Plans for the Sycamore Valley Open Space Regional Preserve will likely get final approval by the East Bay Regional Park District when its board meets Tuesday, May 17. This would lead the way to opening the area to the public by mid-summer.
Some neighboring residents still oppose the project, citing privacy and other concerns, despite modifications to the draft plan that was presented in January. But the changes may have reduced concerns about traffic, parking and security at the nearby elementary school.
The project, first conceived prior to Danville’s incorporation in 1982, comprises 696 acres on two ridges that rise to 1,000 feet. The two parcels of open space, called Short Ridge and Sherbourne Hills, are separated by Camino Tassajara and housing developments that straddle it. The preserve will have no developed facilities; however, six-and-a-half miles of multi-use trails, including five miles of existing farm roads, will be open to the public.
“I couldn’t be happier,” said Beverly Lane, East Bay Regional Parks District board member from the Danville area. “It is public open space that I have worked on, first in the 1980s, and now, 20 years later, we are preparing to open it.”
The land was dedicated as a result of the contemporary suburban development of Danville,” said EBRPD planner Brian Weise. “The idea was to preserve a piece of central Contra Costa County agricultural past and untouched open space. This was all farm and ranch land.”
Lane acknowledged the strong neighborhood opposition that surfaced at a heavily attended public meeting about the preserve last September. She described public sentiment expressed at the January meeting as “more balanced.”
“I think people didn’t quite have an understanding of what kind of park it would be,” she said of the September meeting. “They were thinking of a developed park with developed facilities.”
Since January, park district officials have met with residents, as well as town and school officials, and made some modifications to its land use plan. They agreed not to post street signs to public access points to the preserve’s trails at neighborhood cul-de-sacs, but instead to indicate them with entrance trailhead markers.
The park district will only put up street signs for the two main public entrances on the east and west sides of the Town of Danville’s Sycamore Valley Park. Later, signs will also identify the future public entrance to the Sherburne Hills parcel at the San Ramon Service Yard at 5000 Crow Canyon Road.
Park officials also agreed to build a new entrance and trail segment instead of using an existing fire road that opens next to Sycamore Valley School. This moves the entrance further west, away from the school playgrounds.
In addition, in response to concerns about future increased vehicular and foot traffic in the area, the town is erecting a fence between the school and the town’s playing fields directly behind it. This will also serve as a buffer between the school and off-leash dogs accompanying hikers in the preserve.
Laura Klass, a parent of a child who attends the elementary school, said she was looking forward to using the open space.
“My only concern was that one of the main trail entrances was going to be right behind the fields that we use,” she said. “Now that that has been taken into consideration, I’m all for open space.”
Yet some remain unconvinced, including Alyson Colton, also a parent of a Sycamore Valley School student.
“What I’m worried about is that it is another unsupervised place where teenagers can go,” she explained. “And it’s ruining the privacy of a lot of homeowners…. People can be hiking there and looking into their homes.”
Originally, the park district planned to include a much larger open space area for the preserve, a plan that was modified during the 1990s. In the current plan, the preserve is buffered by sizeable areas of open space, mostly owned by private individuals or homeowner associations.
However, these buffer areas are often thin near homes, and because of the preserve’s sharp elevations, some residents fear a loss of privacy.
Marcia Somers, Community Services Director for the Town of Danville, said that the preserve has long been part of the town’s vision for the community. She noted that public access to it was part of each housing development’s conditions of approval.
“For some who are opposed to it, they don’t understand the commitment,” she said. “To some extent when you are living next to public space, it seems like an extension of your back yard.”
Town and park district officials say the preserve is simply not large enough to attract much interest from outside the area.
“The greatest use and most immediate benefit will be for area residents,” said Weise.
Moreover, Somers anticipates that entrances at neighborhood cul-de-sacs will be used almost entirely by the immediate neighborhood and some nearby residents.
Although the park district had hoped to open the preserve this spring, the unusually heavy rainfall this year prevented that, said Weise.
“We’ve been unable to even begin constructing the new trail and do other housekeeping improvements,” he said. The park district is now working toward a dedication before mid-summer.
