Alameda County May Have Found the Key to Unlocking Tax-Delinquent Lots for Affordable Housing
Officials approve transfer of long-abandoned Oakland parcel, hoping it becomes a model across the county; A timeline of the long-running Coliseum saga; It's time to start pulling papers for November
☕️MORNING BUZZ
Vol. VI, No. 1,322
—Alameda County officials believe they may have found a way to convert long-abandoned, tax-delinquent properties into affordable housing, potentially opening the door to redevelopment of dozens of neglected parcels in Oakland and across the county.
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved the transfer of a vacant lot at 8215 MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland to the Black Cultural Zone Community Development Corporation, which plans to build affordable housing on the site. The cost: $10.
Alameda County Treasurer-Tax Collector Henry Levy called the action a milestone after years of trying to navigate legal and bureaucratic obstacles.
“I thought it was going to be super simple to keep doing this, to replicate this over time. Well, it hasn’t,” Levy said. “There’s been innumerable road bumps, bureaucratic—the whole effort by a nonprofit to get anything done.”
But Levy’s office may have cracked the code.
Under state law, properties that remain tax delinquent for five years can be sold by the county. In this case, the parcel’s owner, Oakland Community Housing Inc., dissolved in 2013.
—Casey Farmer, Chapter 8 program manager in the Tax Collector’s Office, said the property has an appraised value of $900,000, while the redemption value—the amount owed in taxes and penalties—has climbed to $1.7 million, making a traditional tax sale impractical.
“This evidence clearly shows that the redemption value exceeds the tax sale value,” Farmer said.
Supervisors said the transfer could serve as a blueprint for future affordable housing projects.
“This is a strategy we want to pursue,” Supervisor Nate Miley said. “By doing this it will set the stage for us to be able to do more of these in the future.”
Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas said she is already eyeing similar opportunities in West Oakland.
County staff said they are evaluating 10 additional tax-delinquent properties, primarily in East and West Oakland. The best candidates are parcels where unpaid taxes exceed the property’s market value.
Some lots are small or potentially contaminated, but the county has secured EPA brownfield assessment grants to reduce environmental risks and make redevelopment more feasible.
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