Displaced Residents From Coliseum-Area Complex Want BART to Hold Developer Accountable

Scores of residents forced over New Year’s weekend to evacuate a flood-damaged East Oakland apartment complex built on BART property are still months away from being able to return home and are appealing to the agency’s elected board for help.

Tenants from the 110-unit Coliseum Connections development confronted the board on Thursday about the conditions they’re facing — including vermin-infested temporary hotel accommodations, disrupted family and work life, and ongoing stress and mental health challenges — after a resident at the complex reportedly took his own life earlier this week.

“It’s been 117 days. We don’t need you to listen anymore. We need you to do something,” resident Jasmine Braggs told the board. “We’re done talking. We’re done telling you guys what we don’t have — you have that.”

Residents are still awaiting the completion of extensive work and repairs needed after New Year’s weekend storms flooded streets adjacent to BART’s Coliseum station and inundated the development’s parking garage.

Michael Johnson, CEO of the property’s developer and owner, UrbanCore Development, earlier estimated residents would be able to move back in by April 1. The delay was mostly due, he said, to the difficulty in purchasing electrical equipment to replace gear damaged during the flood.

In an email responding to KQED questions Thursday, he said the new target date is July 1.

Braggs acknowledged that BART has given the displaced residents free Clipper cards, but said much more is needed, with residents facing at least two more months before they can get back into their units and some semblance of the daily routines that have been taken away from them.

“What you guys have done, we appreciate it, but it’s not enough,” Braggs said. “I want to cook a meal. I want to be at home. I want to invite people over. I can’t do that.”

Most of the residents who addressed the board Thursday blamed UrbanCore’s Johnson for leaving them to fend for themselves.

UrbanCore initially paid the hotel bills for displaced residents after the New Year’s flood. The city of Oakland stepped in to pick up the tab after Johnson announced abruptly in early February his firm could no longer afford to pay.

Some residents have exercised an option to get out of their Coliseum Connections leases. But many others in the complex, which includes a mix of 50% lower-income and 50% market-rate units, remain in hotels amid sometimes dismal conditions.

East Bay BART board member Lateefah Simon, who has been in frequent touch with the displaced residents, described some hotel accommodations as “laden with vermin and crime.” Braggs said families with three or more children are staying in single-room units with just one sink for dishwashing and personal care.

“People are not having their needs met,” tenant Hezekiah Burton told the board. “People cannot get their kids to school or to work, and the amount of emotional and mental effort needed for my fellow neighbors to advocate for themselves — we are not dedicated, fully trained civil rights or community grassroots organizers. We are just ordinary people working and trying to make a living and pay our taxes.”

Several residents mentioned the reported incident earlier in the week in which a neighbor returned to his unit in the complex and took his own life. The meeting paused at one point for an extended moment of silence.

“A lot of mental breakdowns are happening,” said tenant Tommie Wheeler. “It’s just really unfortunate what happened this week. My Coliseum Connection family — we’re literally begging for help.”

Burton asked the board what the agency would do to “make sure our neighbors are made whole again and, two, make sure this never happens again. Part of that is to acknowledge that Michael Johnson is not a person to do business with.”

The harshest criticism of Johnson came from board member Simon, who said the developer has been “blatently disrespectful to single mothers and horrifically negligent in his response toward these community members.”

“The ways in which this developer has treated these residents in this process — I speak only for myself, but I would hope that moving forward, when we are selecting developers to build for us, especially when it involves real people and housing and families, that we do everything possible to look into their backgrounds and how they have treated other investors and residents and community members,” she said.

Johnson said in an email “there is absolutely no basis” to the accusations leveled by Simon and others.

BART granted UrbanCore Development a long-term lease on its Coliseum property as part of its extensive transit-oriented development program. The agency has no formal role in operating or overseeing the Coliseum Connections complex, which opened in 2019.

Some residents are encouraging BART to consider revoking UrbanCore’s lease.

Tenant Alex Vila urged agency officials to closely scrutinize its contract with Johnson and UrbanCore, saying, “and he breaks any piece of that lease, remove him from the right to lease your property and find us a new landlord.”