The Oakland City Council voted last week to approve construction on 918 new townhomes and houses around the former Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. The site on Mountain Boulevard in Oakland has been vacant since 1996 when the hospital, which treated wounded servicemen, closed. 

The proposed project, which is located off of Interstate 580, would be one of Oakland’s largest developments in recent years. It includes plans for 72,000 square feet of retail space, 67 acres of open space, biking and walking trails, and more. The entire development will be spread over 187 acres, per the East Bay Times. 

Proposed Plan / Courtesy of SunCal

The developer, SunCal, has been trying to get the project off the ground since 2008. The recession caused them to lose funding from Lehman Brothers, their financial partner at the time. 

Now, SunCal has agreed to pay $20 million in impact fees to avoid including affordable housing units with the development, drawing harsh criticism. Each of the new units will sell at the market rate of $700,000 for townhomes and $1.2 million for a single-family home, per East Bay Express.

Construction at Oak Knoll is scheduled to begin in early 2018.