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Greenbelt Alliance In the News

July 31, 2005

Anti-expansion group emerges

WITH THREE HOT East Contra Costa developer-sponsored growth initiatives headed to the November ballot, an opposition coalition is sprouting roots.

Developers have wads of campaign cash and "some of us are concerned that the public will have no way to get an accurate assessment of what these initiatives really do," said Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla, D-Pittsburg. "No one has made any decisions yet, but there are a number of folks evaluating how to respond."

Developers in Pittsburg, Antioch and Brentwood have gathered enough signatures to place three initiatives on the ballot that in all would expand by 5,000 acres the land eligible for houses and shops.

Thus far, this coalition is all talk.

But Canciamilla, a former Contra Costa supervisor and outspoken advocate for a tightened urban limit line, has said in the past that he will actively oppose its expansion as long as Highway 4 remains gridlocked. (He was the chief architect of the county's 2000 move to shrink the boundary.)

In addition to groups such as the Greenbelt Alliance and Save Mt. Diablo, the team will likely include Supervisor Federal Glover of Pittsburg and, in a blast from the past, ex-supervisor Donna Gerber of Danville.

Gerber and Canciamilla worked side-by-side in the late 1990s when the board moved to thwart development plans in Tassajara Valley and elsewhere.

"If these developers successfully dress up these initiatives and trick the public into voting against their own interests, I have no doubt they will attempt to do the same in Tassajara Valley," said Gerber, the chief lobbyist for the California Nurses Association.

Gerber will feel right at home.

Her old nemesis Tom Koch, a lobbyist and ex-executive with homebuilder Shapell Industries, is hawking Antioch's initiative. It primarily benefits the 700-house Roddy Ranch, a development plan local investors rescued from bankruptcy.

Some will recall that Koch and Gerber went head-to-head over Shapell's Alamo Creek development in Tassajara Valley.

Koch won that fight and earned notoriety for sprinkling generous amenities in the project (soccer fields) to win public support (from soccer moms) in the face of anti-growth forces.

BACK AT THE RANCH: Roddy developers have taken the first step toward annexation into Antioch with an application to the Local Agency Formation Commission for a designation called "Sphere of Influence," or SOI.

The land lost its Antioch SOI title in 2000 when the Board of Supervisors shrank the urban limit line, placing the ranch outside the boundary.

For the past five years, the commission has tacitly rebuffed such requests through its policy to honor the urban limit line.

Now, Commissioner David Piepho, also an elected member of the Discovery Bay council, has asked that his colleagues ditch the policy.

With Roddy Ranch headed to the table and pending urban limit line elections, Piepho says commissioners must be free to vote based on their own philosophies.

"We have been appointed to LAFCO to make decisions and you can't expect us to do that if we have been told to vote only one way," Piepho said. "We're an independent body and we shouldn't be a rubber stamp for the county's urban limit line."

His bid immediately revived suspicion among critics that Piepho joined the commission to do developers' bidding and soften the agency that controls if and where cities grow.

But Piepho could prevail.

Membership changes on the seven-member commission have reduced the pro-urban limit line faction from a majority to two votes.

Piepho's request is on the commission's Aug. 10 agenda, although it's uncertain whether it will remain there.

He didn't run it through commission Chairman Federal Glover, who has concerns that members may be on vacation.

Glover has also consistently supported a hold-the-line policy and endorses a countywide extension of the existing line, which voters adopted in 1990. It would preclude Roddy Ranch development for at least a decade.

"This is and has been a major issue and I want to be sure the full commission will be present for the discussion," Glover said.

The agenda may be the chairman's prerogative but as Piepho points out, the commission has a full set of alternates in case members cannot attend. (The alternates include Piepho's wife, Contra Costa Supervisor Mary Nejedly Piepho.)

But if David Piepho succeeds and LAFCO dumps its blanket support for the urban limit line, it will also galvanize the fledgling opposition.

"It's outrageous," Canciamilla said of Piepho's plan. "It will undermine the integrity of the existing line and destroy the will of thousands of voters in Contra Costa. That type of action will lead to a meltdown faster than anything else."

Lisa Vorderbrueggen writes about politics on Wednesdays and Sundays. Reach her at 925-945-4773 or lvorderbrueggen@cctimes.com. You can also reach her through her on-line forum at www.contracostatimes.com. Click on "Talk to the Times."

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