Oakland Magazine: “A Better Housing Plan”

When Bay Area planners released a draft proposal earlier this year for guiding the region’s affordable housing needs for the next two decades, housing activists expressed alarm.

Even the region’s planners admitted that their proposal would do little to address the Bay Area’s extreme affordable housing shortage.

But after months of meetings and negotiations, advocates for affordable housing are claiming victory in shaping a recently adopted revised plan. The final version of Plan Bay Area 2040, developed jointly by the Metropolitan Planning Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments, or ABAG, “included all our recommendations,” said David Zisser of the nonprofit law firm Public Advocates…

Public Advocates, Urban Habitat, and the rest of the 6 Wins Network, the environmental group Greenbelt Alliance, and the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California were central to the effort to strengthen housing policies. In addition, some low-income residents traveled hours by public transportation to testify at commission meetings, and a few, like Dawson, became active participants in the whole process. Vautin of MTC said their involvement was significant: “We always think it’s valuable when we have people talking about the issues who experience them in their lives.”

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