w a t c h
DI ABLO
Save Mount Diablo
Preserving the Mountain Since 1971
Spring 2011 No. 51
Water District Purchases Ackerman
Five Houses That Will Never Be Built
Last summer, when Save Mount Diablo considered purchasing the 5-acre Dry Creek property near Brentwood, we were gambling a little. Dry Creek almost backs up on Cowell Ranch State Park but it fronts the 390-acre Ackerman or “Catholic Church” property across Briones Valley Road.
December 17, 2010 was a great day. In November, Save Mount Diablo had been working on two acquisitions, one of a single 20-acre parcel, the other of four ten-acre parcels. Negotiations with their owners came to a head and we completed purchase agreements for both properties in a single week. The properties’ owners pushed for quick closes. Given their deadlines and the holidays, from the signing of the purchase offers our due diligence took just three weeks and we closed escrow on all five parcels on December 17th. Five parcels in one day— that’s a new record for SMD.
Major Acquisition in Brentwood’s Western Hills
SMD Acquires 5 Parcels In One Day
Scott Hein
Mrs. Ackerman left her property to the Oakland Diocese around 1980. The property is beautiful and important as endangered species habitat. It extends from Deer Valley Road east to Briones Valley Road and has a flat valley filled with seasonal wetlands and drained by Dry Small parcels don’t Creek, a double ridge usually equal large at the property’s properties’ collections center, and a higher of resources. Their rolling plateau of oak development however, savannah. Sandwiched can represent very View from Contra Costa Water District’s recently protected Ackerman (or “Catholic”) property west to Deer Valley, Roddy Ranch, and Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve. large threats to between Ackerman and the State Park are resources, or to nearby seven small parcels, three of them undeveloped, one of which park areas from house sites, fragmentation, and especially is Dry Creek. from impacts on aesthetics. By law, individual residential and agricultural parcels have the right to construction of one We had been thinking about the ‘Catholic’ property for house, administratively and without public comment. In years. It was one of the reasons we opposed the developer addition, the twenty acre parcel could eventually have been sponsored Measure F on the June 2010 ballot, which would subdivided. have expanded Brentwood’s urban limit line to the boundary of Ackerman, increasing speculative pressure on it. Luckily, Our purchase of the five parcels means that five or more we and the residents of Brentwood prevailed. large, visually prominent houses will never be built. Plus, (continued on page 13)
Wind Turbines and Wildlife Annexation in Pittsburg Hills Mangini Restoration
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Self-Guided Hike: Magee Ranch Volunteer Opportunities Thanks to our Supporters
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