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Greenbelt Alliance In the News

February 14, 2005

Cities see future on other side of line

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Twenty years ago, before the construction boom, the rolling hills and pasture land of Roddy Ranch was a backwater laced with a few two-lane country roads.

The roads remain, as do some of the cattle, but this roughly 10-square-mile triangular swath of land is now bordered on two sides by planned or existing development. And the land itself is eyed by city leaders and builders as a new spot for homes and businesses.

"It makes sense if you look at the map and see the growth. That's where it's going to happen in the next 20 years," said Brentwood Mayor Brian Swisher.

The property -- south of Antioch and west of Brentwood -- sits in the shadow of Mt. Diablo, the county's most prominent landmark, and is currently off limits to development because it is outside the county's growth boundary. Roddy Ranch is an important piece of open space linking existing preserves in the area, say environmentalists, who roundly criticize the move to open it for development.

"It's a land grab," said Seth Adams, director of land programs for Save Mt. Diablo.

Those who want to develop Roddy Ranch remain at loggerheads with those who favor preservation. But one bitterly contested section, the 1,071 acres that surround an existing 230-acre golf course, recently emerged from bankruptcy court with a consortium of new owners -- Black Mountain Development of Pleasanton, Castle Companies of San Ramon and Pacific Coast Capital Partners of Sacramento.

The partnership, dubbed Roddy Ranch PBC, plans to develop large, expensive homes around the course but is currently stymied by the urban limit line. County voters originally approved the line in 1990, and the Board of Supervisors constricted it in 2000 to exclude Roddy Ranch. The line is intended to contain development in existing urban areas, stop sprawl and improve traffic flow.

"The city of Antioch is obviously interested in having the higher-end, executive-style homes out there on the larger lots," said Dan Boatwright, of Castle Companies. "But then there's the infrastructure that has to be available to do it. I mean sewer, water, storm drains and roads have to be extended to the property before it can actually be developed. Those are physical impediments."

More daunting, perhaps, are the significant political problems of expanding the urban limit line in a region where many residents see any new residential development as contributing intolerably to East County's horrendous traffic.

Growth advocates confront those same political impediments concerning two other pieces of land in the same area: the 4-square-mile Sand Creek area between Roddy Ranch and southern Antioch, and the roughly 1,300-acre Ginocchio property east of Roddy and west of Brentwood.

Sand Creek, also called Future Urban Area No. 1, is inside Antioch city limits and available for development but languishes in political limbo. The City Council last year delayed an ambitious plan for the area, fearing it could meet the same fate as a proposal for offices and 240 luxury apartment units that was defeated in a citywide referendum.

The Sand Creek proposal, which called for 4,000 houses, also irritated residents fed up with traffic. The Greenbelt Alliance and a residents group, Citizens for a Better Antioch, threatened a referendum on the project if it were approved.

"The FUA-1 is still very much up in the air. The one thing we do have is an application to build a senior community around an 18-hole golf course ... about 1,500 homes ... They would begin building in 2007 and finish over a six-year period," said Antioch Mayor Don Freitas.

Given the setbacks they encountered over Sand Creek, the city's leadership remains resolute in its quest to include the Roddy Ranch and Ginocchio properties within the urban limit line.

"This particular property has been within the city's planning for more than four decades," Freitas said.

"In 1990, when the voters approved the urban limit line, all of Roddy was included within the line. Then when the Board of Supervisors changed it in 2000, they kicked out Roddy Ranch and made it the poster child of urban sprawl, which I think is very wrong."

Swisher agrees Roddy never should have been cut out. But Antioch and Brentwood are headed for a possible showdown over the Ginocchio property, which both claim is within their sphere of influence.

"We need to sit down and iron this out now," Swisher said. "The (city) councils are at a point where we get along pretty well. We can sit down and come to an agreement. The councils a few years back, I don't think they were at that point."

If the line moves, Brentwood plans low-density residential subdivisions for the entire Ginocchio property. Ron Nunn, a prominent local landowner and developer who holds an option on the land, has suggested senior housing for part of it.

Antioch's general plan calls for "a higher-end planned community" with single-family homes and apartments.

The winding country roads already are being overused by commuters, and the most efficient way to improve them is to allow some development in the area, Swisher said.

Both cities are trying hard to move the Roddy Ranch and Ginocchio properties inside the urban limit line during the countywide negotiations that started six months ago. They suggest a plan that moves the line now but puts off development in the area until specific transportation projects are complete.

They are opposed by environmentalists, the Board of Supervisors and most other Contra Costa cities, among which a tentative consensus has emerged to keep the line where it is for at least the next 10 years.

"We believe that there's a tremendous number of undeveloped acres already existing within each of those cities ... and the traffic impacts of development of those areas has yet to be studied," said Ron Brown of Save Mt. Diablo.

If the line doesn't move, limited residential development could still happen on Roddy and Ginocchio, but no proposals have emerged.
Reach Kiley Russell at 925-952-5027 or krussell@cctimes.com.

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