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Greenbelt Alliance In the News

November 9, 2005

BACK TO BALLOT FOR THE BAY AREA
GROWTH: East Bay voters open land to thousands of homes

The outcome of the initiatives could radically reshape growth in the eastern expanses of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, two of the Bay Area's fastest-growing regions. Developers spent lavishly in an effort to persuade voters to expand the boundaries that contain them.

The most expensive campaign was in Livermore, where Pardee Homes spent about $3 million to sell Measure D to voters. The measure, which was trailing by a wide margin, would have allowed Pardee to build its 2,450-home Livermore Trails project outside the city's urban growth boundary.

Opponents argued that voters and city officials wanted to contain development within the city limits. Pardee argued that its "green development" -- featuring solar-powered homes and community amenities such as parks -- would be a boon to the city.

"All the little green features in the world are not going to make a sprawl community any different," said David Reid of the Greenbelt Alliance. "It's the same old sprawl, and residents would have to spend 40 minutes in traffic every day."

The fight was no less contentious in eastern Contra Costa County, where developers wanted voters to expand the urban limit lines set by county supervisors in 2000 and allow development on land that has been off-limits.

Explosive growth in the area has been a concern for more than a decade because of worsening traffic on Highway 4 and other major roads, including Vasco Road between Brentwood and Livermore and Kirker Pass Road between Pittsburg and Concord.

Supporters touted the three initiatives as growth-control measures that would meet the region's housing needs and limit sprawl.

Opponents -- including the Sierra Club, Save Mount Diablo, the Greenbelt Alliance and the Mount Diablo Audubon Society -- said the measures would only worsen sprawl and traffic in an area already bursting at the seams.

They also accused developers of using the ballot box to circumvent planning and land-use laws.

In Pittsburg, Measure P was leading by a wide margin. The measure was backed by developer Albert Seeno III, whose family has built tens of thousands of homes in Northern California.

The developer said Pittsburg voters, not county officials, should decide what growth should occur within the city, while environmentalists argued that Measure P would make a bad situation worse by allowing thousands of new homes in an already crowded area.

"There's desperate need for housing in the Bay Area, and there's a limited amount of space available," said Sam Singer, spokesman for Yes on Proposition P. "Hopefully, the voters will approve a new urban limit line for Pittsburg and the other cities. But if they don't, I'm sure these issues will return. There's just such a great need for housing."

Contra Costa County Supervisor Federal Glover, who represents Pittsburg and Antioch, said the developer-backed measures short-circuit the planning process and will create more gridlock on Highway 4.

"All of them were bad measures," he said. "We're continuing to build without the necessary infrastructure. People are barely able to move now -- the projects are designed to benefit the developers without regard to the quality of life."

In Antioch, voters were approving Measure K, which was pushed by Castle Companies, which wants to build 700 executive homes on the Roddy Ranch property south of Antioch. The developer promised to provide $1 million to Antioch schools and build a sports center if it passed.

In Brentwood, voters were approving Measure L, which would expand the urban limit line by 1,700 acres around the fast-growing city. The Nunn family developers, Save Mount Diablo and the East Bay Regional Park District reached a compromise earlier this year that would set aside some of the land for open space while allowing 2,800 new homes to be built on 1,300 acres.

Under a transportation sales tax approved by Contra Costa County voters last year, an urban limit line needed to be defined to ensure that cities could gain money for transportation projects. County supervisors had hoped to draw one urban limit line to cover all the cities in Contra Costa, but the three eastern cities would not agree to the more restrictive boundary the county wanted. That prompted the developers to qualify ballot measures for limit lines that allow new homes.

County supervisors tried to persuade the cities to go along with a countywide urban limit, which was first approved by Contra Costa voters in 1990, but the east-county cities want to grow more than the county would allow.

E-mail the writers at jzamora@sfchronicle.com and ehallissy@sfchronicle.com.

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