Overview

Through the community outreach process, Oaklanders have shared that they would like more walkable neighborhoods and easy access to everyday amenities. Option A: City of Neighborhoods responds to this by proposing 18 neighborhood centers – walkable, mixed-use hubs that are designed to bring housing, services, shopping, transit access, and community life together in key locations across the City.

Neighborhood centers are envisioned as compact, vibrant places where people can live, shop, eat, and gather all within a short walk from home. While each center would have a unique local character and identity, key amenities include:

• Grocery stores, cafes, restaurants, and neighborhood services like banks, pharmacies, and cultural spaces
• A mix of multi-family housing, commercial, office, and community-service uses
• Access to public transit
• Parks, green space, plazas, shaded seating, and gathering areas
• Safe bike lanes and pedestrian paths connecting to surrounding neighborhoods

Option A seeks to strengthen Oakland’s existing assets and fill in gaps. Of the 18 proposed neighborhood centers shown in Figure 3-6, nine are enhanced centers, based around existing commercial centers and main streets—such as Temescal and the Laurel District—where new housing and infrastructure will bring additional foot traffic and a local customer base that can support businesses and transit ridership. The other nine are new centers, located in residential neighborhoods that currently lack walkable access to amenities, including North Oakland, Clawson/Dogtown, Prescott, Cleveland Heights, San Antonio, Castlemont, Lockwood/Coliseum/Rudsdale, and Elmhurst – areas of Oakland that have not historically seen much market-based investment. In both cases, the goal is to make it easier for all residents to access healthy food, services, and transportation, while reinforcing Oakland’s unique neighborhood identities.

New homes and businesses in both new and enhanced neighborhood centers would be developed through reuse of aging commercial and industrial properties. The scale of new development could range from the heights and densities of buildings in present-day Fruitvale Village to the area around Broadway-Valdez, depending on the context of surrounding neighborhoods, with taller and denser new development encouraged in more urban parts of the City. In all neighborhood centers, the highest densities would be located around central gathering places like a park or commercial area and would transition into lower density neighborhoods.

In addition, Option A proposes three new R&D districts, ranging in size from about 30 to 90 acres. As described in the previous section, “What is Included in All Options,” R&D districts are campus-sized areas that would limit new development to only uses that support R&D-related activities (i.e., technology, life sciences, the green economy, and advanced manufacturing). Option A locates new R&D areas in upper West Oakland near the Emeryville border, north Jack London (above Howard Terminal), and at the Port’s Airport Business Park (north of San Leandro Creek, across from the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline).

By distributing new development around the City, this Option is meant to foster equitable investment and distribution of opportunities and benefits, as well as to reduce the burden of change that is placed on any one area. Policies related to phasing of implementation would guide the development of neighborhood centers so any intensification would be accompanied by the infrastructure needed to accommodate it. 

 Figure 3-6: Option A Concept Diagram

Figure 3-6 Key:

1. Develop an R&D campus in West Oakland, which could build on the energy of a nearby R&D cluster in Emeryville
2. Develop an R&D campus in north Jack London
3. Attract food retailers in neighborhoods that do not have commercial centers by adding residential density
4. Increase first/last mile connectivity between neighborhood centers, job hubs, and regional transit in coordination with the development of slow streets, bike infrastructure, and urban greening
5. Enhance existing commercial centers in areas that are likely to redevelop by adding higher density housing and employment uses
6. Add a new commercial area between the Coliseum area and Hegenberger Road that features live/work artist spaces, cultural centers, and production design and repair (PDR) businesses
7. Develop an R&D campus at Port Airport Business Park
8. Add new parkland and public space within neighborhood centers as central community gathering spaces

Note: This figure illustrates areas of significant change. However, all parts of the City will be affected by the General Plan.

Big Ideas

Land Use

Change Areas

The neighborhood center locations shown in Figure 3-6 were selected based on the following criteria:

• Existing commercial areas (labeled in Figure 3-6 with red stars) and identified commercial service gaps (labeled in Figure 3-6 with blue stars), with a special focus on food access gaps identified in the Environmental Justice Element;
• Concentrations of potential opportunity sites that are likely to be redeveloped; and
• Existing transit service that can connect neighborhood centers to each other, to regional transit, and to job hubs, and where there is potential for added density to support more frequent transit service.

In this Option, jobs growth beyond the baseline is focused in neighborhood centers; in a new commercial area around the Coliseum and the northern portion of Hegenberger Road that would feature live/work uses, artist spaces, and production design and repair (PDR) businesses; and in new R&D districts located on former industrial lands in West Oakland and north Jack London, and at the Port’s Airport Business Park. Employment areas were selected based on the following criteria: