Bay Area land at risk of becoming suburban sprawl

By Angela Hokanson, Bay City News Service

May 31, 2006

In the Bay Area, a land area thirteen times the size of San Francisco is at risk of being turned into sprawl, or low-density suburban development, according to a new report released by the Greenbelt Alliance.

Approximately 401,500 acres of "greenbelt" lands, such as forests, coastlines, fields, and orchards, are being threatened by sprawl development, according to the report, which is titled "At Risk: The Bay Area Greenbelt.''

The total amount of land in the region that is threatened by sprawl development has fallen by 62,600 acres, or 13 percent, since 2000, according to the report. This reduction is in large part the result of revised planning and land-use policies, including the use of urban growth boundaries, the study found.

"The region is doing better than it was in 2000, but 400,000 acres is still an enormous amount of land at risk," said Tom Steinbach, executive director of the Greenbelt Alliance.

"If we want to protect the landscapes that make this region special, we need to change the way we grow. We have to stop sprawling outward, and instead direct new growth into our existing cities and towns," Steinbach said.

The Greenbelt Alliance is a non-profit organization dedicated to land conservation and urban planning.

The region's "sprawl hot spots" -- the areas facing the highest risk of sprawl development -- include the Interstate Highway 80 corridor in Solano County, areas along U.S. Highway 101 in Sonoma County, the eastern cities in Contra Costa County, Coyote Valley in Santa Clara County, and the Tri-Valley area of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, the report found.

Solano County has the largest area of at-risk land in the Bay Area, the report found.

Excessive sprawl development is undesirable because it requires the paving of open space, and it can worsen housing and transportation problems while decreasing air and water quality, according to the report.

Of the land that the report has designated as at-risk, 125,200 acres are classified as high-risk, and will be in jeopardy of becoming sprawl

in the next 10 years. The remaining 276,200 acres are medium risk, and will be threatened by sprawl development within the next 30 years.

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