Our South Campus Plan
**The City of Oakland has just released its Final Environmental Impact Report. Please visit this page to learn more.**
In 2012, Head-Royce School was presented with the transformative opportunity to purchase the former Lincoln Child Center (located across the street at 4368 Lincoln Avenue) to create additional learning spaces that further support the educational goals, strategic vision and core values of the School.
The proposed plan we have presented to the City of Oakland incorporates years of detailed feedback we have received from neighbors, which helped us identify innovative solutions to top areas of neighborhood concern, including process/transparency, traffic/parking, facility use, noise and neighborhood character. In particular, we have worked hard to address our neighbors’ longstanding concerns around traffic congestion on Lincoln and eliminating use of what has become known as the “Alida Loop.” Specifically, the Plan creates a new internal Loop Driveway which will direct all school pick-up and drop-off traffic and parking onto the South Campus rather than relying on Lincoln Avenue and nearby neighborhood streets. The South Campus Plan will be transformative for the student experience at Head-Royce, yet it exercises a light touch from a construction-and-use standpoint. We hope you will visit the school’s South Campus Plan website for more details about how these plans will benefit our students.
As the latest step forward in the process, in February the City of Oakland released the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) on the proposed Head-Royce School South Campus Plan Project. We are pleased to see the FEIR finds that all environmental impacts from the project can be reduced to a level of “less than significant” with standard conditions of approval and mitigation measures. We believe the FEIR’s conclusions point to the thoughtfulness and care that went into developing this proposal. You can learn more about the key findings here.
Now that this study is complete, the city will hold hearings in the coming weeks to certify the EIR and consider project approval. The first hearing will occur on March 6 at the Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board followed by a hearing at the Planning Commission shortly thereafter. We value your participation in this process and hope that ultimately City leaders agree that we have worked together to craft a plan that works not just for Head-Royce, but for our entire community.
What is an EIR?
An EIR is an Environmental Impact Report required by the state of California. It is an independent analysis authored by the City of Oakland and its team of environmental consultants with a wide range of expertise. As with all proposed development projects, the City prepared an EIR to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) which studies topics ranging from noise to air quality to traffic. An EIR analyzes what, if any, project generated environmental impacts exist, and makes recommendations for how to mitigate those impacts. The full Final EIR document can be found here.
What were the findings of the EIR?
The EIR found that all environmental impacts from the project can be reduced to a level of “less than significant” with standard conditions of approval and mitigation measures – a positive finding that we believe points to the thoughtfulness and care that went into developing this proposal. You can review a high-level overview of the findings here.
What happens next?
A snapshot of the entire process can be found here. We look forward to continuing our conversations about how we can best meet the needs of our students and their families while maintaining a positive quality of life for our neighbors.
Project Resources
Final Environmental Impact Report
Aerial image of South Campus property
Preapplication for Preliminary Development Project (filed July 6, 2018)
Application for Preliminary Development Project (filed December 20, 2018)
South Campus Plan Neighborhood Meeting Materials 4/25/2018
On 4/25/18, Head-Royce hosted a Neighborhood Meeting to give an update on the School's South Campus Plan and preview the vision for the former Lincoln Child Center. Related materials are linked below:
Slideshow Presentation
Meeting Summary
South Campus Plan Neighborhood Meeting Materials 5/7/2019
On 5/7/19, Head-Royce hosted a Neighborhood Meeting to give a spring update on the School's South Campus Plan. Related materials are linked below:
Slideshow Presentation
Meeting Summary
South Campus Plan Neighborhood Meeting Materials 10/29/2019
On 10/29/19, Head-Royce hosted a Neighborhood Meeting to give a fall preview of landscape, lighting, and circulation concepts. Related materials are linked below: