Local Issues and Background: Archives

Castle Canyon

Update: October 2004

In our September 2003 newsletter, we wrote about a major victory for Piedmont Pines: the successful negotiation (after more than two decades of struggle) to preserve as permanent open space nearly 10 acres of pristine land bounded by Castle Dr. and Mastlands Dr. The City will pay the property owners $1 million from an open space bond measure to acquire all but four lots of this property. The owners will retain two lots at the top, and two at the lower end of their property on Castle to build four homes. The builders must go through the normal permit processes and must abide by all the City’s ordinances including creek, grading, environmental, design review and other requirements for each house.

The close of escrow now awaits final transactions from Planning. In the end, the neighborhood will retain most of this beautiful canyon as an adjunct to Joaquin Miller Park. And, if the developer can meet the City’s stringent standards, we will have four quality homes instead of a 17 to 27 home development.

Our thanks go to the MANY Piedmont Pines residents who worked for years to bring this about--called experts, presented testimony (often into the wee hours), created maps, wrote letters, talked to neighbors. In particular, hats off for work over the last five years to Marj Saunders, Jeff and Katie Asher, Jeannie and Gordon Flynn, Robbie Neely, Don Bruce, Jerry Ramlo, Bill Blessing, Paul Basting...and of course Dick Spees, his former assistant Jayne Becker; Jean Quan and her chief of staff, Richard Cowan.

Update: October 2002

3 partners own the 10 acres bounded by Castle Dr and Mastlands. Cross the street from the Canyon and you're in Joaquin Miller Park. Piedmont Pines Club’s top goal is to have the land preserved as open space. A parallel goal is to prevent development with the degree of density (17 homes) included in the developer's proposal. Here's where we stand now:

Open Space Preservation: we had great hopes over the last two years of succeeding in our efforts to use Measure K bond funds to purchase this land. That hope has now been dashed, primarily because for the City to make the purchase, the developer would have to be willing to sell, and at a price the City could squeeze out of the scant remaining funds in Meas. K. The developers set their a price tag based on selling 17 homes; the city based its bid on the land as open space. The gap was too large to close, despite hours of negotiations.

High Density Development Prevention: As to blocking the development as proposed on grounds of environmental destruction and density issues, a funny and mysterious thing happened. The developers filed an EIR a couple of years ago. Last year, the Planning department returned it with comments. Typically, the next stage is to open up the process for public comment, but here's where the mystery chapter opens: the developer never responded to the Planners, which means the process is now dead.

That could be taken as good news: no development. However, who would sit on 10 acres forever? Several things could happen: the developers might sell the land, which would put us back to square one but with an unknown party to deal with. Or, they might come back with another version of their proposal--hopefully with much lower density. Or, they could decide to donate the land for a tax write-off. Or, they may come up with some combination of these options.

Piedmont Pines could have a wait-and-see strategy, or we can pursue other options, perhaps allow a small-scale, environmentally safe development and get a land conservancy trust topurchase part of the land, or convince the owners to donate part of the property.

In some ways, time has been on our side. Since the proposed development, there is a new creek ordinance and a new grading ordinance that will make this land more difficult to develop. There has also been a successful acquisition of nearby land off Butters Drive by a newly formed land trust. Those neighbors can give us valuable assistance through the lessons they learned.

What we need now are people willing to help investigate some of these options with us. If you want to join the team, e-mail Robbie@piedmontpines.org.

Update February 2002

• Councilmember Spees and the City's Real Estate Division are in price negotiations with the owners of the canyon, with the hope that the City can purchase the canyon with Measure K funds.
•  The Environmental Impact Report on the 17-home development has been moved to inactive status by the Planning Commission staff.
•  The City is still working on the acquisition of Lookout Point in Joaquin Miller Park, the last required acquisition under Measure K. When Lookout Point is wrapped up, we'll know how much Measure K money is available for new projects competing for remaining funds.