Oakland is paying residents to help solve one of the city’s most visible headaches: thousands of vacant storefronts and empty lots that sit idle in neighborhoods from East Oakland to the hills.
Through a new Civic Assembly created with UC Berkeley, the city is asking everyday Oaklanders how those properties should be used. Forty residents will be chosen by lottery to meet over three weekends and draft formal recommendations for city leaders. Participants will be paid and get support such as child care so people with work and caregiving responsibilities can actually show up, not just watch from the sidelines.
According to UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, the city mailed invitations to 20,000 randomly selected households and will pick 40 delegates from those who respond. The group will convene August 22 to 23, September 12 to 13 and October 3 to 4, and each delegate will receive a $1,350 stipend for attending all three weekend sessions. PolicyLink, Healthy Democracy and UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab are listed as partners on the project, handling design, facilitation and research.
Who Is Running The Assembly
PolicyLink and the Goldman School’s Democracy Policy Initiative are leading the effort, while Healthy Democracy will run the actual deliberations, KTVU reports. Angela Glover Blackwell, PolicyLink’s founder and a Goldman School affiliate, said the goal is to “make these community assets really work for the community.”
Local steering committee members include neighborhood and faith leaders along with groups such as the Brotherhood of Elders Network, according to The Daily Californian. The idea is to keep the process rooted in people who actually live with these empty properties every day.
How The Assembly Will Work
Over the three weekends, delegates will hear from experts, review local data and try to reach consensus on practical uses for vacant properties, including options such as pop-up parks, youth spaces and micro enterprise hubs. As KTVU notes, each volunteer selected by lottery can receive $1,350, plus child care, senior care and transportation support for the full series of sessions.
Researchers from UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy will document and evaluate the process to see whether the Civic Assembly model could be used in other California cities facing similar vacancy problems.
Why It Matters For Oakland Neighborhoods
The scale of the issue is not small. The Daily Californian reports that Oakland has roughly 3,500 empty lots and storefronts. Organizers say those vacancies hit jobs, safety and neighborhood life, turning what could be community anchors into dead zones.
The Civic Assembly is expected to deliver a written report with recommendations to the City Council and to Mayor Barbara Lee for consideration. Organizers caution that not every idea will get adopted, but say the process is designed to surface community-centered options and create a public record of what residents want on their own blocks.
