Oscar Perry Abello wrote:

The Oakland People’s Plan promises to be different. In a typical arrangement, the city would hire a consulting firm with planning experience to lead the process, and then that firm might subcontract community groups to facilitate community engagement. Instead, under the Oakland People’s Plan, the 30 groups proposed to lead the process as a collective, with private sector planning firms subcontracted to serve as technical advisors for the collective of community groups.

Each community group would establish their own processes to surface ideas from residents, in partnership with others as needed, while also working with technical advisors to translate those ideas into planning and policy language. And community groups would get fair compensation for all that work, which often goes unpaid or underpaid as subcontractors. In fact, under the current Oakland People’s Plan, every person or organization would get paid the same amount — $60.76 per hour, an amount that covers the hourly living wage for 1 adult supporting 1 child in Alameda County, plus 25% for overhead.

And rather than coming up with a plan that states exactly what the city will do over the next few decades (which the city of Oakland asked for in its request for proposals), as a final product the Oakland People’s Plan proposes to produce a “minimum viable plan” that satisfies the legal requirements of a general plan in California while establishing and leaving open stronger avenues for residents to surface ideas that the city can implement over time.