HOUSING ALERT - We Need You - FINAL SCHEDULE for April 1st and 2nd Thousands of units in Oakland, SF, and Berkeley

[Jon Schwark]

ALERT ALERT - Literally thousands of units of housing are on the chopping block this week in BERKELEY, OAKLAND, and SAN FRANCISCO. We need you to help save them. Schedule for Wednesday and Thursday - Pick an event near you and make a difference!

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Wednesday April 1st  OAKLAND Double header-  

11:30 am ABAG - Strategy lunch at NEW GOLD MEDAL restaurant, 389 8th street, in Oakland. near Lake Merritt BART.

12:30 Participate in public comments at the ABAG MEETING https://www.facebook.com/events/876326502413803/

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sfbarentersfed/ldOIC2c6rnI

6:00 pm, Oakland Planning Commission, City Hall, 298 units at Lake Merritt. Item 6

Lake Merritt Tower. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sfbarentersfed/AI_x0AF3hM0

AFTER THE ABAG MEETING WE WILL FIND A PLACE TO HANG OUT TILL THE PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING. JOIN THE ABAG MEETING FACEBOOK EVENT TO GET REALTIME UPDATES ABOUT THE STATUS AND WHERE WE ARE

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Thursday April 2nd

12:00 noon SAN FRANCISCO 

City Hall room 400 Planning commission meeting.     

420 units threatened. 150 Van Ness https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sfbarentersfed/TVAvYPOraFw

7:00 pm BERKELEY -  Landmarks Preservation Committee. North Berkely Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave.

THIS IS THE NEW MEETING TIME but the info about how landmarking a “view” could kill hosing projects in process in Downtown Berkeley is here:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/sfbarentersfed/landmark/sfbarentersfed/we6xt1OzKEE/NuadkX798j4J

[Jon Schwark]

this starts today! 

[Jon Schwark]

So, just a quick followup on how we are doing so far:

5 people came to the strategy meeting Wednesday... 4 of us showed up at ABAG (a couple of other people showed up at the strategy meeting but didn't testify). We did our quick speeches. The time to speak was right at the beginning. Told them to fix how they count and asked them to own the housing crisis that their bad numbers helped create.  A couple of others showed up late or messaged that they were on their way .We stayed for the rest of the meeting. Very educational. After the meeting some great talks with natural allies in the organization. Zelda from 48 hills was there. She was mostly advocating for more protection of industrial space and saying how much she hates SFPlanning. 

Hung out for dessert with Sonja and Brian afterwards and chatted with someone from Glide. Went to Savlan's office to kill some time, then headed to city hall in Oakland. What a beautiful old building! 

As soon as we walked in, we noticed about 40 people in the lobby getting ready to speak against. They were civil, and I even talked to one of the organizers. 50-ish homeowner. Not a shouty shrill environment when I was there, but not sure how it ended up later. I waited through a couple of hours of rich homeowners crying about the radio waves from a proposed mini cell tower in the Oakland hills (literally, "my baby is so young and these radio waves will fry their brain" - I'm sure she talks on her iphone all day though, but thats another story. Hope she doesn't have WiFi). It passed anyway- they were only considering aesthetics. Next item was a newly remodeled and expanded Children's hospital in Oakland featuring a helipad. This one actually pitted NIMBY's versus "save the children" so it was kind of funny. Hard to argue against noise when you are killing a kid with a pork chop stuck in their throat who is getting helicoptered in, right?? April fools! Actually there was a LONG line who didn't mind being seen as a plague on dying children lining up to complain about the EIR, and it looked like at least another hour of hospital talk before the Lake Merritt Tower item even started, so after a couple of hours I had to bail. 

I saw a tweet this morning that said Lake Merritt Tower passed. Brad from Urban Core was there and might be able to add more detail, but that's good news!