Oakland\u2019s historic homes and cultural sites don\u2019t just decorate the city \u2014 they hold its stories. But as our recent Culture Makers conversation made clear, keeping those places standing is its own kind of fight.<\/p>\n
For this week\u2019s Oaklandside 510, we\u2019re sharing audio from a live event at the New Parkway Theater, part of our Culture Makers series. <\/p>\n
Our arts and community reporter, Azucena Rasilla, moderated a conversation with three people who spend their careers in Oakland\u2019s historic spaces: Liam O\u2019Donoghue, host of the East Bay Yesterday podcast; Mandolin Kadera-Redmond, executive director of the Oakland Parks and Recreation Foundation and former commissioner on the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee; and Miguel Lopez, executive director of Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park.<\/p>\n
You can listen to the full conversation above, read highlights below, or find the conversation on\u00a0Apple<\/a>,\u00a0YouTube<\/a>, or anywhere you get podcasts.<\/p>\n A tale of two ownership models<\/p>\n Oakland\u2019s historic houses are preserved under different arrangements, and that structure shapes how well-maintained they are. <\/p>\n Miguel Lopez explained that the city of Oakland owns all six acres of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, while his nonprofit, Friends of Peralta Hacienda, holds a contract to manage daily operations and programming. The city handles the grounds and building structure; the nonprofit runs everything inside, including the park\u2019s artwork.<\/p>\n Liam O\u2019Donoghue pointed out a pattern: homes without a dedicated \u201cfriends of\u201d nonprofit tend to be the ones sitting neglected or used for storage.<\/p>\n Two recent fires<\/p>\n The conversation touched on a rough stretch for Oakland\u2019s historic homes. A fire caused significant damage to Cameron Stanford House on April 4, and another fire damaged a corner section of the exterior of Peralta Hacienda on June 30.<\/p>\n Lopez described how he learned about the Peralta Hacienda fire: an Oakland Public Works employee called him around 8 a.m. asking for photos of the damage, followed by a call from the Oakland Fire Department confirming the fire had been contained to the exterior and was believed to be electrical. <\/p>\n Lopez credited Public Works and new city administrator Betsy Lake for a fast, hands-on response, including Lake personally walking the park with him within about 90 minutes.<\/p>\n The cost of deferred maintenance<\/p>\n Azucena Rasilla shared figures from a city spreadsheet detailing deferred maintenance across Oakland\u2019s historic parks and buildings. <\/p>\n According to those city estimates, restoring Peralta Hacienda would cost about $3 million. Renovating the Dunsmuir-Hellman mansion, including electrical upgrades and staircase and window restoration, would cost about $10 million. And repairs to the J. Moss House at Mosswood Park would run about $7 million.<\/p>\n O\u2019Donoghue argued the city\u2019s emergency-only approach to maintenance is a false economy: waiting until problems become crises, as happened at Cameron Stanford before its fire, ends up costing far more than preventive investment would have.<\/p>\n Why preservation keeps losing out<\/p>\n Panelists offered a few explanations for why historic buildings aren\u2019t a budget priority. Kadera-Redmond pointed to the disconnect between city departments \u2014 Public Works handles building structures while Parks and Recreation covers grounds and programming \u2014 and noted that deferred maintenance funding gets absorbed into the city\u2019s general fund, where emergencies take precedence over prevention.<\/p>\n O\u2019Donoghue linked the problem to a broader, decades-long budget squeeze affecting parks, schools, and streets alike, tracing it back to Proposition 13. Lopez added that the city eliminated its cultural affairs manager position last November \u2014 a decision reversed after public pushback \u2014 which he said signals how the city treats cultural preservation more broadly. <\/p>\n He also noted a bureaucratic hurdle specific to historic buildings: any repairs must follow strict guidelines to keep a property\u2019s historic register status, and losing that certification is difficult to reverse.<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oakland\u2019s historic homes and cultural sites don\u2019t just decorate the city \u2014 they hold its stories. 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