Liberation Park
Oakland, California
In Design
Designing for Community Ownership: Liberation Park
At the corner of 73rd Avenue and Foothill Boulevard in East Oakland, a long-vacant city-owned parcel has spent the last decade becoming something more than a building site. It has been a farmers' market, a gathering space, a roller rink, and a staging ground for a community's vision of what it means to own a future. Y.A. studio is proud to serve as the architect for the residential component of Liberation Park — a 119-unit deeply affordable housing development inseparable from the broader cultural movement that made it possible.
A Project Born from Organizing, Not Just Planning
Liberation Park is part of the East Oakland Black Cultural Zone (BCZ), a community development initiative with roots in over a decade of organizing against displacement. The BCZ was founded to counter the steady erosion of Black residents, businesses, and cultural institutions from Oakland's neighborhoods, and to build lasting economic and physical assets that resist that tide.
The development reflects that mission at every scale. The project is structured as two coordinated components on adjacent parcels: the Residences at Liberation Park, a six-story, 119-unit affordable rental building targeting households earning 20–60% of Area Median Income, and a roughly 31,800-square-foot market hall and cultural hub with a courtyard and outdoor roller-skating rink. The residential building includes set-asides for unhoused residents and special-needs populations, priorities shaped through direct community engagement.
Y.A. studio was brought into this project as architect for the residential component, working alongside co-developers Black Cultural Zone Community Development Corporation and Eden Housing.
Navigating Complexity in Service of Community
Projects of this scale and ambition don't happen without navigating significant complexity. Liberation Park required coordinating multiple layers of public financing, a streamlined SB 35 entitlement process, subdividing the original parcel into separate residential and commercial components, and years of negotiation with the City of Oakland, including resolving legacy deed restrictions from adjacent fast-food franchises that encumbered the property.
A Layered Finance Structure Built for Mission
The residential component draws on an ambitious stack of public financing tools: 4% Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, tax-exempt bonds through the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee (CDLAC), a $44.6 million Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) award from the Strategic Growth Council, $28 million in City of Oakland funds through a competitive NOFA, and proceeds from Oakland's Measure U affordable housing bond program. Total development cost for the residential component is approximately $128–134 million.
That financing stack reflects the project's ambition — and the work required to assemble it. When adjustments to the ground rent structure were needed to improve CDLAC's competitiveness, the City and the development team responded by restructuring the ground lease terms. That kind of adaptive problem-solving, across legal, financial, and design domains, is what complex affordable housing requires. It's also the kind of work Y.A. studio is experienced in navigating alongside public and nonprofit developer partners.
Entitlement Through SB 35 Streamlined Review
The project received approval through the SB 35 streamlined entitlement process in January 2023, under planning case PLN 22196 — a pathway to reduce barriers to affordable housing production. A Tentative Parcel Map was approved in May 2023 to formally subdivide the site. General contractor selection followed a competitive process, with the Guzman-Focon Joint Venture selected, including commitments to local hiring and participation by small local businesses.
Design That Honors What Was Already There
One of the most important design challenges at Liberation Park was continuity. The site had already been transformed through years of interim programming, markets, outdoor movies, and community events into a recognized gathering place for East Oakland. Any permanent development had to honor that existing energy rather than displace it.
As a project lauded for providing opportunities for small, local businesses, several of the team members are in collaborative partnerships—between larger firms and emerging businesses: RELM studio with Studio Serrette and Cirius Engineering with EDesignC. Working alongside the development manager at Mosaic Urban Development, Y.A. studio approached the residential building as an anchor in a larger ecosystem of uses. The building needed to be dignified, durable, and scaled to the neighborhood while opening onto shared spaces designed to keep the site active and welcoming.
The courtyard and outdoor roller-skating rink of the adjacent market hall, designed by AE3 Partners and blink!LAB Architecture for the commercial parcel extends the vision of Liberation Park as much as a place people come to as a place people live. Residential and cultural uses aren't separated by function, but are designed to reinforce each other.
What's Next
The Residences at Liberation Park are targeting a 2026 groundbreaking. When complete, the project will deliver 119 income-restricted units to one of East Oakland's most transit-connected corridors, adjacent to the Eastmont Transit Center and within a neighborhood that has fought for the right to remain.
A Model for Culturally Anchored Affordable Housing
What distinguishes Liberation Park is not any single design decision or financing mechanism, but the integration of community vision into every layer of the project. The BCZ's decade of organizing became the entitlement record, the community engagement process, the interim land activation, and ultimately the development program itself. Affordable housing that serves communities well requires that kind of depth; not just units, but roots.
Y.A. studio is committed to the kind of architectural practice that meets communities where they are and helps translate long-held vision into built form. Liberation Park is one of the most meaningful expressions of that commitment we've had the opportunity to contribute to so far.
