[CPEO-MEF] REUSE: "Concord [Naval Weapons Station, CA] development clouded by allegations of improper lobbying"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Concord development clouded by allegations of improper lobbying

By Rachel Swan
San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
March 18, 2016

The city of Concord is about to choose a developer to build a sprawling, 2,200-acre community at a former naval weapons base that will be one of the largest mixed-use projects in Northern California.

But the moment is clouded by scandal involving allegations of backroom dealings and improper lobbying, plus the death of the former city attorney.

The focus is the inland section of the Concord Naval Weapons Station, a swath of land that stretches from the south side of Highway 4 to just south of Bailey Road. Once a bustling storage depot, it’s been empty since the Navy decommissioned the base in 1997. In the intervening years, the Navy worked to clean arsenic and other contaminants out of the soil, which was scarred by decades’ worth of heavy explosives. The area became a ghostly patch of wilderness, with cattle grazing among the ruins of boxcars and dilapidated bunkers.

Now the city wants to transform that land into a chic, transit-oriented township, lined with parks, greenways, bike paths, a vibrant shopping district, a golf course, hotels, several schools and about 12,000 homes, abutting 2,500 acres of land that will go to the East Bay Regional Park District to create one of the largest parks in the region.

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Concord-development-clouded-by-allegations-of-6923021.php

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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