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Home Resource Center In the News Home Greenbelt Alliance in the News |
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Greenbelt Alliance In the News
November 19, 2004 Contra Costa growth fight flares up
Transportation & Growth By Lisa VorderbrueggenContra Costa County's war over growth has flared again as officials struggle to implement a key tenet of the recently adopted transportation sales tax extension. Measure J requires cities and the county to obtain a voter-approved, urban growth boundary valid through 2034 or forfeit their share of sales tax money earmarked for road repairs. But in a replay of past battles, local leaders have clashed over where to draw the line. Some officials and environmentalists want to preserve the county's existing urban limit line, which expires in 2010, and establish stringent expansion conditions. Holding the line will prime the market for higher density development near transit and stem suburban sprawl, argued Greenbelt Alliance spokesman David Reid. Without the restriction, he said, sprawl-generated traffic will overtake the gains from Measure J's $2 billion in transportation investments. Officials in Concord, Clayton, Brentwood, Pittsburg and Antioch, however, fear onerous expansion criteria will block critical community needs. They seek to expand the line up front and add nearly 5,000 acres to the potential development rolls, a third of what county leaders excluded nearly five years ago. While Clayton proposes to add a paltry 99 acres, Concord wants to extend its territory all the way to Suisun Bay with the addition of 1,507 acres of port operations property currently within the Naval Weapons Station. Antioch seeks to add 890 acres, including Roddy Ranch on its southern border, where officials want to see luxury housing. Pittsburg intended to hold the line, but once Concord asked for more territory, Pittsburg followed suit and now seeks to shift 1,812 acres inside the line, chiefly on its southern edge in the Kirker Pass area. "We clearly have two schools of thought on this," said Don Blubaugh, a former Walnut Creek city manager hired to herd city and county officials toward a resolution. The county and its cities have fought bitterly over the urban limit line since the Board of Supervisors drew new, more restricted boundaries in 2000. Land outside the line is not eligible for development. Hard feelings have persisted, and proponents of urban boundaries successfully incorporated an urban limit line in Measure J only after they agreed that cities could negotiate its location. The measure specifies that three quarters of the city councils that represent three-quarters of the county's population and four out of five county supervisors must ratify a line by Dec. 31. Following an environmental analysis, voters in 2006 will vote on the boundaries. If voters turn them down, the county has until 2009 to try again or each city is free to pursue its own urban limit line. Unless the line is expanded, it won't win enough support to make it onto the ballot, say some city officials. "Some of us felt like we were excluded from the (supervisors' urban limit line decision), and here is our chance to have input," said Clayton Councilwoman Julie Pierce. "There's got to be give and take." Seven weeks before the first deadline, a settlement appears nowhere in sight. Three county supervisors have publicly opposed expanding the urban limit line for at least 20 years and then only under tight conditions. And it's questionable whether Contra Costa County voters would embrace a wider line, even if officials agree to it. Anti-growth sentiment remains strong in this county and has gained momentum even in fast-growing eastern Contra Costa County. Antioch residents conveyed the message loud and clear earlier this year when they put a small apartment complex up for a vote and soundly turned it down. But Concord leaders describe as pre-emptive their move to place the Naval port inside the urban limit line, citing a Bay Area seaport plan, which lists it as a future port expansion site. Unlike undeveloped grazing land, this property is laced with roads and has been heavily used, said Concord City Councilman Bill McManigal. Concord fears that if it doesn't stake its claim, the county will move to take control of the land and any tax revenues it eventually generates, just as it may do at Buchanan Airport, McManigal said. "I don't want to be hamstrung 10 years from now," McManigal said. The county is reviewing a proposal to relocate the airport and build homes, shops and businesses on the unincorporated site, which Concord vehemently opposes. Supervisor Mark DeSaulnier of Concord, however, said the county has no plans to cut the city out. If the airport is developed, he believes Concord should annex it and the two entities would share the tax benefits. Environmentalists, meanwhile, say talk of building on the Naval site is highly premature as the military has not indicated when or even whether it will vacate the property. More important, they say, Contra Costa County's analysis in the Shaping Our Future initiative concluded that if the county followed the blueprint, the existing urban limit contains adequate land to accommodate growth for 20 years. "Where's the need to expand the line today?" asked Seth Adams of Save Mt. Diablo, a Walnut Creek-based land preservation organization.
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