The number of Ellis Act evictions in Oakland has more than doubled in the past six months, according to the city’s rent adjustment program manager. And without greater compensation awarded to tenants to relocate to another apartment in Oakland, renters may not be able to afford to remain in the city.

Last Thursday, the Oakland City Council scheduled a proposed amendment to the city’s Ellis Act ordinance to be heard on December 15 in the community and economic development committee. The amendment would require landlords who evict tenants under the Ellis Act to pay displaced tenants about $8,000 a unit, plus $2,500 for homes with minor children, seniors, and disabled people. Currently, only low-income tenants in Oakland evicted under the Ellis Act receive relocation payments.

The proposed payment structure, according to a city staff report, will help displaced renters cover the first and last month’s rent for new apartments — which now average about $2,500 a month for a one-bedroom unit — and help with other fees and expenses associated with moving in to a new place. The amount, if approved, would be far higher than neighboring San Francisco, where landlords pay $5,555 per unit in relocation fees, along with an additional $3,700 for each tenant that is a senior or disabled. Landlords in Berkeley pay $8,700 per unit, along with another $5,000 if the tenant has lived in the apartment since before 1999. An additional $2,500 is also applied for homes that include seniors, disabled people, or minors.

The Ellis Act is a state law that allows a landlord to evict all the tenants in an entire building when the landlord intends to change the use or description of the building — for instance, converting the property from a rental building to condominiums. However, the law is often used in places like San Francisco to clear out rental control-protected tenants in order to attract new renters willing to pay far higher market-rate rents.


[jump] Connie Taylor, the manager for the city’s Rent Adjustment Program, told the Oakland City Council Rules Committee that the inclusion of all tenants in the city ordinance is overdue and should have been amended years ago. No additional payments are required for tenants who are seniors, the disabled, or families with children. And no moving costs are available for tenants. “With what’s going on with high rents, people displaced this way, need to have a chance to, at least, have enough money to move to another place,” preferably to remain in Oakland, said Taylor. “I have to do my best to keep people from being displaced.”

In most years, the program typically handles about four Ellis Act evictions for the entire fiscal year, said Taylor. But, this year fiscal year, ten are pending since July 1. “Whenever I see trend like that,” Taylor said in an interview, “it makes me very nervous.”

But some councilmembers, including Larry Reid and Lynette Gibson McElhaney, expressed concern about moving the proposal forward, noting that Mayor Libby Schaaf’s special cabinet on housing is due to make a series of recommendations on housing sometime in January. Initially, the council pushed the Ellis Act amendment to an undetermined date next month, but Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan clarified that the housing cabinet’s recommendation is to move to January a different Ellis Act-related proposal, including new regulations, for instance, when owners move in to their own units. Reid, who is also the chair of the community and economic development committee, reluctantly agreed to schedule the item during what appears to be a lengthy end-of-the year meeting next week.

In September, the US Department of Justice announced that it was awarding a $1.875 million grant to Oakland to help hire fifteen new police officers. But newly released documents show that the grant comes with a hefty price: It requires Oakland to spend $10.25 million of its own money on the officers’ salaries, departmental overhead costs, and other expenses. And the matching funds that the DOJ is requiring the city to spend has some questioning whether it’s a good deal.

During the city council’s public safety committee meeting last week, Deputy Chief David Downing said the grant will help grow the department by fifteen sworn police officers. Downing said this is Oakland’s fifth Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant from the federal government in six years. The city’s “matching funds” will pay for 85 percent of the total cost of hiring the new officers, while the grant only covers 15 percent.

“I am deeply concerned about this grant. I don’t understand why we would spend $10 million to get $1.8 million,” said Councilmember Desley Brooks, who is also chair of the public safety committee. Brooks voted against accepting the grant.

[jump] The extra $10.25 million that OPD wants from the city’s general fund for the grant was not included in the 2015-17 biennial budget. As a result, accepting the grant will require the city to allocate an additional $3,734,233 to the department’s current budget, and another $6,520,531 in the 2017-2019 budget, which hasn’t yet been drafted. This money would come out of Oakland’s general fund, meaning there would be less to spend on other departments and programs, including parks, libraries, and affordable housing.

