Excerpt:

Alameda’s city leaders are inching forward with a plan to prepare Alameda Point for development themselves, instead of letting a private developer do it. The City Council agreed Tuesday night to let city staff seek out a professional advisor to help mold their strategy, and to use Point lease revenues to cover its $5 million cost.

City Manager John Russo said the strategy would help city leaders avoid the pitfalls they have faced in two previous attempts to hand the planning process over to for-profit developers, but also noted that the city doesn’t ultimately intend to develop the Point itself after Councilwoman Lena Tam questioned whether such a project would expose the city to too much risk.

Mayor Marie Gilmore questioned whether the strategy would produce projects that developers would actually be willing to build. And she asked whether limiting the number of homes to be built at the Point will make the project pencil out for a developer.