When Karma Comes Up To Bat in Oakland

By Jock O’Connell

I love baseball. But, as I’ve also said before in this newsletter (March 2019), I also think it’s extremely fortunate that Northern Californians – notably including the region’s exporters of agricultural produce – have a thriving maritime gateway through which to conduct business with the rest of the world.

And, probably because I am an old Red Sox fan who’s delighted that New Englanders can still catch a game played on the very same turf at Fenway Park on which Babe Ruth and Ted Williams once starred, I’m hardly bedazzled -- as most East Bay politicians seem to be -- by that shiny new bauble that billionaire developer John Fisher promises to build on the Oakland waterfront.

But this commentary isn’t about the economics of sports arenas or the fatuous job creation figures that arena developers toss around. The settled science is that playing fields for professional sports teams are exceedingly poor investments for municipalities. Nor is this even about whether a Major League ballpark atop Howard Terminal could live in harmony with maritime operations at the adjacent Port of Oakland.

For let’s be clear about one thing: Fisher’s proposed shoreline extravaganza is less about a new home for the Oakland A’s than it is about the massive real estate development that would surround it. The upwards of 3,000 high-end condos, the 1.5 million square feet of office space, the restaurants and retail stores, the hundreds of hotel rooms, and the 3500-seat performance venue that Fisher vows to build is where the real money is. The stadium is merely the dangle.

What concerns me, as it should all fans of global commerce, are those condos, and more specifically the people who will occupy them. They, not the ballpark itself, would pose the greatest risk to the future of the Port.

Consider what happens when differing plaintiffs seek to play the environmental justice card. Earlier this month, Thomas Curwen of the Los Angeles Times wrote compassionately about the plight of residents living along Drumm Avenue in Wilmington, a community near the epicenter of the tsunami of shipping containers that has engulfed the nearby Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach over the past two years.

As Curwen described the situation: “…not long into the pandemic, a daily convoy of 18-wheelers showed up, turning the once-quiet Wilmington street, a little less than a half-mile long into a loud and dusty truck route, from dawn to well past dusk. Diesel fumes hang in the air. Dirt cakes cars and windowsills. Outdoor conversations are strained, and residents wonder what happened.”

Curwen reported that, far from being consulted before their street was turned into a major thoroughfare for container traffic, Drumm Avenue residents were not even warned. What’s befallen them, he contended, “raises questions critical to matters of environmental justice, especially in communities of color. What value does a low-income neighborhood have and what price is acceptable to maintain peace, quiet and security?”

Now let me first introduce you to Digital 365 Main LLC (“Digital”), a secure data and communications facility located in San Francisco. So vital are the services provided from this building that it is designated as “critical infrastructure” under the city’s building code. That would seem to indemnify it against most noise complaints from the neighbors in the high-rise, high-end residential towers that have sprung up years after Digital moved into what had been a largely industrial part of the city close to what had once been a booming seaport.

But, it seems, environmental justice moves in strange ways. In 1999, Digital purchased a building at 365 Main Street in San Francisco’s Rincon Hill district. The building was originally constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1942 to assemble armored vehicles for the military. It was designed to be sturdy, just the sort of building you would need for maintaining a survivable data storage and internet communications facility.

Back then, Rincon Hill was an industrial and commercial area next to the San Francisco end of the Bay Bridge. However, things change, and gentrification happens. After the Rincon Hill Plan was incorporated into the city’s General Plan in August 2005, explicit encouragement was given to the construction of high-rise housing. Although the financial crisis of 2007-08 delayed the area’s transformation, eventually new residential towers were erected, including the Infinity Tower with 650 residences and the Lumina with 655 residential units. Both feature condos whose monthly homeowner association fees alone would cause most Americans to blanch.

Noise complaints (seven to be precise) started to trickle in to San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, then the agency designated to handle grievances about the constant humming sound emanating from the massive backup generators on Digital’s rooftop.

Digital did not dispute that it was at least minimally out of compliance with San Francisco’s noise ordinance. The costly dispute it wound up having with the Department of Public Health was over how quickly it could remedy the problem. Digital’s well-heeled neighbors and DPH officials were of the opinion the annoyance should cease immediately. Digital (by then joined by a team of expensive lawyers and acoustical engineers) suggested that quieting the ten massive back-up generators was more complicated than flipping a switch. Digital was not asking for a permanent exemption from the city’s noise ordinance. Rather, it was requesting time to implement a $25 million plan to replace the generators with quieter models. The company also contended that the backup generators were needed not only to maintain Digital’s services in the event of, you know, The Big One, but also to cope with period outages caused by the local electric utility. That, of course, would be the ever-reliable PG&E.

Nonetheless, DPH denied the variance request. The handful of complainers who had the where-with-all to live in luxurious condominiums rejoiced. In the end, Digital, a firm certainly not lacking in resources, survived the misadventure of wealthy neighbors siccing city government on it, but only at considerable cost.

Now fast-forward to the day when Mr. & Mrs. John Beresford Tipton III take up residence in one of the swanky new residences John Fisher has erected around the new homefield of the Oakland A’s. Has this fabulously wealthy couple even noticed the heavy rail traffic downstairs or the nearby cranes towering over huge oceangoing ships? Did they bother to ask whether Mr. Fisher had equipped the million-dollar condominiums he’s built with double-paned windows or extra soundproofing in the walls? How long will it be before they and other new residents – all presumably accustomed to donating heavily to political campaigns -- start lodging complaints with city officials about the noise from the business operating next door?

“Dear, why must they play their silly games at night with all those bright lights and amped-up music. And all that loud cheering. Really, now. It’s quite intolerable. Let’s call the mayor.”

Karma, one might hope, swings from both sides of the plate.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in Jock’s commentaries are his own and may not reflect the positions of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association.