Oakland council on track to provide land to ex-Panther suing city
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
A nonprofit run by the former Black Panther Party chair who is suing Oakland and one of its council members for $7 million stands to receive a generous gift from the city: land in West Oakland worth $1.4 million.
The City Council is on track to sign a development deal to either donate the city-owned land to Elaine Brown’s group, Oakland and the World Enterprises, or lease it to the group for several decades, for what housing chief Michele Byrd said would be a “nominal fee.”
“It will put to use a property that’s been blighted for 20 years, and revitalize it,” Byrd said of Brown’s plan to build a mixed-income apartment building, fitness center, juice bar, technology space, and grocery store on the property at Seventh and Campbell streets, which she has already converted into an urban farm, tended by former prison inmates.
To Byrd and other officials, the project is attractive on many fronts. There’s a lot of interest in providing jobs for formerly incarcerated people in Oakland, and urban gardening is a trend with staying power. Brown’s idea is so enticing that the city may ultimately chip in $4.1 million — an estimate that includes the value of the land and a $2.6 million loan Brown has sought to build affordable housing.
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