OAKLAND — A developer’s plans for a 37-story tower that could end up being the tallest building in Oakland are in limbo, despite having the planning commission’s blessing, as neighbors and labor groups push back.

The project at 1750 Broadway, steps away from the 19th Street BART Station in Uptown, would include 307 market-rate apartments — a mix of studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom units — plus a five-story parking garage with 170 parking spaces, ground floor retail, a dog park, a gym and a pool. At 423 feet, it would be the tallest building in Oakland, topping the 404-foot Ordway Building and the 400-foot residential tower being built on the site of the old Merchants Parking Garage at 1314 Franklin St.

The project is expected to take 28 months to build after breaking ground. The first step in construction would be to demolish the three-story concrete building at 1750 Broadway — current home to the offices for East Bay Paratransit.

Oakland’s planning commission unanimously approved the project by developer Rubicon Point Partners in March, but that approval was appealed by tenants of a 107-year-old, rent-controlled building next door as well as East Bay Residents for Responsible Development, a coalition of labor unions: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 595, Sheet Metal Workers Local 104, Sprinkler Fitters Local 483 and Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 342.

The appeals against the 1750 Broadway project allege that the city didn’t look deep enough into the project’s potential environmental impacts, and call for the project to be stalled until a more stringent review under the California Environmental Quality Act is done.

Tenants, who rallied in front of the project site Tuesday, said they fear the environmental effects of building such a big project next-door may result in forcing them out of their homes.

“If the noise levels and dust from construction and other pollution get to be so toxic that it’s unhealthy for us to live there, we’ll be forced to leave, and we don’t actually have anywhere else to go,” said Christy Booth, who has lived in the building next door to 1750 Broadway for six years and picketed outside the project site with her neighbors Tuesday.

According to the city’s report on the environmental impact, the project “would not exceed the city’s applicable significance thresholds related to noise.” If construction crews follow the city’s rules, the noise levels won’t be higher than what is already permitted by the city, according to the report.

The report also said that the project also met the criteria for approval for air quality, meaning that if the developer follows Oakland’s regulations, there will be “less-than-significant impacts relating to air quality.”

Booth’s neighbor Joseph Hornof, in a letter to the planning commission, said the building where he lives will be “virtually unlivable” during the construction of the tower. Hornof also said the tower would “envelope our building and cast it into the shadows, blocking nearly all direct sunlight.”

This is not the first project the union coalition East Bay Residents for Responsible Development has fought. Earlier this year, it filed an appeal against a 163-unit apartment building in San Lorenzo, citing the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA. Some criticized the group for using CEQA as a tool to force the developer, Demmon Partners of Redwood City, to work with them. Alameda County supervisors ended up denying the appeal.

The Oakland neighbors also lambasted the developer of the Broadway project for not including a single affordable housing unit in the design, which they said are desperately needed in the city as rents skyrocket. They were joined at their rally by workers who criticized the developer for not agreeing to hire more union workers and apprentices.

Booth said the project “would be a lot easier to stomach” if it included affordable housing and if the potential noise and air quality issues were further investigated.

The developer is allowed under city guidelines to pay in-lieu fees to Oakland rather than include affordable housing.

City Planner Mike Rivera, at a March 20 Planning Commission meeting, said the proposed building “will create much-needed high-density housing and commercial retail uses to provide functional living and working environment to future residents of Oakland.”

Rubicon Point Partners issued a statement to the Bay Area News Group, saying the project and construction plans were “designed with our neighbors and neighboring sites’ interests top of mind.” Company representatives said the project will “use local union employees for a vast majority of construction.” Combining fees to compensate for not including affordable housing and taxes, the project will contribute $15 million to Oakland, Rubicon Point Partners said.

Booth said most of the residents of the building next door have lived there for more than 10 years, and fear that if they are driven out of their rent-controlled apartments, they won’t be able to find other affordable places. Booth pays $1,200 a month for her one-bedroom apartment; the average rent of a one-bedroom apartment in Oakland as of April was $2,636, according to rentjungle.com.

The City Council has yet to take up the appeal; Booth said city officials told them it may come before the council in October.

Booth and her neighbors already have been rattled for months by the construction of a 28-story, 300 unit tower across the street at 19th and Broadway. Neighbor Velta Savelis said she has heard jackhammers as early as 4:30 a.m.

Booth and Savelis said they can’t imagine what it would be like to have an even larger project literally inches away. They have a hunch, though they offered no proof, that asbestos may be in the concrete of the building at 1750 Broadway, and that demolishing it could kick it up into the air — a potential problem they say was not thoroughly investigated in the environmental review.

Booth and Savelis’ building has old, wood-frame, single-pane glass windows she doubts would block out much noise or harmful materials.

“We’re in an old building, and with the dust and all this noise coming through … it’s just not a pleasant way to live, to say the least,” Savelis said.