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Oakland City Council has approved the sale of public land around Lake Merritt to UrbanCore and East Bay Asian Local Development Corp for $8M in a 6-1 vote.
UrbanCore will pay $4.7M while the City of Oakland will lend EBALDC $3.3M for the purchases, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The companies plan to build two apartment towers—one rising 27 stories and the other reaching nine stories. Of the 361 planned units, 108 will be affordable housing.
The approval was hotly contested by community groups that sought to reserve the land solely for affordable housing.
Housing affordability is a major political issue in Oakland, where the government has enacted impact fees to pay for below-market rate housing as leaders worry about residents being priced out of the market. [SFC]
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