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Oakland: Lake Merritt BART Station

Related: 
Great Communities Collaborative

TransForm is working with local stakeholders and the City of Oakland to unlock the Lake Merritt station area's strong potential as a new model for a transit-oriented, walkable community in the region. The Lake area currently hosts moderate density housing but has little in the way of character and identity.

TransForm's goal is to maximize community involvement by helping local stakeholders identify their own community needs and assets, helping them to understand the potential of transit oriented development, and help to facilitate as much local resident, merchant and worker participation in the planning process as possible.

Some of the key stakeholders we've already begun working with include the following: 

So far, TransForm has helped Asian Health Services in facilitating three community orientations to the planning process (including overviews of what tranist-oriented development is, and how community health can be improved through better planning decisions), and in the creation of a "Community Needs Assessment Survey". Key stakeholders have recently collected over 1,000 completed surveys, and an analysis of the results is being conducted right now. TransForm hopes to help stakeholders with this analysis, and then report the findings at an upcoming community meeting  sponsored by Asian Health Services in the later part of May, 2009.

The next step will be to help identify the community's most pressing needs, and to help develop guiding principles to steer the planning process. 

The end result of our combined efforts will be to have assisted key stakeholders and the City in creating a Specific Plan to guide redevelopment in meeting the community's needs while making the surrounding neighborhoods more livable and walkable, and better connecting the Lake Merritt BART Station area to the surrounding neighborhoods, and to the region as a whole. The Lake Merritt Station Area Plan will seek to better connect all the neighborhoods within a 10 minute walk or bike ride to the BART station.

To learn more, please contact Joel Ramos.