Hello friends and fellow Brentwood neighbors,

Today, I spoke at the Contra Costa County Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCO) Meeting in Martinez. This particular meeting was acting on requests for Sphere of Influence (SOI) and Annexation requests as part of LAFCO’s role as our County’s independent, regulatory agency with discretion to approve, wholly, partially or conditionally, or disapprove, changes of organization or reorganization.

LAFCO is required to consider a variety of factors when evaluating a proposal, including but not limited to, a proposal’s potential impacts on agricultural land and open space, provision of municipal services and infrastructure to a project site, timely and available supply of water, fair share of regional housing, consistency with regional plans, and various other factors.

In regards to the ULL-busting proposal of Blackhawk Nunn Partners, the Vineyards @ Deer Creek, I sited numerous LAFCO values and guiding principals that the project would violate. We will need LAFCO to deny the SOI and Annexation request by this particular developer and their specific project as it does not represent the actions and goals set forth in our own General Plan.

Here is my 3-minute LAFCO address:

“Hello LAFCO members,

I’ve lived in Brentwood for 22 years, and address you today representing the Alliance for A Better Brentwood.

Currently we are faced with an Urban Limit Line challenge from developers Blackhawk Nunn Partners – The Vineyards @ Deer Creek. Their goal is to move Brentwood’s ULL west to build 2,400 homes we don’t need. As this challenge would result in a subsequent SOI change and Annexation request that will come before you as the regulatory agency governing such requests in Contra Costa County, I’m asking for your support to deny the request.

Development of this 815-acre parcel would have an adverse impact on agricultural land and open space under your control, and is currently dry-farmed. We have plenty of regional housing, with a total of more than 16,000 housing units in the queue across Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley, Bethel Island and Discovery Bay; we don’t need this Project’s additional housing now and a big concern is we have no fire & emergency services to cover the 249-square miles of planned development as it is. This Project is not consistent with regional plans as it changes Brentwood’s General Plan significantly to build it. The traffic impacts are devastating, as we know Deer Valley Road was never intended nor can it accommodate any additional traffic load, especially with the development of the housing and commercial ventures in the Antioch Sand Creek Focus Area. The current MOU between Antioch & Brentwood so stipulates that neither City will ask for SOI or Annexation through 2022, Brentwood’s ULL is in force until 2026, and Antioch collected over 10,000 signatures last year to establish a permanent ULL at the northern end of this parcel – all powerful arguments to keep this parcel the ag land it is, and to permanently establish this property as the necessary Community Separator between the 2 cities. In LAFCO Executive Director Lou Ann Texeira’s 6-page letter to the City of Brentwood, she sites numerous concerns with the Project, and the 7 subject areas that the EIR must address. She also comments that she doubts a programmatic EIR will be sufficient to evaluate all the necessary concerns LAFCO would have for this Project. In summary, I ask that you comprehensively evaluate any request for a west Brentwood SOI or Annexation action according to your agency’s guiding principals, and based on those, I’m confident that you will deduce this request is contrary to the very values and regulations you uphold as LAFCO, and deny the request.

Thank you,
Kathy Griffin”

Thank you for your continued support!