Source: Contra Costa Times
By: Mike Blasky
Date: June 3, 2015
When residents this year learned of plans to sell an empty city-owned lot east of Lake Merritt for a planned tower with high-priced apartments, their response was typical of frustrated Oaklanders — they protested.
The city needs affordable housing for its current residents, they said, not a luxury living space for the wealthy moving across the Bay into Oakland. Dozens of activists shut down a City Council meeting last month to make sure the council heard their message.
And the message was apparently received. For now, at least.
The council hesitated after several lawyers, including some with the nonprofit Public Advocates, sent letters to the city arguing that officials may have violated the law by not first offering the land to affordable housing developers.
