A revised and possibly final conceptual plan for developing the 318-acre public land known as the Bernal property will be considered by the city Planning Commission at 7 p.m. next Wednesday, the latest public hearing as the plan heads for voter approval on Nov. 7.
The public probably won’t see many of the hundreds of pages of detailed planning documents, maps, charts and lists that are in three basic booklets that provide direction for how the property could be used. For certain, all the homes and apartments allowed on the 516-acre total Bernal property are built or under construction, with most of them occupied. An additional 750,000 square feet of office space in a proposed four-story-high, eight-building complex at the southwest edge of the property, alongside I-680, has not been built, although South Bay Construction still has city permits to build the structures once the market for new office space improves.
The public lands were given to the city free of charge by a consortium of developers, led by Greenbriar Homes, which bought the property from its longtime owner, the city and county of San Francisco. Ever since, task forces, commissions and committees have held scores of public hearings on how to develop the public site. A voter-approved referendum in 2002 ruled that no more housing would be allowed on the property, even low-income, affordable or senior housing as some groups had proposed.
Today, as a conceptual plan for Bernal moves forward, only one use has been approved by the council: three baseball fields in what will be a 10-field sports park on the eastern edge of the site near the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. Work on those fields, two to be lighted for league play and one designated as a practice field, will begin this fall with the first games likely to be played late next year.
“I call it an illustrative plan,” said consultant Wayne Rasmussen, who is a former principal planner for Pleasanton. Pointing to different sectors of the plan, he showed sites designated for a cultural arts center, community center, teen center, 4-H club demonstration farm, wetlands, meadows and picnic grounds.
Prepared by San Francisco land use architect Michael Fotheringham, the main planning document, the Bernal Property Phase II Specific Plan, identifies sites that could be developed as trails, marshland, an amphitheater, picnic areas and even a community vegetable garden.
“Over the years of discussion, we’ve had many proposals for this property,” Rasmussen said. He recalled one public hearing on a hot August night at the Pleasanton Senior Center when a Tri-Valley hockey team, in full uniform, pleaded with planners to build an ice rink on Bernal. Others cited the need for a public cemetery, suggesting a 15-acre hillside behind the Applied Biosystems complex off Sunol Boulevard.
“In the end,” Rasmussen said, “people told us that they wanted Bernal to be a community park with the look and feel of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. That’s what Fotheringham has designed for us.”
The master plan for Bernal shows the proposed cultural arts center at the northeast corner, near Bernal Avenue and the railroad tracks, with the sports fields and amphitheater extending south towards Valley Avenue, which is now being built through the Bernal property. Pleasanton Avenue, which now ends at Bernal Avenue, will be extended into the park and run alongside the sports fields to connect to Valley Avenue. Large meadows will protect the homes and apartments west of the lighted sports fields, with a lake planned between Valley Avenue and the 680 freeway.
Although no commercial developments will be allowed on the public park site, Rasmussen said some agricultural land could be leased out to local restaurants that might want to grow their own produce there, much like Mudd’s Restaurant does in San Ramon. Other uses could be designated for nonprofit groups to sell Christmas trees or pumpkins for Halloween.
In their final planning documents, city planners, Rasmussen and Fotheringham left no room for an ACE train station, which County Supervisor Scott Haggerty has long asked the city to move from the county Fairgrounds parking lot.
Rasmussen told a Pleasanton Chamber government affairs committee last week that the ACE station will have to stay where it is or be relocated elsewhere. One suggested site is at Valley Avenue near Stanley Boulevard.
After the Planning Commission meeting next Tuesday, the Bernal planning documents will be reviewed again by various other city and civic committees and commissions before having a final review by the City Council in June.