Councilmember Dan Kalb supported the grant and additional city spending to hire new officers. “I’ve said since before I took office that I want our police force to get up to, and stabilize at eight hundred sworn officers, if not go over that number,” said Kalb. Kalb added that growing the police force isn’t cheap, but that it’s a “worthwhile obligation.”

In 2014, the Oakland City Council unanimously accepted a similar COPS grant from the US Department of Justice. The 2014 grant was also for $1.85 million and required Oakland to match the grant with $8,774,944 in city money from the general purpose fund. Previous COPS grants provided much more federal support and required fewer matching city funds. For example, in 2013, the DOJ provided Oakland with a $4.5 million COPS grant, and required the city to only match it with $85,000.

Causa Justa, a community organization focused on affordable housing and development policy, sent an email this morning criticizing the proposed COPS grant as a poor use of Oakland’s budget resources. The group wrote that its staff members are often told by city officials that there simply isn’t enough money to pay for affordable housing programs or to enforce code complaints against problem landlords.

“Why can’t the City use this hidden fund for deeply affordable housing?” the group wrote. “Why can’t the City use this fund to pay for staffing to enforce tenants rights, or to repair dilapidated housing? Why can’t the City borrow $7-8 million from the next budget cycle to address the housing crisis?”

Oakland spent $200 million from its general fund on its police in 2014, an increase of $13 million over 2013. The city’s increased police spending was primarily driven by the cost of four police academies. Police overtime spending has also driven OPD’s expenditures upward. The 2015-17 city budget funded five more police academies, bringing OPD’s share of Oakland’s total general fund dollars to 43 percent.

The full city council will vote on the federal grant at its meeting tomorrow night.

Stories you shouldn’t miss:

1. It appears that the Republican-controlled Congress will not enact any new gun control restrictions in the wake of the deadly rampage in San Bernardino last week, the Chron reports. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to ban the sale of weapons to suspected terrorists on the government’s no fly list, but GOP senators defeated the measure 54-45.

2. FBI Director James Comey said the husband-and-wife duo that carried out the massacre in San Bernardino appear to have been inspired by terrorist groups — but added there is no evidence that they were actually part of a terrorist cell or were organized by any terrorism organization, the LA Times$ reports.

3. In a primetime speech to the nation, President Obama called on Muslim Americans to denounce violent ideology in response to the San Bernardino mass killings and for other Americans to resist perpetrating hate against Muslims, the Chron$ reports. The president referred to jihadists as pushing “a cult of death.” “Muslim leaders here and around the globe must decisively and unequivocally reject … hateful ideology,” Obama said, while Americans “must enlist Muslim communities as our strongest allies, rather than push them away through hate.”


[jump] 4. The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office is embroiled in a major scandal following the revelation that at least a dozen jail guards, including the head of the union, have been sending virulently racists texts, the San Jose Mercury News$ reports. The texts vilify Blacks, Latinos, Vietnamese, and Jews.

5. And Safeway must pay nearly $42 million to customers nationwide for secretly overcharging them for groceries through Safeway.com from 2006 to 2011, the Chron reports.  

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley announced today that she is dropping charges against a group of Black activists known as the Black Friday 14.

The Black Friday 14 stopped a BART train last year at the West Oakland Station on the shopping holiday known as Black Friday for 4 hours and 28 minutes in a protest against police killings of unarmed Black people.

After being arrested, members of the Black Friday 14 were booked at Santa Rita Jail. The BART transit system initially sought to recover $70,000 in “restitution” from the activists, but after significant pressure from the community, including protests at several BART board meetings, the transit system’s board of directors dropped this demand. O’Malley, however, pressed ahead with misdemeanor criminal charges of trespassing on railroad property.

 

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Over the past year the Black Friday 14 and their supporters have waged a campaign to convince O’Malley to drop the charges. Most recently Bay Area labor union leaders and clergy occupied O’Malley’s office at the Wiley Manuel Courthouse in downtown Oakland. In May, the Alameda Labor Council uninvited O’Malley from an awards ceremony in her honor after she declined to drop charges against the activists.

