For years, a lot on MacArthur Boulevard in East Oakland has sat vacant. As part of revitalization efforts in Alameda County, a little-used transfer law allowed a nonprofit to purchase it for $10 in the hopes of transforming the blighted property into affordable housing.
The property deed of 8215 MacArthur Blvd. will soon belong to the Black Cultural Zone Community Development Corporation. As the Eastmont neighborhood became increasingly hollowed out beginning in the mid-1990s, the parcel sat unchanged, said Carolyn Johnson, CEO of the nonprofit now set to take it over.
“I’m actually born and raised in this neighborhood,” Johnson said, adding that she graduated from Castlemont High School just two blocks away. “(In the mid-90s) the neighborhood was going through a decline. It had been very hard hit with the crack epidemic, and the beginning of folks losing their homes and losing their property.”…