protect creeks, renters, housing

Environmental and social issues are converging in the next several Oakland City Council meetings. Moves are afoot to weaken creek protection, making it easier for developers to build upscale homes in the most sensitive areas, and to remove the 3% cap on rent increases, opening the way for bigger increases which would disproportionately hurt low-income people and result in increased homelessness. This is an opportunity for those working on creek, recreation, environmental restoration, and open space issues to join forces with those working on housing, smart growth, homeless, renter, and low-income issues to work together on common concerns, such as getting both developers and the city to shift from focussing on upscale housing in the most sensitive habitats to focussing on larger amounts of affordable housing in the transit-accessible core. The creek issue is on the City Council agenda for December 11 and the rent cap is on for December 18, but the time for public action is the meeting a week before the one in which the agenda item comes up, since by the latter time the decisions have already been made. So the more people who can speak at the City Council meetings on December 4 & 11 (creek) and December 11 & 18 (rent) the better, and December 11 is the intersection when activists on both issues will converge with a rally as big as possible. If you want to speak to the Council, you should come at 6:45pm or so to get signed up with the City Clerk. Be prepared to be brief (couple minutes max); you can also give written comments. For details on the rent cap see http://www.indybay.org/display.php?id=110233, http://www.indybay.org/display.php?id=104950 For details on creek protection, see http://www.idiom.com/~for7gen/e/scoaklnd.htm and scroll down