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Welcome to the Oakland Civic Assembly on Transforming Vacant Spaces

Oakland residents are coming together to decide how empty storefronts and vacant lots can become vibrant community spaces — and you can be part of it.

Please share your thoughts

Walk past a vacant lot or empty storefront you can't believe is still sitting there? You don't have to be a delegate to weigh in. Drop it on the map and tell us what you'd love to see instead — your ideas help the Assembly focus on the places that matter most to Oaklanders.

Open the mapping tool →

What is a civic assembly?

A civic assembly is a democratic process that brings together a group of everyday people to recommend solutions to an important public issue. Residents are selected through a “democratic lottery” to reflect the demographics of the city — including age, gender, race, ethnicity, and location.

Assembly members — called “delegates” — work together for several days to conduct research, hear from community members and experts, discuss ideas, and create proposals. They are paid for their time.

Proposals must reach supermajority agreement (75% support or better) to become official recommendations of the Assembly — which happens a lot, because assemblies are unusual in their ability to find common ground across different groups on difficult questions.

What is the ultimate goal of the Assembly?

Turning long-standing vacant space into areas that have value to surrounding neighborhoods has long been a priority for local officials and community groups alike, yet it remains a difficult and persistent problem.

The goals of this Assembly are:

  1. To surface steps that would address the real-world conditions creating bottlenecks for more desirable development, through a process that is well informed and inclusive of the views of residents across Oakland.
  2. To show which of these interventions have the greatest support.
  3. To work with the Mayor, the City Council, and the Board of Supervisors to get those policies adopted.

In other words, the goal is change that people across Oakland feel good about and support.

Who is behind the Assembly?

Assembly planning has been led by a Community Steering Committee, including leaders from the Akonadi Foundation, Alameda Labor Council, Allen Temple Baptist Church, Black Organizing Project, Brotherhood of Elders Network, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, Faith in Action East Bay, Oakland Charter Reform Project, Oakland Metro Small Business Chamber, Oakland Rising, Street Level Health Project, and the Unity Council.

The Assembly is staffed by PolicyLink, Healthy Democracy, UC Berkeley's Possibility Lab, the Democracy Policy Initiative at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy, and Public Good Group.

This stage of the Assembly — learning and developing recommendations — is funded by PolicyLink, Kaiser Permanente, and the Democracy Policy Initiative, in partnership with the Peter E. Haas, Jr. Family Fund and the James Irvine Foundation.