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The Trail Companion
Winter 2001
A Brief History of Bay Area Parks and Open
Spaces
Part 2. From the 1960s through the Present
Day
...continued.
Extending the Regional Park System
Regional park districts continued to expand. East
Contra Costa County joined the East Bay Regional Park
District in 1981, as did the Livermore area in 1992,
bringing almost the entire East Bay under its
jurisdiction. Its holdings have increased to
encompass 59 regional parks, recreation areas,
wilderness, shorelines, preserves and land bank
areas, together covering more than 90,000 acres, over
50,500 of them in Alameda County and nearly 40,500 in
Contra Costa County.
The 1990s were also
years of growth for the Midpeninsula Regional Open
Space District. In 1992 it annexed a small portion of
Santa Cruz County, and in spring of 1997 it received
requests from the Half Moon Bay City Council, the
Pescadero Municipal Advisory Council, the MidCoast
Community Council, and the Coastal Alliance, to
explore ways of conserving the resources of the San
Mateo County coast. In November of 1998 coastside
voters passed an advisory measure favoring annexation
to the district, which has since been working toward
that goal. As of the year 2000, the Midpeninsula
Regional Open Space District had preserved over
45,000 acres of diverse open space and was managing
twenty-four open space preserves.
Saving Farmlands
The 1980s brought the issue of disappearing
farmland back to the fore. Apprehension was such in
Napa County that its voters passed a slow growth
measure there in 1980. In July of the same year the
Marin Agricultural Land Trust was incorporated to
restrict the development of farmland by acquiring the
development rights from the farmers. Its program was
successful enough that less than three years later
the Marin County Open Space District dedicated ten
percent of its acquisition funds to the land trust
for the purchase of agricultural easements. People
for Open Space weighed in on the problem with two
important reports - "Endangered Harvest : the Future
of Bay Area Farmlands" in fall, 1980, the first
comprehensive report on agricultural problems in the
Bay Area, and "Room Enough : Housing and Open Space
in the Bay Area" in fall of 1983, which addressed
concerns that saving farmland might conflict with
providing adequate housing. In 1984 the organization
backed an initiative in Solano County requiring the
county board of supervisors to abide by the county
plan adopted in 1980. The measure passed, halting
development of a proposed new town near
Vacaville.
The Present and Future
From 1993 to 2001 the Clinton presidency reversed
federal hostility to environmental preservation,
though it was also criticized for advancing
conservation by fiat rather than negotiation and
excluding local voices from the process. At the same
time, new prosperity and the takeoff of the computer
industry brought unprecedented new environmental
pressures to bear on the Bay Area. Skyrocketing
property values made purchase of land for open space
more difficult. The increasing lack of affordable
housing weakened resistance to new development,
though there is little likelihood that any new
housing approved will be any more "affordable." The
cost of living forced long-term residents who formed
the base of the conservation movement out of the
region, leaving their work a legacy for newly wealthy
newcomers whose interest in continuing the task is
yet to be determined. The outmigration has also
brought new pressures to bear on agricultural areas
of the Central Valley and forest lands of the Sierra
foothills.
Much has been
accomplished over the past century to keep our
natural areas natural, protect their beauty, plants
and animals, and provide for the enjoyment of all.
The question now is whether we can retain what we
have achieved.
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