A Key Open Space Resource
Help save our waterfront park !
The City Council approved the Estuary Park Master Plan on January 21, 2025, 6–0 (one recused, one absent). Many thanks to all who contacted the Public Works+Transportation Committee and the Councilmembers!
The Estuary Park Master Plan to renovate and expand a key recreational resource is at risk. This major Measure DD effort will provide a waterfront park for Oakland and Alameda County residents, and serve the many people of Brooklyn Basin and the Jack London neighborhood. But now, the developer of Brooklyn Basin is asking City approval to construct 81 private homes on a large portion of the Estuary Park site, known as Parcel N.
Filling Parcel N with expensive housing would invalidate the already-prepared $1.4M Estuary Park Master Plan, forcing complete redesign and removing many features sought by the community. It would sacrifice a landscaped park entry, spacious parking with food truck plaza, family picnicking adjacent to a water-wise/habitat garden, a multi-purpose area for lawn games, an enclosed dog park, boat storage building, and public restrooms—recreational amenities defined by residents during four interactive community design sessions. The park would be invisible from Embarcadero Road.
Stopping and restarting the Project’s design and development phases is costly, wastes effort, and would require repetition of community participation and major regulatory changes. We support the Master Plan as written!
The Estuary Park Task Committee of the Measure DD Community Coalition urges you and/or your organization to help save and re-invigorate our major park on the Estuary. The next step will be to make sure the Master Plan gets executed in full, and Parcel N does not become a housing site for units that are already approved to be built on the existing Brooklyn Basin parcels. We will post updates as soon as we have them!
SAMPLE LETTER
TO: <officeofthemayor@oaklandca.gov><kjenkins@oaklandca.gov>
<jdjohnson@oaklandca.gov><council@oaklandnet.com>
CC: <creed2@oaklandca.gov> <ctan@oaklandca.gov> <cpayne@oaklandca.gov>
<emanasse@oaklandca.gov><elake@oaklandca.gov><Hduffey@oaklandca.gov>
BCC: <info@save-estuary-park.org>
Dear Mayor, City Administrator, and Councilmembers,
Thank you for supporting the City’s plan for renovating and expanding Estuary Park—the City’s major park with access to the waterfront and the Estuary.
The developer of Brooklyn Basin is still seeking City approval to construct 81 private homes on “Parcel N”—a portion of the Estuary Park site. We understand that if approved, this proposal would invalidate the $1.4M Estuary Park Master Plan already developed by the City of Oakland, forcing a complete redesign to a smaller park without many of the features sought by the community. Such a change would be costly, wasteful of City staff resources, and disappointing to local citizens. Instead, we support the City Council’s principle of “Public Land for Public Good”.
We stand firmly with the Measure DD Community Coalition, The Portobello Residential Owners Association, Sierra Club, and East Bay for Everyone in opposing any changes in the Master Plan. We thank the Public Works & Transportation Committee for their unanimous vote, and strongly urge the City to proceed immediately with the community-approved Plan.
Sincerely, (Names & Titles)
