The Time To Act is Now!
By Mrs. Richie Smith, Wilhelmina Wilson, Priscilla Hine, Willie Phillips, Tony Wilkinson, Gene Turitz
| Editor’s Note: Friends of Adeline (FoA) is a community advocacy group formed in 2015 after local residents attended a City meeting during which officials proclaimed their goal to fix up the neighborhood and make South Berkeley a colony. Shocked at this thought, a group of residents, who love the community, a home for Black, Brown and Asian people, as well as Causasians, came together. FOA is fighting for all of South Berkeley, a historically mixed race and originally redlined neighborhood, and advocates for its small businesses and nonprofits. |
Now Is the Time to Act! (5/22/25)
This is FoA’s third article about BART’s relationship to South Berkeley and shares what is currently happening with the project at the Ashby Station Development.
In South Berkeley, BART has not worked with us and has neglected to listen to our community. Organized protests, such as in the fight led by Mabel Howard in the 1960’s, have forced BART to listen. Now, two developers are being considered for the project. One team includes minority developers from the community who deeply understand the needs of our historically racially diverse neighborhood. On this team, the market rate and minority developers agreed to equal stakes (50/50) in the project. This is important. The minority developer deserves equal say in all phases of the development including the financial agency of entitlement to the site. BART is not committed to ensuring this level of equity in the project. They’ve insisted that the minority developers have a 49% stake in the project for it to move forward. BART is exerting its power, once again, over our diverse community. We need to adamantly express that 50% participation is the only acceptable way to equitably move this project forward.
Building on this idea, BART made another equally unfair move. Developers need to raise money for the project and require a return on this investment. The contract negotiated with the CoB proposed an enhanced infrastructure tax district (EIFD) to be applied to this site. Healthy Black Families, Inc., in their representation of the community’s voice, advocated for these tax monies to be dedicated to reparative measures, such as community programs, business incubation, or early childhood education. Used in this way, funds would have begun to bring repair to South Berkeley from past harm done, and the loss of generational wealth caused when BART decimated the heart of South Berkeley during the original BART construction. The minority development team ideated how to offer the community an equity interest in the development. However, BART sees this differently and has claimed the projected EIFD funds to pay for infrastructure development at the station. We want BART to slow down, think outside the box, be innovative, and collaborative in their approach and when allocating revenue. We also want recognition of harm and harm repair for the South Berkeley community. Councilmembers, the mayor, and BART board members are remiss to ignore this resounding shout and to forgo this opportunity to honor our humanity!
If you agree, right now is the time to stand up and speak out in favor of full equity participation for parties in this development deal. Use the resources and contact information to help you make your point. The Friends of Adeline website (friendsofadeline.com) has a sample letter for you to use.
| Resources: Healthy Black Family Podcast Episodes 10, 11 https://healthyblackfam.org/podcast Independent film by Pamela Uzzell: Welcome to the Neighborhood (https://www.kqed.org/trulyca/2277/welcome-to-the-neighborhood) City of Berkeley: search Ashby and North Berkeley Planning BART: search Ashby TOD Contact any one or all of these people: Principal Property Development Officer BART: Shannon Dodge sdodge@bart.govDistrict 3 BART/Ashby representative: Barnali Ghosh Barnali.Ghosh@bart.gov, (510)-464-6095District 7 BART/Ashby representative: Victor Flores victor.flores@bart.gov District 3 Councilmember: Ben Bartlett BBartlett@berkeleyca.gov (510) 981-7130 Mayor of Berkeley: Adena Ishii mayor@berkeleyca.gov (510) 981-7100 Berkeley City Council Members: council@berkeleyca.gov FriendsofAdeline Facebook , friendsofadeline.org |