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Oakley is a small, new city on the eastern edge of Contra Costa County. No major highways pass through the town, and the closest highway, State Route 4, is one of the most congested in the Bay Area. Oakley is growing at a rapid pace as people seek affordable housing on the region's outskirts.

The City has hundreds of acres of vacant land within its limits, but the small parcel sizes make it unattractive to developers. So Oakley is turning to the East Cypress Corridor project, also known as the Hotchkiss Tract, a 2,500-acre island in the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. Like many Delta islands, the tract would be mostly submerged at high tide if not for the earthen levees around the island. In fact, 95% of the island is below mean high tide, and there are large portions of the proposed development area that are as much as 5 feet below sea level.

Oakley is proposing to build 3,000 houses on the East Cypress Corridor project. The development would also include 638,600 square feet of commercial development, 152.3 acres of man-made lakes, and 112.5 acres of flood-control levees. Housing would replace 1,600 acres of important agricultural land and alter the rural character that current residents treasure.

Recent News

Victory! The five-year legal battle was resolved on June 27, 2011. The final settlement holds up the requirement to compensate the surrounding environment when developing on prime farmland. This sends a clear message that the loss of farmland is unacceptable and must be compensated.

The details of the settlement require the City of Oakley to collect funds as final approvals are issued for the development and as houses are built. The City will then send the funds to The San Francisco Foundation which will issue grants to organizations for the fee title acquisition of eligible farmland, conservation easements, and other related activities. The funds will be prioritized for protecting farmland in Contra Costa County but can also be used to protect lands in portions of Solano, Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Yolo counties under terms of the settlement.

History

This case began in 2006 when Greenbelt Alliance challenged the City of Oakley over four issues that the city failed to address in their Environmental Impact Report for the East Cypress Corridor project. The original lawsuit alleged that the city’s environmental review had not adequately mitigated impacts to endangered wildlife habitat, air quality, and farmland. Greenbelt Alliance prevailed in that lawsuit, and the City was ordered to address air-quality problems and loss of farmland. (Read the original court ruling here.)

Unfortunately, the city later readopted the Specific Plan without any measures to compensate for the loss of agricultural land or protect surrounding farmland, such as conservation easements or programs supported by developers’ fees. Because such measures are required under the California Environmental Quality Act and the original court order, Greenbelt Alliance sued the City of Oakley again.

In a precedent-setting decision announced October 1, 2009, Superior Court Judge Barry Baskin ruled against the City of Oakley, denying its request to move forward with its plans to build a housing development on the Delta floodplain and farmland.

“Inexplicably, the City failed to consider a reasonable range of mitigation measures or potentially feasible alternatives to lessen the impact to important farmland,” the judge stated. The court went further and rescinded the approval of the environmental impact report for the project, effectively blocking the development.

The legal decisions and subsequent settlement represent a significant victory for the Bay Area and the state because they send a clear message that if farmland is lost to development, additional farmland should be preserved.

See Greenbelt Alliance’s letter on the Supplemental Environmental Impact Report and the Final Supplemental Environmental Report that describes mitigation measures that the City of Oakley could have implemented. It cites other cities and counties that mitigate for farmland.

Questions? Email Greenbelt Alliance's Senior Field Representative, Matt Vander Sluis.