Six Oakland community groups, bound together as the "Oakland Zone," have won a $482,000 annual commitment from PNC Bank, Dollar Bank and the UPMC Health Plan over the next six years.

The groups signed a community creed pledging to work toward a shared vision for Oakland. Their representatives met with public officials for a news conference at Dan Marino Field on Frazier Street yesterday.

The collaborative goals range from mental health services, student housing safety and code enforcement, affordable housing, pedestrian and bicycling initiatives, a farmers market, fitness programs, job training and a community newspaper.

The corporations get 80 percent of the donated money back in tax credits from the state. The investment is even more attractive because the community groups are delivering a range of services for which they could leverage more money.

"With our diversity of services, [the Oakland Planning and Development Corp.] can build a house and other groups can put people in to them," said Elly Fisher, assistant director of OPDC. "And another group can help the person get in and around the neighborhood better, and another group can help the person find a job."

Councilman William Peduto, who shares Oakland with members Tonya Payne and Bruce Kraus, said the partnership can spearhead a 20-year vision that would take Oakland into the realm of the most desirable university towns "by taking care of the basics" -- litter and graffiti removal, pedestrian and bicycle safety initiatives and improved timing of street lights.

Oakland should not think itself a competitor of Pittsburgh neighborhoods, he said, but as a peer of Boulder, Colo., Burlington, Vt., and Cambridge, Mass., "where people want to live and where town-and-gown issues have been resolved."

The "Oakland Zone" is a reunification of what had been an expansion of groups since the 1970s grass-roots movement to protect residential streets from institutional expansion. Community Human Services and Peoples Oakland -- both committed to housing and programs for people with special needs -- created the Oakland Planning and Development Corp., and the three together created the Oakland Community Council in 1995 to participate in the University of Pittsburgh's masterplanning process.

In 1999, these groups expanded to create the Oakland Business Improvement District. The sixth participant is the Oakland Transportation Management Association.