The Kottinger Ranch Homeowners Association has endorsed a proposal for a 51-home development in the rolling hills above Hearst Drive that would also include a 495-acre public nature preserve.
Bing Hadley, president of the homeowners’ group, said Kottinger Ranch residents felt the compromise plan worked out with the developers and would “button up” the open space above Hearst Drive to the satisfaction of everyone.
The project is being proposed by Jennifer Lin, Frederic Lin and Kevin Lin and James Tong of Charter Properties in Pleasanton.
“We held many meetings with the developer’s key representative, Marty Inderbitzen, to reach this agreement,” Hadley said. “Some, of course, would like to see no homes built on the Lin family’s property, but it’s been zoned for housing for many years. This plan will give us the fewest number of homes, most of them on lower lots and screened so that they’ll be out of sight and open space forever right at the end of Kottinger Ranch.”
Hadley and others from Kottinger Ranch are expected to support the Lin family’s petition to the Planning Commission at a public hearing scheduled for Oct. 11.
The compromise agreement, worked out over meetings and continually changing architectural and landscape development drawings over more than a year, is far different than the 98-home development originally requested by the Lins. Years earlier, there were plans for an even larger housing development alongside a proposed 18-hole semi-public golf course. That proposal was approved by the City Council but the decision was overturned in a referendum called by Vintage Hills and Kottinger Ranch neighbors.
For the last three years, the city has studied the environmental impacts of the proposal. An Environmental Impact Report showed that the new plan with only 51 homes eliminated several aspects of the plan that posed possible environmental problems with regard to geology, trees and grading.
Most significant is the developer’s plan to turn the 495 acres of remaining open space over to the city, which would make it the largest donation of open space ever to the city of Pleasanton. Planners expect most of that land to remain in its current natural state, although trails are planned that would allow hikers to walk from the Callippe Preserve Golf Course across Oak Grove and down onto the Vineyard Corridor and Shadow Cliffs Regional Park. All told, the open space acreage that would become available to Pleasanton hikers could total more than 2,000 acres.
