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Posted on 11/07/2005 7:40:18 PM PST by grundle
Calif. City Could Become U.S. Solar Leader
By TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press Writer Mon Nov 7, 2005 3:54 AM ET
LIVERMORE, Calif. - Here in the sunny suburbs east of San Francisco, voters get a chance to make their community a national leader in solar power at a time of soaring energy prices and global warming.
A measure on Livermore's ballot Tuesday would grant a housing developer the right to build what it claims will be the country's largest completely solar community, with 2,450 new homes equipped to harvest the sun's energy.
"This is an incredible opportunity to create a model community with the most energy-efficient homes we can provide," said Carlene Matchniff, a vice president for the developer, Pardee Homes. "It sets a high standard for green building."
But there's a catch: Livermore voters must agree to allow construction on hundreds of acres of protected open space and absorb more than two square miles of picturesque grassland within city limits.
Opponents, including environmental groups and the majority of the City Council, are fighting the measure they claim will swallow open space, encourage sprawl, destroy habitat and clog traffic on one of Northern California's most congested freeways.
"The bottom line is they want to build 2,450 homes outside the city on sensitive lands," said David Reid of the Greenbelt Alliance. "All the solar panels in the world don't make that environmentally friendly."
Los Angeles-based Pardee Homes is expected to spend $3 million on its campaign to persuade Livermore's 44,000 registered voters to approve Measure D, which it sponsored. Opponents, by contrast, expect to spend about $150,000.
The election is being closely watched to see if a developer can use the ballot box to change land-use regulations and bypass the traditional planning process as well as city councils.
Residents in nearby Antioch, Brentwood and Pittsburg vote Tuesday on similar developer-sponsored measures expanding city limits to add housing, but those measures have wider community support.
This former ranching town about 45 miles east of San Francisco has become one of the Bay Area's outer suburbs. Situated along Interstate 580, the city of 75,000 residents is also home to a burgeoning wine industry and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, known for nuclear weapons and energy research.
Measure D would incorporate 1,400 acres of ranchland where residents have fought off developers for more than three decades. Five years ago, voters approved an open-space initiative that restricted development in that area and others.
To entice voters, Pardee has offered to build a 130-acre sports park, preserve 750 acres as open space and provide land and funding for a badly needed high school. About 450 acres would be set aside for the new homes backers say will help ease the region's housing shortage.
"It's probably the best project Livermore's seen in decades, if ever," said Councilmember Lorraine Dietrich. "It adds amenities to the community at no expense to the taxpayer, and it enriches the balance of housing choices available."
Pardee, a division of Weyerhaeuser Real Estate, has vowed to make the community a national example for sustainable living. Every new home would have rooftop solar panels that could lower electricity bills 50 to 60 percent and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Homeowners would be credited with excess energy they generate.
Officials from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and the California Energy Commission support the solar project because it would help promote energy efficiency.
Opponents — including Mayor Marshall Kamena and the City Council's "slow-growth" majority — say the measure could area to more development and destroy endangered species habitat, including a flowering plant called the palmate-bracted bird's beak.
Critics accuse Pardee of trying to buy off voters with perks and they're skeptical about the company's solar promises because the ballot measure doesn't provide many specifics.
"The project is classic sprawl," said Mike Daley, conservation director for the Sierra Club's San Francisco Bay chapter. "They are going to create so much pollution and devastation in the North Livermore Valley that no environmental group is supporting it."
And then they complain that houses cost too much money. Hellooo!
It clearly demonstrates that their real purpose is NOT to protect the environment, but to destroy the economy -- same objective Bin Laden has, only the methods are different.
yep, "I've got mine and you getting yours would damage the environment"
A question: How will this effect the "protected vineyards" in the Livermore area? There is some great wine out there.
Screw the developers. We have enough homes and people in Cal. Build them in the deserts of Nevada. Or New Orleans!
Bingo, Usually spelled c o m m u n i s t s.
Undoubtedly charter members of the Society to Preserve Solar Energy (SPSE--pronounced spacey)that I've just founded. Send me $10 if you would like to join. Take action to preserve the Sun!
"The project is classic sprawl," said Mike Daley, conservation director for the Sierra Club's San Francisco Bay chapter. "They are going to create so much pollution and devastation in the North Livermore Valley that no environmental group is supporting it."
In all the years I lived there, the Sierra Club never gave a damn about Livermore Valley. Guess they missed Dublin & Pleasanton growing like weeds.
(Former Livermoron.)
It's not gonna last forever you know!
lol
Having spent a good deal of time in Southern California over the last 15 years, I understand what you're saying all too well. It's ridiculous, over 30 million people in CA, and no end in sight. So much of the land is n aturally arid, and there aren't anymore Owens Vallys to drain. Can the water supply, just for one factor, keep up? How many more peopple can be packed in?
And with the long time flood of illegal immigration, at least 5% of all Mexicans now live in CA. They're an enormous burden on county hospitals and receive a huge amount of social benefits, paid for by CA taxpayers. And I don't think the illegals are kidding when they talk of Azatlan and La Reconquista, it's happening right in front us.
This is all very humorous. In addition to all of this, the famous Altamont Pass wind turbine farm is located in the hills directly above Livermore. This has also been in the news lately because the environmentalists are trying to shut it down, believe it or not.
First the enviro-nuts whined for years that we need to make better use of "renewable" energy sources, like the wind. So, they built one of the largest wind farms in the world on top of the hills right above Livermore. Now, other environmentalists are complaining that the blades on the wind turbines are killing too many birds, and so they want the whole thing to be shut down (or the turbines upgraded to newer models at great expense). Hence, it is environmentalist vs. environmentalist. Cracks me up!!
So, you have environmentalists trying to shut down the eco-friendly windmills in Livermore, and now you have more environmentalists trying to prevent eco-friendly solar powered housing from being built in Livermore. What is it about that place?? Is there something in the water out there that is causing the lefties to behave even more queerly than they usually do??
bump
It's the way that many businesses and residents compete against each other now--fronting phony environmentalists.
I know of a County in a sparsely populated State, where almost all of the houses are in homeowners' associations. It's a Republican County, believe it or not, but they support every kind of expensive social pathology (from gambling casinos to sexually confused bureacrats who hate families). County officers and homeowners' associations do all that they can to keep newcomers from building in developments that aren't more than 5% developed.
People who own an acre or two are determined to keep anyone else from building homes on nearby properties. ...silly, old hags. Developers want to keep anyone other than a select few developers from building.
Some people just don't want to comprehend the truth of the matter. When you buy an acre, you don't constitutionally get control of your neighbors' properties, you commies.
It's happening especially in the sterile, pretty west (where not much can be done to hurt the environment), while there's not much of that particular kind of competition in more arable states (where soil can be more easily damaged) ...get the picture?
And here's something really funny. In the sparse grasslands of the Rockies, where the soil blows away from lack of fertilization (manure) and lack of seeding of perennials (roots to hold the soil and moisture in place), the same kind of first-settler-syndrome people say that the land is "over-grazed." LOL!
Get a life! Take a course in agriculture! Get out of your neighbors' business!
I've wrangled with "environmentalists" at the county and state level. Behind most "environmentalists," competing corporate interests lurk. One who campaigned to be a commissioner actually worked for a large development corporation. They seek to buy properties cheap after cheapening them through their "environmentalist" front "persons." They seek to regulate all others away from building. They support the various sub-efforts of Agenda 21 (to limit building to developers and only around urban areas).
They operate as the larger lumber mill interests did, when they fronted environmentalists against their small mill competitors long ago.
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