Contra Costa Urban Limit Line Threatened

As citizens of our local communities of Danville, Alamo, and San Ramon, we enjoy many benefits that enhance our quality of life. In particular we have access to great outdoor environments such as Mount Diablo State Park, the Las Trampas Range, the Iron Horse Trail, and the beautiful Tassajara Valley among others. Those areas have been protected by zoning and other such laws and agreements that prevent these areas from uncontrolled urban development. Without such protections, our quality of life would be greatly diminished.

One such protection has been Contra Costa’s Urban Limit Line (“ULL”) that prohibits urban development in rural areas outside the ULL without a county wide vote. However, the protection afforded by the ULL is not iron-clad. Today developers have purchased land outside the ULL and zoned agricultural with the expectation that they can use an exception in the ULL’s regulations. The exception allows developments of 30 acres or less with a super majority vote (4-1) of the County’s Board of Supervisors who would also have to cite at least one of seven possible “findings”. The first proposed housing development that would break the ULL is “Tassajara Parks”, a 125-home development near San Ramon’s eastern border in the unincorporated Tassajara Valley. If the Supervisors approve this development it could act as a blueprint for other 30 acre piecemeal developments outside the ULL.

The County’s Supervisors have received numerous responses to the Environmental Impact Report prepared by the county’s Department of Conservation and Development. The responses have included the negative impact that an average of 10 daily trips per home will have on traffic congestion on Camino Tassajara Road. Responses have also included the negative environmental impact on native plants, animals and the watershed that supports agricultural activities in the valley. Respondents have cited the impact to our overcrowded schools or the fear that the Valley will be over developed, “Dublin Style”. However, there is a fundamental concern in that a developer who is proposing a $4 million payment to a yet to be established county fund, can override the expressed will of citizens who on many occasions starting in 1990 and again in 2006 (by overwhelming votes) established and then strengthened the ULL, effectively demonstrating their desire to control urban sprawl and preserve our limited open space. According to Joel Devalcourt, East Bay Regional Director of the Greenbelt Alliance, “Tassajara Parks is a bad precedent that would put the financial interest of sprawl developers above the will of the voters”.

Many organizations are on record opposing Tassajara Parks: The Town of Danville, the Sierra Club, the Greenbelt Alliance, East Bay Municipal Utility District and the Tassajara Valley Preservation Association. Notwithstanding this, these organizations do support legitimate housing needs, but within the ULL. Interestingly enough, the county’s own Department of Conservation and Development in their required December 20, 2016 study of the ULL concluded that there is “sufficient capacity exists inside the ULL to accommodate housing and job growth through 2036”.

A petition to the Supervisors opposing the breaking of the ULL has been developed and is being circulated by the Tassajara Valley Preservation Association (“TVPA”). The petition can be electronically signed at Tassajaravalleypa.org and will be delivered to the Supervisors prior to their hearing of the Tassajara Parks housing development. TVPA is a grass roots local organization dedicated to supporting the County’s ULL.