We’ve won a victory! Faria LAFCO hearing continued to June 12
As a result of all your messages, LAFCO has decided to continue the Wednesday, April 10 hearing on Faria until Wednesday June 12. This would never have happened without you making your voice heard that you want to Save the Ridge. Thank you!
This decision wins us more time to improve the project.
We don’t know what the result will be, but we know we want a 500-foot buffer along the western side of the project to reduce the visual and biological impacts of this 1,500-house project on
- Concord,
- the rest of central Contra Costa County, and
- the new Thurgood Marshall Regional Park.
We also want Seeno companies to provide more detailed information that would allow analyses of what would be visible and what would prevent drastic visual and biological impacts.
We want LAFCO to insist they need all the information they’ve told Seeno companies they need for the last decade.
We’ll keep you updated, but for now, thank you for speaking up to Save the Ridge!
Please sign our petition to Save the Ridge!
Pittsburg and Seeno are threatening the Los Medanos Ridgeline between Concord and Pittsburg but with more sensitive design they can pull back from overlooking Concord and our new Thurgood Marshall Regional Park.
The Pittsburg City Council has already approved the project, but with enough public support, it can still be changed.
The Pittsburg and Concord City Councils, along with Contra Costa County LAFCO, should SAVE THE RIDGE for everyone and ensure public access to the new Thurgood Marshall Regional Park for all residents.
Save the ridge to keep our area a beautiful and desirable place to live, work, and visit!
Join us and sign our Save Pittsburg Hills/Save Mount Diablo petition urging the Pittsburg and Concord City Councils and Contra Costa LAFCO to SAVE THE RIDGE and require the Seeno/Discovery Builders Faria development to be relocated off the top of Pittsburg’s ridge.
- Urge the Concord City Council to intervene with Pittsburg to negotiate a bigger buffer for the regional park, to Save the Ridge.
- Urge the Pittsburg City Council to demand a bigger buffer for the regional park, to Save the Ridge!
- Urge LAFCO to require a bigger buffer for the regional park, to Save the Ridge!
One of Contra Costa County’s best features is the beautiful ridge and rolling Los Medanos hills separating Concord and Pittsburg, from Willow Pass and Highway 4 southeast to Black Diamond Mines, and above the new Thurgood Marshall Regional Park at the former Concord Naval Weapons Station.
Two years ago, the Pittsburg City Council voted to approve the Faria project, a 1,500-housing-unit Seeno company development, which would have spread grading and houses over more than 600 acres—right on top of the scenic ridge separating Concord and Pittsburg.
The developer, a Seeno company, was trying to get project approvals before revealing Faria’s full impacts by providing very little details of the project and doing a minimal environmental review.
Save Mount Diablo filed a legal challenge to Faria’s approval, and in February 2022, the Contra Costa Superior Court ruled in our favor—Seeno and Pittsburg’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for Faria violated the law.
But after making small superficial changes, the Pittsburg City Council approved Faria again in April 2023.
We’re not opposed to all development; we just think the Pittsburg City Council and the developer should require a bigger buffer and move it off the ridgetop overlooking Concord and the new Thurgood Marshall Regional Park.
Seeno already has thousands of housing units approved, but not yet built in Pittsburg. Ridges are a bad place for development—they are rich in natural values, and are windy, which means there is a higher risk for fire, and ruin everyone’s views when developed.
This plan would violate state environmental regulations by failing to protect air quality and ensure a viable water supply, and gut the General Plan by eliminating long-standing policies that protect hillsides, ridgelines, creeks, and drainages.
For example, the city deleted the ridge from a map showing major ridgelines even though the ridge between Pittsburg and Concord is obviously a major ridge.
It also betrays the Pittsburg voters who approved Measure P in 2005 and placed the entire site in the protective hillside zoning. Pittsburg and Seeno have changed the General Plan and protective hillside zoning to bulldoze the steep hills for massive subdivisions.
Because the site is almost entirely over 30 percent slope, with substantial parts at 50 to 70 percent slope, Seeno’s approved new zoning allows up to 25 times as many houses as the Measure P zoning that the voters approved.
This ridge is spectacular and next to a new regional park.
Even though the Pittsburg City Council approved Faria, we still have a chance to Save the Ridge, protect Concord’s view of the hills, and buffer Thurgood Marshall Regional Park from Faria’s 1,500 houses.
The Seeno Faria project is on county land. It can only be added to Pittsburg by LAFCO, the Local Agency Formation Commission, which regulates boundaries like city limits.
LAFCO is one of the least known most powerful agencies in the county. It can make Seeno and Pittsburg do more than the Pittsburg City Council required when it approved Seeno’s Faria project last April. Save the Ridge!
The Pittsburg City Council should SAVE THE RIDGE for everyone and ensure public access to the new regional park for Pittsburg residents.
- Urge the Concord City Council to intervene with Pittsburg to negotiate a bigger buffer for the regional park, to Save the Ridge.
- Urge the Pittsburg City Council to demand a bigger buffer for the regional park, to Save the Ridge!
- Urge LAFCO to require a bigger buffer for the regional park, to Save the Ridge!
Join us and sign our petition urging the Pittsburg and Concord City Councils and Contra Costa LAFCO to SAVE THE RIDGE and require development to be relocated off the top of the ridge.
Note: after you click sign, you will have signed the petition, even though no confirmation text appears and the form will become blank. Thank you for signing!
We’ll send up you periodic news and updates regarding the Concord Naval Weapons Station Reuse project and the Faria project and other ways to protect and enjoy open space in and near Concord. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Mailer sent to Concord residents in March 2024. Click to open a full PDF.
