Happy Saturday everyone. Today’s post has to do with the Blackhawk Nunn ULL busting proposal, their plan for our General Plan designated SPA2 – what else with the way they are overrunning and strong-arming this City.

I understand we all moved here at different stages in this City’s development and our own lives. I moved here in 1997, and in 2001 got involved in shaping my City by listening to the General Plan revision process; you couldn’t effect it while sitting in the audience and it was very frustrating. Also in that same year, and to recognize my work to keep Brentwood agricultural based, quaint and small, I was featured in San Francisco Magazine along with Meredith Nunn (yes, a Nunn against sprawl) of the Farmer’s Daughter and Al Courchesne of Frog Hollow in an article entitled, “Goodbye Farms, Hello Sprawl”, that’s 18 years ago!

So what I’m getting at is you can only effect change and fight for what you believe in since you got here, and you have to walk the talk if you feel strongly about something. I felt strongly about Measure F in 2010, that development on the west & south side of Balfour was a terrible idea; and I feel even more enraged about this north-side plan taking away our Antioch/Brentwood community separator parcel.

I saw what Brentwood was, and now I don’t like what it’s becoming. It’s all because we are so dependent on developer fees. What happens at buildout of which we are dangerously close? Are we just supposed to move our Urban Limit Lines to accommodate stupid homes because our City didn’t bring any employers, restaurants and more retail INSIDE the City limits? Are we supposed to pave over our agricultural core next to keep this City afloat? Of course not.

If you read their entire Blackhawk Nunn proposal, you’ll see they keep harping on “an overall density of 3 housing units per acre.” That’s because you probably didn’t notice part of their plan has multi-unit dwellings of 30 units to an acre—what? Are those apartments as even duets don’t have that density. I need everyone to try and understand this would be the FIRST time in County history that a voter-approved ULL was moved for an IMBEDDED DEVELOPER PLAN—that’s just not right! Brentwood indeed has this parcel on their General Plan map, but what it will become should be planned by us in concert with our City’s Community Buildout Plan.

I suggest you may want to meet with our City Manager, Gus Vina to find out about that—I did. This developer doesn’t get to trump us, period; we have until 2026 until we have to decide on that ULL again. How do we even know what all the current plans will mean to Brentwood’s service levels, roads & traffic, schools, jobs, retail, water needs—the list goes on. I think we should ALL wait for the Environmental Impact Report before we think we have to “vote” on this proposal. There should be NO RUSH to get it on the ballot—why do you suppose the Developer is doing that? They don’t want us getting too much information about it and it’s repercussions. I’m positive, as was with the EIR for the Golf Course Rezone, the City is going to tear this to shreds. My position remains no houses or commercial OUTSIDE our ULL until all our City’s plans inside are played out—it only makes too much sense, right?

Links to the full Developer’s plan, and the residential & commercial projects in Brentwood at the current time.

Project Application
Brentwood Residential Projects
Brentwood Commercial Projects

Kathy