housing plan the city aims to finalize by early next year.
So far, the city has designated over 600 sites for new housing. Most are concentrated in downtown and West Oakland, though planners have identified parcels in suburban and urban areas throughout the city. Major thoroughfares, including Foothill and MacArthur boulevards, also could see much more housing to focus growth near transportation.
Housing advocates say the state-mandated plan is forcing the city to do more to confront its severe lack of affordable homes.
“The city needs to focus explicitly on how to increase production and preservation of housing for the lowest-income folks where the needs are the greatest,” said Jeff Levin, policy director for the advocacy group East Bay Housing Organizations, in a city-produced video about its housing plan.
Oakland is not going to build all of the new housing itself.
