OAKLAND -- As the single biggest housing development in half a century is taking shape on the city's waterfront, a key piece of funding for affordable housing at Brooklyn Basin is tied up at the state level.

So Mayor Libby Schaaf, city, school and county leaders as well as the Brooklyn Basin developer joined with residents at the Ninth Avenue Terminal south of Jack London Square Thursday to call upon the state to honor its commitment to provide $45 million previously committed to build 456 affordable units.

"We have no reason to believe they will not honor this obligation but because it's unusual and because there's so much community support for it, we wanted to ensure that the governor and the state Department of Finance hear very clearly and loudly the level of support behind honoring this obligation," Schaaf said.

Because of the age of the massive project, $45 million to fund the affordable houses within the 3,100 unit development was tied to the city's redevelopment agency, a statewide program that ended in 2011.

Now, the city has filed a request with the state Department of Finance, which oversees the dissolution of the state's redevelopment agencies, to release the funding approved in 2006 by the city's redevelopment agency, the city and the project's developer.

The state has 100 days to respond to the city's request filed Feb. 11, and is currently reviewing the paperwork, said H.D. Palmer, the department's deputy director of external affairs. If the city's request is approved, the money will be transferred from the redevelopment property tax trust over eight years to pay for the affordable housing units for families and seniors, according to the city.


Affordable housing is one component of the large project spread over 65 acres of former industrial waterfront land along Interstate 880. The affordable units will be built on two parcels separate from market-rate housing in what will be a brand new neighborhood of retail, five residential towers, 30 acres of park space, a link to the Bay Trail and a marina with boat slips.

New roads, curbs and sewers are already in place and construction of the first condominiums began this year. The project will be constructed over several years, according to Mike Ghielmetti, president of Signature Development Group.

With rents soaring in Oakland, where one-bedroom apartments average $2,110 a month, city officials stood alongside low-income residents from the city's Hispanic and Asian communities Thursday to say they remain committed to increasing the number of affordable homes in the city. Members of the Brooklyn Basin Community Benefits Coalition, MidPen Housing, Asian Pacific Environmental Network and others joined the mayor, Councilman Abel Guillen, Oakland school board President James Harris, and representatives from Alameda County and the Oakland Housing Authority, to support affordable housing at the development.

"We need the 465 affordable housing units in Oakland like we need rain in California," Asian Pacific Environmental Network leader Pan Hai Bo said through an interpreter.

David DeBolt covers Oakland. Contact him at 510-208-6453. Follow him at Twitter.com/daviddebolt.