The City of Oakland will soon begin a view corridor study in order to preserve scenic views of downtown. This is occurring at the direction of the City Council, given in July, 2009. During the downtown rezoning at that time, there was wide spread community support for a view corridor study. Much of that support came from a growing awareness that views of downtown from Lake Merritt were being lost behind the slow but persistent development of high-rise buildings at the edge of Lake Merritt.   The City Council wisely chose to study the views with an eye to preserving the best ones through zoning and height restrictions.

Other cities such as Cincinnati, Austin, Seattle, and Sacramento have conducted view corridor studies.  If Oakland can take some cues from those studies, it can get up to speed quickly and without the need to ‘re-invent the wheel”.  Some of the interesting features in those other studies include that each of those cities really understood the value of preserving scenic views.  They knew that views are valuable not only for their esthetic value, but also for their economical value because they add to a city’s quality of life.

When reviewing the studies of other cities, it is also inspiring to see the level of detail and care each city put into their consideration of scenic views.  Using objective standards and public processes, those cities produced high-quality and credible policy proposals and implementation plans. There is a lot that Oakland can learn from the efforts of other cities in this regard.

We should ask for and expect Oakland’s study to be conducted like other cities.  Those cities set a high standard that Oakland should try to emulate.  The initial discussions for the study begin late in January.  There currently is no timeline for completion but CALM has proposed that the study might be finished by July, 2010.

For more on this, follow Rezone Lake Merritt.