20 - 40 visions and revisions, before the development of the Albany shoreline
In the room the consultants come and go, Talking of commercial development and shore-line protection.
After decades of development battles, a new land-owner and a new process are probably going to finally shape development - of parks and commercial uses - on the Albany shoreline.
"Voices to Vision" will be an unusual planning process. The city is sending out to every household a newspaper of basic information about the waterfront - including a detailed schedule of 20 - 40 community meetings to be held around the city through June. Small groups will discuss waterfront planning and develop visions for the waterfront. No one may attend more than one meeting. The ostensible purpose is to keep active and vocal people from dominating.
In light of the Brown Act, California's open-meeting law, the Sierra Club questions whether the city or its consultant can legally bar the public from attending or speaking at more than one meeting. It's also not clear how the city could enforce this rule. Will the consultant call the police to forcible remove someone from a meeting? Will the police arrest someone who refuses to leave or tries to speak? This rule would limit organizations such as the Sierra Club, Golden Gate Audubon Society, Citizens for East Shore Parks (CESP), Citizens for the Albany Shoreline (CAS), and even the group that opposes our vision, the Albany Waterfront Coalition, in mobilizing people to attend these public meetings. This is incompatible with basic democratic processes and may seriously undermine the legitimacy of this process.
The consultant will put together a report summarizing the results of the meetings, to go to the City Council after Labor Day for review and further refinement.
The planning effort comes at a propitious time. Magna Entertainment Corporation, which owns Golden Gate Fields, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Sierra Club, CESP, and CAS all predicted four years ago that Magna would go under, and urged the city to prepare for the closure of the track. At that time supporters of the Magna/Caruso "Life Style Center" mall, a development proposal that would have been anchored to the track, called us misinformed. The city is lucky that it didn't hitch its future to this now-stumbling enterprise.
An additional complication is that the future ownership of the race track is very much in doubt. The majority of voting shares of Magna Entertainment Corporation (MEC) are owned by Magna International Development (MID), and the largest shareholder of MID is Frank Stronach. He is asking the bankruptcy judge to allow MID to buy the most profitable assets of MEC. Other major creditors oppose this plan.
If any future owner, whoever they may turn out to be, wishes to develop this land, they would be advised to partner with Sierra Club, CAS, and CESP - to create a win-win for everyone. Otherwise, if they come to town with unsuitable development plans lacking community support, they will be defeated, as potential developers have been finding for 30 years.
WhatYouCanDo
Park supporters must show up at the community meetings and express their support for the kind of reasonable waterfront development plan that the Sierra Club, CESP, Golden Gate Audubon, and CAS have put together: most of the land would become parks and open space, but a reasonable amount, towards San Pablo Avenue and away from the shore, could be developed commercially to yield profit to the developer and an augmented tax base for the city.
Such a vision can make the waterfront a true asset for the community, with a great park.
To work with the Sierra Club on this issue, contact Norman La Force, chair of the East Bay Public Lands Committee at or conservation organizer or call (510) 848-0800, ext. 312