Fighting for Community Benefits in Oakland A’s Ballpark Development

Public Advocates is providing legal and strategic advocacy support to the Oakland United Coalition, which we co-founded and actively participate in. This goal of the project is to ensure that community needs are incorporated into a proposed $500 million ballpark complex on public land in West Oakland’s Howard Terminal site as well as the potential redevelopment of the current Coliseum site in East Oakland.

The coalition aims to ensure that any project that comes into Oakland includes affordable housing, displacement protections for current residents, jobs that offer a living wage, as well as community oversight and enforcement so that the benefits residents secure become a reality.

In July 2021, the City Council voted on a term sheet to guide future negotiations with the A’s, including a goal of 35 percent affordable housing (though only 15 percent integrated into the new development) and funding for tenant assistance and legal help. These affordable housing provisions are a step in the right direction and were included as a result of the massive community engagement led by our Coalition. Unfortunately, many of the key details still need to be worked out to ensure that the development actually provides benefits to the largely Black and low-income West Oakland community and does not fuel displacement.

The Coalition has continued to push for the units to be affordable to extremely-low income households and to make sure that the A’s front funding so that the affordable housing and anti-displacement programs can be built into the development process.