Howard Terminal Update: CEQA Lawsuits Coming After Next Week, April 4, 2022
Howard Terminal Update: CEQA Lawsuits Coming After Next Week, April 4, 2022 - Video
Howard Terminal Update: CEQA Lawsuits Coming After Next Week, April 4, 2022 As if the Oakland Athletics and The City of Oakland and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf didn't have enough to deal with on the matter of Howard Terminal, based on a tip sent to Zennie62Media, Inc., and for Oakland News Now Blog and Zennie62 YouTube, here's new news: several lawsuits will be filed under AB 734, Bonta. California Environmental Quality Act: Oakland Sports and Mixed-Use Project. https://ift.tt/hNMmBqf The lawsuits will start the mediation process described in AB734, Bonta , which allows Howard Terminal opponents to start a court-ordered review of the Howard Terminal Final Environmental Impact Report and based on the many comments offered pointing to a number of concerns and deficiencies in the land use format. The lawsuit filings are based on the overall complaint that the City of Oakland and the Oakland A's have not used the 35 day review period to address the issues raised by the comments regarding the Howard Terminal Final Environmental Impact Report, and can be seen at https://ift.tt/S1pTDey. The City of Oakland's response to the comments, which take up over 3,400 pages, are marked by many examples that are, together, dismissive of concerns raised by the community. Another Example Of CEQA Weaponized To Stop Howard Terminal, Or Does It Prove HT Ignored Community Input? Oakland A's and Howard Terminal Ballpark District fans will, undoutedly, see the lawsuits as one more example of how CEQA is weaponized to stop development projects in California. Ironically, the promise of affordable housing at Howard Terminal is under the threat of termination, just as affordable housing projects up-and-down the State of California have been harmed by CEQA-based legal attack. But the size and complexity of the Howard Terminal project has caused the very push for affordable housing to be erased by opposition to it for other reasons. The main issue for many opponents is the erasure of land needed to handle future, expected, growth in cargo volume through the Port of Oakland. For them, the City of Oakland has not addressed the maritime issue, and the Mayor of Oakland has not brokered a deal between the Oakland A's and the maritime community. The loss of truck-handling at Howard Terminal was not, and has not been, countered by plans for a modern truck-stop facility. Thus, for the maritime community, the question of where trucks will go has not been sufficiently addressed in the plan for the Howard Terminal Ballpark District. On top of that, the Special Advisory Committee of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission voted 5-4-1 against the Howard Terminal Ballpark District Plan, thereby giving fuel to the lawsuits to come. As Oakland Mayoral Race Candidate Seneca Scott (who also ran for the Oakland City Council Seat currently held by Carroll Fife) said to me on the phone, the City of Oakland's rather edgy tone in its response to community comments regarding the EIR is “pretty typical with the way the City of Oakland does business. (Mr. Scott is not the only mayoral candidate called, and the responses of others will be added here, as they come in.) That way of doing business will get a stern test next week. But the real question is will the lawsuits be the straw that broke the camel's back and officially trigger the Oakland A's move to Las Vegas? This vlogger is on record as saying the A's should have moved last year, when it was obvious the City of Oakland wasted two years of time in not planning for the use of tax increment financing (TIF). That was contrary to what SB 293 Skinner (the legislation Nancy Skinner created and California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law) to do: allow TIF to be used to provide a public subsidy for the project district and for the ballpark's infrastructure. The City seemingly forgot to involve the County of Alameda in its TIF planning until the Mayor's staff realized that's what the SB 293 Skinner law (written two years before their revelation) said. The law was born October 11th, 2019; Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf did not start negotiations with Alameda County until after March 27th, 2021, almost two years later. Now, the vast combination of delays and dismissals of legal statutes and community complaints have led to this filing of lawsuits. Las Vegas Athletics? I hate to say it's a real possibility, but it is. Stay tuned.
via IFTTT
https://youtu.be/fTYNxvmITzg
Howard Terminal Update: CEQA Lawsuits Coming After Next Week, April 4, 2022 As if the Oakland Athletics and The City of Oakland and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf didn't have enough to deal with on the matter of Howard Terminal, based on a tip sent to Zennie62Media, Inc., and for Oakland News Now Blog and Zennie62 YouTube, here's new news: several lawsuits will be filed under AB 734, Bonta. California Environmental Quality Act: Oakland Sports and Mixed-Use Project. https://ift.tt/hNMmBqf The lawsuits will start the mediation process described in AB734, Bonta , which allows Howard Terminal opponents to start a court-ordered review of the Howard Terminal Final Environmental Impact Report and based on the many comments offered pointing to a number of concerns and deficiencies in the land use format. The lawsuit filings are based on the overall complaint that the City of Oakland and the Oakland A's have not used the 35 day review period to address the issues raised by the comments regarding the Howard Terminal Final Environmental Impact Report, and can be seen at https://ift.tt/S1pTDey. The City of Oakland's response to the comments, which take up over 3,400 pages, are marked by many examples that are, together, dismissive of concerns raised by the community. Another Example Of CEQA Weaponized To Stop Howard Terminal, Or Does It Prove HT Ignored Community Input? Oakland A's and Howard Terminal Ballpark District fans will, undoutedly, see the lawsuits as one more example of how CEQA is weaponized to stop development projects in California. Ironically, the promise of affordable housing at Howard Terminal is under the threat of termination, just as affordable housing projects up-and-down the State of California have been harmed by CEQA-based legal attack. But the size and complexity of the Howard Terminal project has caused the very push for affordable housing to be erased by opposition to it for other reasons. The main issue for many opponents is the erasure of land needed to handle future, expected, growth in cargo volume through the Port of Oakland. For them, the City of Oakland has not addressed the maritime issue, and the Mayor of Oakland has not brokered a deal between the Oakland A's and the maritime community. The loss of truck-handling at Howard Terminal was not, and has not been, countered by plans for a modern truck-stop facility. Thus, for the maritime community, the question of where trucks will go has not been sufficiently addressed in the plan for the Howard Terminal Ballpark District. On top of that, the Special Advisory Committee of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission voted 5-4-1 against the Howard Terminal Ballpark District Plan, thereby giving fuel to the lawsuits to come. As Oakland Mayoral Race Candidate Seneca Scott (who also ran for the Oakland City Council Seat currently held by Carroll Fife) said to me on the phone, the City of Oakland's rather edgy tone in its response to community comments regarding the EIR is “pretty typical with the way the City of Oakland does business. (Mr. Scott is not the only mayoral candidate called, and the responses of others will be added here, as they come in.) That way of doing business will get a stern test next week. But the real question is will the lawsuits be the straw that broke the camel's back and officially trigger the Oakland A's move to Las Vegas? This vlogger is on record as saying the A's should have moved last year, when it was obvious the City of Oakland wasted two years of time in not planning for the use of tax increment financing (TIF). That was contrary to what SB 293 Skinner (the legislation Nancy Skinner created and California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law) to do: allow TIF to be used to provide a public subsidy for the project district and for the ballpark's infrastructure. The City seemingly forgot to involve the County of Alameda in its TIF planning until the Mayor's staff realized that's what the SB 293 Skinner law (written two years before their revelation) said. The law was born October 11th, 2019; Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf did not start negotiations with Alameda County until after March 27th, 2021, almost two years later. Now, the vast combination of delays and dismissals of legal statutes and community complaints have led to this filing of lawsuits. Las Vegas Athletics? I hate to say it's a real possibility, but it is. Stay tuned.
via IFTTT
https://youtu.be/fTYNxvmITzg
Post A Comment
No comments :