Oakland Post: Week of – January 3-9, 2024
By Ken Epstein
Many members of the Oakland community are expressing worry and anger in the wake of the Oakland City Council meeting last week, where council members came up with a tie vote on whether to protect Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, a longtime entertainment venue and cultural institution at 410 14th St., from the construction of a 27-story, high-end residential tower within inches of his building.
Now, the City Charter allows Mayor Sheng Thao to attend the next council meeting, Jan. 16, to break the tie vote, if she chooses to intervene.
At stake for many people in Oakland, who spoke with the Post about what this vote could mean for the city’s future, is whether the culture and heritage of Oakland’s Black community will be honored and maintained and whether Geoffrey’s club will be allowed to flourish in an economic environment that is hostile to small business and in which everything is subservient to gentrification and the interests of corporate market-rate real estate interests.
The conflict over Geoffrey’s and the Black Arts district only reached the Oakland City Council Dec. 17 after working its way through the city’s planning process for several years.
As a result of decisions of the city’s planning staff and Planning Commission, which according to many observers tilt heavily in favor of huge corporate developers, the planning commission had approved two alternative development proposals submitted for the same site by San Francisco-based developer Tidewater Corporation, one for an office tower and another for a residential tower.
At the Council, following hours of debate and many speakers, most of whom were strongly in favor of Geoffrey and opposed to Tidewater’s proposals, council members voted unanimously to uphold Geoffrey’s first challenge to the Office Tower and split their votes on whether to approve the second proposal for a residential development.
The city attorney’s office ruled that there was in effect a tie vote. Therefore, according to the attorney, Mayor Sheng Thao was eligible but not required to break the tie at the next council meeting.
Tina Muriel, speaking at the council meeting on behalf of Geoffrey’s, presented a series of flaws in Tidewater’s proposal for the development. She explained that Geoffrey’s is identified as a national historic resource, with a designation similar to Coit Tower and the Painted Ladies in San Francisco. The city is supposed to protect and preserve such historic resources, which Oakland has not done. She also demonstrated that part of Tidewater’s proposal would require making alterations to Geoffrey’s building, which he has not agreed to do. Further, dozens of studies indicate that residential development drives out entertainment venues, a problem for which other cities have instituted safeguards preventing residential development in close proximity to entertainment.