In a press release today, the district attorney said her decision to drop charges against the Black Friday 14 are the result of an agreement with the activists that they would not disrupt BART train services on Black Friday this year, and that the activists also acknowledge their actions were a “violation of the statute governing the safe and efficient operation of public transportation.”

O’Malley characterized the agreement as a “restorative justice” process which also allowed the Black Friday 14 to “more deeply express their own experiences as well as those that have brought to the national and local forum the circumstances leading to the Black Lives Matter movement.”

Allies of the Black Friday 14 maintain that O’Malley discriminatorily prosecuted the group, seeking criminal convictions for acts of civil disobedience. For example, Black Lives Matter Bay Area, a chapter of the Black Lives Matter movement, wrote on their Facebook page today, “unlike hundreds of other protesters who blocked trains, buses, and traffic, the Black participants in the [Black Friday] civil disobedience were criminally charged by the DA, and a $70K restitution [was] demanded by BART.”

In a press release also issued today, the Black Friday 14 celebrated the DA’s decision to drop charges. The group wrote, however, that they believe there is a pattern to be drawn in the non-prosecution of police officers who commit violence against Black people, and the criminal charges that many activists are facing for participating in protests against police brutality.

The Black Friday 14 wrote: “While District Attorneys across the country are using their discretion to not indict police officers who kill unarmed Black people, and others are pursuing discriminatory charges against Black activists engaged in civil protest — DA Nancy O’Malley has listened to thousands of local voices, reviewed the facts, and thoughtfully chosen to end the prosecution of Black activists protesting for their right to live.”

Developers unveiled plans last night to build two big apartment buildings along 14th Street in downtown Oakland. The buildings would add 384 new apartments at the intersection of 14th and Alice streets. Both projects would replace existing surface parking lots with housing, restaurants, and shops.

The neighborhood’s residents met the plans with a mixture of support and concern. Many residents commented on the absence of any affordable housing in both projects. Some residents are also worried about the possible impact of simultaneous construction of two very large buildings on their businesses. Others voiced concern about whether or not residents of the new buildings would be good neighbors to the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, an arts institution that has recently received noise complaints.

[jump] One of the projects, proposed by the Bay Development Group, a San Francisco-based company, would raise a 17-story tower at the corner of 14th Street and Alice Street on land this is currently used as surface parking. The tower would include 126 apartments, most of which would be studios and one-bedroom dwellings. The project would include 81 un-bundled parking spaces in a multi-level garage. There would be no affordable housing in the building.

Last night’s meeting also confirmed that the city’s planning department has been working to spot zone parts of the city to benefit specific developers.

As I previously reported, in October city planning staffers attempted to change the zoning of several parcels along 25th Street in Oakland’s Uptown neighborhood as part of a purported effort to “clean up” the city’s planning code. But the proposed changes overlapped exactly with parcels recently acquired by Signature Development Group, and the changes would have greatly benefited Signature by increasing the value of the land in terms of how it could be developed. Last night’s meeting at the Hotel Oakland confirmed that similar zoning changes proposed by city staff along 14th Street overlapped with Bay Development Group’s proposed apartment tower and parking garage. City staffers pulled the proposed zoning changes the same night they were presented to the planning commission, and it’s unclear if they will be brought back at any point.

At last night’s community meeting, residents questioned why Bay Development Group is not planning to include any affordable housing in their building. Maria Poncel of the Bay Development Group pointed to the city’s consideration of an affordable housing impact fee as one reason why her company hasn’t considered it. “The city is currently working on a nexus study and there’s plans to look at new impact fees that would be applied citywide,” said Poncel. “I don’t know what the timing is on that.” 

According to city records, the city council will not hold hearings on impact fees until at least January. The council will not vote on impact fees until later in 2016, and based on slides presented to the city’s impact fee “stakeholder” group, it’s likely any impact fees approved will be slowly phased in over several years. Projects that obtain building permits in the next several years may not have to pay any impact fees for affordable housing, or will pay a smaller phase-in fee well below $20,000.

The second project unveiled last night would put two seven-story buildings on the surface parking lot bounded by 14th, Alice, 13th, and Jackson streets. The project would add 258 new housing units and could line 14th Street with shops and restaurants. Like the proposed nearby tower, this project would also include zero affordable housing.

