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CONCORD NAVAL WEAPONS STATION REUSE PLAN
After close to two
years of public outreach and planning, the Concord City Council
on January 12 adopted a land use plan for the Concord Naval
Weapons Station that will be forwarded to the US Navy and
undergo further environmental review locally.
The city council adopted the Clustered Villages alternative,
which focuses high density, mixed-use development near the North
Concord BART station, but also provides a string of three
clustered communities to the south of the BART station. Most of
the land east of Mt. Diablo Creek will be preserved for open
space and recreation (64% of the base has been designated park
and open space). In addition
a
widened urban linear park along the neighborhoods and a Cal
State campus are included in the plan.
The plan is a model of new smart growth concepts, including
providing enough density to facilitate transit and encourage
affordable housing. It also concentrates high density, mixed-use
development near transit and provides a significant number of
new jobs for Concord and the region. It is a balanced and
financially sustainable plan.
The city is to be commended for its extensive public outreach,
resulting in a final decision that engendered very little
opposition. Throughout the process, Save Mount Diablo
participated in a Regional Stakeholder Group that included
Contra Costa Council; Home Builders Association of Northern
California; Central Labor Council; East Bay Housing
Organizations; East Bay Regional Park District; Craft Consulting
Group; Carlson, Barbee & Gibson; Gray-Bowen; Contra Costa
Community College District and Cal State East Bay. This group
developed consensus around key issues and forwarded those ideas
to the city's project team. While we often had somewhat
different agendas, we found much common ground on the issues
involved with the Weapons Station project.
Save Mount Diablo is also part of the Community Coalition for a
Sustainable Concord (Community Coalition).
The Coalition is a collection of affordable housing, interfaith,
labor, conservation & neighborhood organizations seeking a plan
that preserves the Weapons Station's natural resources and
scenic hillsides.
Save Mount Diablo will continue to stay involved in the process
for the next several years while the environmental review is
done and the plan is further refined. |
