Urban Villages Project - West Oakland

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About Urban Villages Project - West Oakland

Sustainable Urban Villages – Oakland Pilot

Project Description
EcoCity Builders (ECB), and its two significant project partners, Oakland Community Action Network (OCAN) and Western Institute for Social Research (WISR), Berkeley, will work closely together with various departments within the City of Oakland, as well as community stakeholders, to develop a Sustainable Urban Villages – Oakland Pilot (SUV-OP) action plan that incorporates several objectives of the Bay Area Climate Protection Grant Program for innovative long-term solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions regionally. We will also interact with the City of Richmond and community organizations to develop a prototype for that location during Phase 3 of the project, building upon work already underway in Richmond.

The Urban Villages model is based on the premise that in order to achieve long-term sustainability a comprehensive and integrated approach is needed. Based on an evolving integrated and interactive ECB-previously-developed GIS mapping system, the project will describe a model for the transition of the San Francisco Bay Area’s currently energy and land intensive built environment into a new regional vision of economically, environmentally and socially healthy “urban villages” of various sizes and characters, powered largely by clean, renewable energy and linked primarily through walking, public transit, greenways, trails and natural corridors. The model can be adapted to other Bay Area cities to meet the following goals: greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint reduction, climate protection, sustainable development, environmental quality, economic stability, job creation, crime reduction and poverty alleviation among other co-benefits.

Typically, an Urban Village community plan is anchored by a vitality and needs assessment and inventory and supported by the City’s general plan policies and zoning, economic (re)development strategies, and in coordination with local and regional land use and transportation agencies. Complete integration of the Urban Villages concept would occur through each City’s adoption of proposed land use framework along with specific action plans for each Urban Village community within a particular City. For example, the SUV-OP plans will be crafted through a collaborative community process utilizing the City of Oakland’s resident-driven Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council and Neighborhood Watch infrastructure, already in place, augmented with outreach to faith communities, non profit organizations, labor and other neighborhood organizations. The Oakland Pilot will be launched in a highly-impacted area.

The SUV-OP project combines the philosophy, mission, vision and goals of its three main partners, with a highly-qualified and technically-capable, multidisciplinary expert team to ensure project success. We believe that through careful land use planning and participatory community engagement processes, sustainable communities, Urban Villages, can be designed around widely-accepted principles of sustainability i.e. clean and friendly environments with a reduced reliance on cars; environmental justice and social equity; and providing economic opportunities through local green business opportunities for residents of sustainable communities.

http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/OUVillages.html