Update August 2017: After months of legal delays, we’re excited that Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch has affirmed the approval of the Walnut Residences community, rejecting a misguided lawsuit that challenged the project’s approval. We look forward to these homes coming to fruition, providing new opportunities to thrive in Fremont.
Back in March 2017, Greenbelt Alliance was excited that, after a long, arduous process, the City of Fremont approved the Walnut Residences development, which we endorsed—providing 632 new homes just a short walk from the city’s downtown BART station.
Several years ago, this city of nearly 230,000 residents made the bold move to become “strategically urban.” Working with community members, the city identified a handful of locations that could evolve into more walkable neighborhoods with new homes, shops, and jobs in close proximity and easy access to high-quality transit.
Walnut Residences by Carmel Partners will help to bring that vision to fruition, transforming one of the city’s largest sites for infill development in the heart of Central Fremont.
The project offers a host of benefits for Fremont and the Bay Area:
- It will help ease the region’s severe housing crunch and create more choices for those who want to live in a neighborhood with easy transit access.
- It features a wide variety of features to foster healthy mobility options for current and future residents, including extensive walking and biking paths, “unbundled” parking, shared parking, electric car charging stations, and ample bike parking spaces.
- The development team is partnering with an affordable housing developer to provide new homes for low-income residents adjacent to Fremont’s new Warm Springs BART station.
- And these new transit-oriented homes will help relieve development pressure on our region’s threatened natural and agricultural lands.
Greenbelt Alliance provided critical support for the project’s approval by testifying at several lively hearings at the Fremont Planning Commission and City Council, garnering attention from the San Francisco Business Times and the East Bay Times.
