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Twenty years after beginning our work on the Concord Naval Weapons Station reuse project, we can celebrate two major successes and look forward to even greater changes in the future.

Of course, Save Mount Diablo has been working in Concord since our founding in 1971. Several of our founders were from Concord. One early successes was the creation of Lime Ridge Open Space, the greenbelt between Walnut Creek and Concord.

Another early success was the Crystyl Ranch referendum in 1989—our first referendum.

During that effort, we stopped a project twice as big as envisioned in the city General Plan, with only 10 percent of the open space we eventually negotiated on behalf of the public.

Although Concord, the largest city in Contra Costa County, has several open spaces, it was missing something.

It was the only city in the county without a regional park. That became a key issue at the naval weapons station in gaining the East Bay Regional Park District as a partner.

Eventually, more than 12,000 housing units are envisioned on this more-than-5,000-acre swath of land between Concord and Pittsburg, south of Highway 4 and stretching almost to Kirker Pass Road.

Sixty-nine percent of the area will become protected (or is already protected) as city parks, greenways, and regional park land.

In 2019, we celebrated the transfer of more than 2,000 acres of land to the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD), an area three times the size of Angel Island. Though it is not open to the public yet, Concord has its new Thurgood Marshall Regional Park!

None of the large conservation gains won on this project could have happened without the extensive cooperation and collaboration efforts Save Mount Diablo has engaged in for over 20 years.

In 2005, the US Navy approved the closure of the 5,046-acre inland area of the former Concord Naval Weapons Station, a landscape of rolling hills, grassland, and oak savanna dotted with bunkers and old railroad tracks.

Even before 2005, Save Mount Diablo saw the huge opportunity that this vast area of mostly undeveloped land represented for wildlife habitat protection and outdoor recreational experiences.

We also recognized that others saw opportunities of a different sort, and that by working together, everyone had a better chance of accomplishing their own separate goals. Together, we could win much more than would be possible if everyone went it alone.

In 2007, we joined with Concord residents, labor unions, interfaith groups, affordable housing advocates, and other environmental organizations to form the Community Coalition for a Sustainable Concord (CCSC).

Over the next five years, Concord prepared the Concord Naval Weapons Station area reuse plan, which would be the blueprint for future use of the former naval weapons station.

Meanwhile, the CCSC worked to make its vision of a vibrant mix of jobs and affordable homes in walkable neighborhoods surrounded by protected open space become reality.

As a result, when the City of Concord adopted the area reuse plan in 2012, more than 3,500 acres of land were designated as parks, greenways, and open space. Most of this land is the new Thurgood Marshall Regional Park owned and managed by EBRPD.

The area reuse plan also set affordable housing rules, greenway buffers between existing residents and new development, and good jobs goals.

And it set transit-oriented mixed-use development guidelines to capitalize on the North Concord BART station and keep as many cars off the road as possible.

We continued to play an active role in this project as Concord searched for Master Developers to start implementing the area reuse plan vision.

Lennar was chosen as Master Developer in 2016, but they bowed out of the project years later, saying they couldn’t make it pencil out. Then in the second Master Developer search, the then–Concord City Council made a big mistake.

In August 2021, the then–Concord City Council voted three to two to enter into exclusive negotiations with Seeno/Discovery Builders and their partners to be Master Developer.

Then-Mayor Tim McGallian, then–Vice Mayor Dominic Aliano, and Councilmember Edi Birsan voted to make Seeno and their partners Master Developer. Councilmembers Carlyn Obringer and Laura Hoffmeister cast dissenting votes.

McGallian lost his re-election bid in November 2023 to now–Vice Mayor Laura Nakamura. Edi Birsan lost his re-election bid in November 2024 to now–Councilmember Pablo Benavente.

Seeno’s term sheet proposed nearly 4,000 more houses (16,000 total) than what was previously agreed for the project back in 2012. It also offered less park and green space than what had been promised to residents.

And it proposed an unworkable arrangement to meet affordable housing requirements, among other serious shortcomings.

To inform Concord residents and get our message across to the Concord City Council, we

• continued our bimonthly email updates to residents,
• distributed flyers all over Concord,
• published a mailer that went to the whole city, and
• highlighted the excellent reporting of the East Bay Times when it revealed that members of the Seeno family were suing each other over a number of disputes.

This information, which should have been disclosed to the public, city staff, and officials, revealed debt crises, allegations of bullying, and serious questions about whether Seeno/Discovery Builders and their partners were financially capable of delivering any of the reuse project’s great promise.

These issues added to the lengthy and well-documented history of controversy, scandal, and legal trouble Seeno/Discovery Builders are well known for. Read more about The Seeno Way.

On January 28, 2023, then–Mayor Laura Hoffmeister and Councilmembers Laura Nakamura and Carlyn Obringer voted to let the exclusive negotiating agreement with Seeno/Discovery Builders and their partners expire.

The exclusive negotiating agreement had been for the huge Concord reuse project.

Dropping Seeno was the culmination of a year and a half of work, and helped ensure that this project will be a benefit to the community rather than a disaster.

In the summer of 2023, the city chose Brookfield Properties as the Master Developer that will carry the Concord reuse project forward.

Brookfield has held several community meetings and tours of the project.

And together with the Navy and City of Concord, Brookfield has been busy behind the scenes advancing the project. They have been preparing a specific plan to implement the community’s world-class vision for the area from 2012.

As the specific plan and regional park land use plan are put into practice over the next few years, our work will focus on making sure that our gains in the area reuse plan are put into place on the ground.

The Navy will eventually transfer about 2,300 acres of land to the City of Concord, but unlike the regional park area, most of this land will be developed for residential, commercial, and other purposes.

About 800 to 1,000 acres are slated for city parks, greenways, and open spaces, an area as big as Golden Gate Park. Mount Diablo Creek will be protected and enhanced, and more land will be protected elsewhere to mitigate for endangered species.

Brookfield’s specific plan will detail how this area will be sustainably developed to maximize transit and reduce impacts to the existing community.

We can celebrate the big wins of the transfer of land to EBRPD for Thurgood Marshall Regional Park, as well as Concord dropping Seeno/Discovery Builders as Master Developer.

Our hope is that we will be successful in the future by doing what has worked so well for us in the past: collaborating with different stakeholders to accomplish goals that benefit our entire community.