Brian Pianca of Wood Partners, the project’s developer, pointed to existing affordable housing in the neighborhood as one reason why his company isn’t planning to build affordable units. “This is going to provide that other kind of mixed-income housing in the neighborhood,” Pianca said about market-rate housing.

Most of the units in Pianca’s buildings would be studios and one-bedroom apartments. There would be approximately 226 parking spaces, about 0.75 for each apartment. Some residents at last night’s meeting said they were concerned the elimination of the parking lot would make parking more difficult. Others praised the move, and the decision by both developers to reduce parking in both their projects in order to fit more housing and retail space and rely on public transportation.

James Vann of the Oakland Tenants Union asked what community benefits Wood Partners is willing to provide as part of its project. Pianca responded that by simply building 258 market-rate apartments and adding retail along 14th Street his company is providing significant benefits to the community. “We’re providing housing, greater safety along the street,” said Pianca. “We don’t have a community benefit as some may define it, but that activity is the benefit.”

Poncel of Bay Development Group provided a similar answer to questions about the absence of affordable housing and other community benefits in the apartment tower. “This actually fulfills the goal of safer streets and activates the ground floor [with retail stores],” said Poncel. “I would say we’re making a large contribution from a fiscal standpoint because the project will increase in value and have a huge tax bill, about half of which will go to the city and the school district.”

Three Oakland city councilmembers today proposed a series of gun control measures that would ban large-capacity gun magazines and introduce requirements for the safer storage of firearms for both residents and law enforcement agencies. The proposal comes just two days after a grisly shooting in San Bernardino left fourteen people dead after two shooters opened fire at a workplace holiday party. However, Councilmember Dan Kalb said the measures are not a reaction to the recent tragedy.

“We’ve been working on it for a number of months,” Kalb said, adding that the timing was “purely coincidental.”

“The reality is there are mass shooting in this country almost every day,” he said. “Some don’t get the high profile media attention that others get, but they happen everywhere, so it’s not surprising, sadly.”

The measures, proposed by Kalb and councilmembers Annie Campbell Washington and Rebecca Kaplan, would make possession of large-capacity magazine clips illegal. It would make it unlawful for any person to keep a firearm in a residence unless the weapon is stored in a locked container or the firearm is disabled with a trigger lock; require that firearms, when concealed in vehicles, are locked or disabled; and would direct the city administrator to draft a policy requiring law enforcement officers safely store firearms in their cars. 

Currently, the Oakland Police Department does not have any policies requiring guns be stored locked boxes when in patrol cars or other vehicles, according to OPD spokesperson Officer Johnna Watson. Watson said the department was amenable to the proposed requirement and was already working on efforts to implement locked boxes for patrol cars.


[jump] There have been several high-profile cases in the Bay Area in recent months where guns stolen from law enforcement officers were then used to commit homicides. Most recently, a gun used to kill Oakland mural artist Antonio Ramos in September was recently reported to have been stolen from a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. And, the fatal shooting in July of Kate Steinle at Pier 14 in San Francisco was also linked to a gun stolen from a US Bureau of Land Management ranger’s car. In August, UC Berkeley Police Chief Margo Bennett’s department gun, laptop, and iPad were stolen out of her car at the Point Isabel Regional Shoreline in Richmond, though it’s unclear if that gun has been used in the commission of any crime.

“We must make it much harder for guns to get into the hands of those who use them to cause harm,” Kaplan said in a statement. “Leaving guns unsecured in unattended vehicles creates a serious danger and risk to the public and should not be allowed.”

Both Kalb and Campbell Washington acknowledged that the proposed measures would not prevent all gun violence in the city. “We need a holistic approach,” Campbell Washington said. “We must absolutely push gun legislation but we must also fund mental health in this country.” She called on federal leaders to increase funding for social services and to enact tighter gun control restrictions.

Locally, Kalb said the council’s public safety committee on Tuesday approved a plan to allocate roughly $9.5 million over a two-and-a-half-year period in grant agreements with various nonprofits and public agencies to provide violence intervention services as part of the city’s Measure Z funds. That plan still needs council approval. The committee is also expected to receive a report in January on strategies that Richmond’s Office of Neighborhood Safety used successfully to reduce homicides in the city, Kalb said.