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Home May 2007 |
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Greenbelt Newswire
In this edition Volunteer of the Month: Meredith Brown Meredith Brown has spent the spring semester interning in the Sonoma-Marin field office in Santa Rosa. Meredith, a senior at Sonoma State University, will be graduating in May with a BA in Communications and a Minor in Art History. Her work at Greenbelt Alliance has included creating a media campaign plan and materials for a big outreach effort this summer in Sonoma. After graduation, Meredith plans to move back to her hometown of San Jose. There she plans on getting her teaching credential and becoming a first-grade teacher, where she will pass on her passion for the environment to future generations of Bay Area residents. We appreciate all Meredith’s help, and wish her the best of luck as she begins her career. Thanks, Meredith!
Action Alert: TONIGHT – Workshop on Affordable Homes in Vallejo Come to a workshop tonight to help make sure Vallejo creates an effective policy to provide homes people can afford. This is your chance to help ensure that the proposed inclusionary housing ordinance in Vallejo is one that will help the community. Done right, this ordinance will help the city provide homes for people like teachers, city and county workers, and retail employees, while protecting the greenbelt.
If you have any questions, contact Nicole Byrd by email or at (707) 427-2308.
Alert: Final Decisions Coming Up on East Bay Hills Pittsburg, the small East Bay city nestled south of the Delta and north of the foothills of Mount Diablo, is continuing on its fast-tracked plan to sprawl outward into the hills. The rapidly growing city has already approved hundreds of houses that have not yet been built. The city’s draft hillside ordinance would allow up to 1,600 more houses on these landslide-prone hills. Locking in this huge amount of development is premature and dangerous; the city has not even seen the full effects of the subdivisions already in the pipeline. Three important dates [Note: new dates!] are coming up—mark your calendar, and act to stop the city from paving over these iconic hills. All meetings are at 65 Civic Ave., Pittsburg, at 7:00 p.m.
Can’t attend the meetings? Find quick ways to speak up here.
Update: Sonoma Development Thwarted? Cirrus, a health-care corporation, is starting to feel a little under the weather about its plans to build a "medical spa" on farmland in the Sonoma Valley. Due to strong opposition by Greenbelt Alliance, local partners, and residents, Cirrus has publicly stated that it will withdraw its misguided development proposal. Under the guise of creating a new hospital, Cirrus was pushing the community to accept a large, sprawling "health resort,” where the wealthy would fly in for "executive physicals" – that is, vacations in wine country, paid for by their health insurance. This proposed development would be on farmland outside the town's urban growth boundary. The recent statement by Cirrus may be a bluff, but it’s a good sign that we’re being heard. Greenbelt Alliance will continue to keep tabs on Cirrus and help the community speak up against this threat to farmland.
Event: Tour Walkable Neighborhoods, See eBART's Possibilities Have you heard about eBART? eBART is an effort to expand BART 21 miles into one of the fastest-growing parts of the Bay Area: East Contra Costa County. In Pittsburg, plans are underway for an eBART station on Railroad Avenue. Early this summer, the City of Pittsburg will release its Draft Specific Plan for how to develop the area around the station. This plan presents the opportunity to create a great new walkable neighborhood. Join us on a Community Design Tour to highlight the possibilities for Pittsburg and to celebrate Affordable Housing Week. The bus tour will leave from Pittsburg City Hall at 9:00 a.m. and visit three walkable neighborhoods in Dublin, Hayward, and Pleasant Hill. Speakers at each stop will offer insights on good planning, share tools and best practices, and describe challenges they faced in creating these livable communities. Admission and lunch are FREE for those who RSVP by Monday, May 14.
For more information or to RSVP, contact Leigha Schmidt at the City of Pittsburg by email or at (925) 252-4015. Sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance, East Bay Community Foundation, the Transportation and Land Use Coalition, and the City of Pittsburg.
Feature: The New Yorker on Commuting Last month, The New Yorker published a look at “extreme commuting” and how it affects landscapes and lives:
Sun May 13: Tilden Stroll, East Bay Sun Apr 22: Mission to Mission Peak, East Bay Sun Apr 29: Wildflower Panorama, South Bay June 3 - 9: Go Greenbelt! 18th Annual Bay Area Bike Tour – sign up today! Save the Date:
Sun Sept 9
Become a Member or Renew Your Membership Support Greenbelt Alliance's work to protect the Bay Area's open space and make its cities
better places to live. Join or renew now, or join the Greenbelt Guardian monthly donor club.
Thank you for reading! To subscribe to the Greenbelt Alliance Newswire email list, enter your name and email address at www.greenbelt.org. To unsubscribe, simply send an unsubscribe request to unsubscribe@greenbelt.org. |
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