As a Castlemont High School student in the 1980s, Carolyn Johnson remembers walking past a vacant lot on MacArthur Boulevard in East Oakland whenever she left school to grab lunch at a nearby corner store.
The lot sat empty then, and remained that way over the next 40 years. A nonprofit bought the 15,000-square-foot parcel in 2005 but it dissolved in 2013, unable to develop it as affordable housing. Back taxes, penalties and city liens on the property grew to nearly $1.7 million, and it eventually fell into the ownership of Alameda County.
The lot at 8215 MacArthur Blvd. became a hot spot for illegal dumping, while weeds flourished between cracks in the pavement and eventually grew taller than the chain-link fence surrounding the property. Cars with popped hoods and broken windows found homes on the curb around the property, which sits on the edge of a residential neighborhood…