by Julie Penfold

After nearly two decades of planning and negotiation, Moraga, Lafayette, Project
Lamorinda Open Space, state and federal agencies, and developer Richfield Investment Corp. have agreed on a plan to allow the 123-home Palos Colorados
subdivision, located on 460 acres in Moraga, to move forward.

 Characterizing it as
“an incredibly sophisticated…
series
of conditions unlike anything
the Town has seen before,”
Moraga Planning
Commissioner Renate Sops
thanked the public and applicant
Richfield for the
years of effort that went into
producing the new Palos
Colorados General Development
Plan (GDP). The
GDP was approved in a
Moraga Planning Commission
special meeting on February
5.  A week later, representatives
from Moraga and
Lafayette met to shake
hands and, within weeks,
executed a formal agreement
that neither town
would impede progress on
the plan as it now stands.
Lafayette officially withdrew
its lawsuit against
Moraga and Richfield. Richfield
withdrew its lawsuit
against Lafayette. These
overt measures of support
give the beleaguered project
its best chances of success
since its conception in the
late 1980s.

The Only Constant is Change
Indeed, as it now stands, the
Palos Colorados project
looks very different than it
did in those early days, although
the land has consistently
bordered Lafayette
and Moraga.
In 1989,the project, then
known as the Preston Ranch
Proposal, consisted of 263
lots and no golf course, on
210 acres. In 1996, the project,
now named Palos Colorados,
was drafted to
include 146 lots with a golf
course on 460 acres. That’s
the way the project stayed
until the now-infamous Settlement
Agreement was
reached in 1999.
As Lafayette Town
Manager Steve Falk explains,
“the city of Lafayette and the
town of Moraga were at loggerheads
from the late-80s,”
Under the first project proposals,
Falk explains that
“Lafayette’s fundamental
concerns were that too many
homes would be highly visible
on ridge lines from
Lafayette and that the project
would violate the environmental
ethos that permeates
Lamorinda.”

Furthermore, Falk says that
“approximately two-thirds of
the trips generated by the development
would pass
through Lafayette,” burdening
Lafayette’s already overloaded
roads and resulting in
“a disproportionate impact on
Lafayette. It was clearly in
Lafayette’s interests to reduce
the number of homes planned
for Palos Colorados.”
Moraga and the developer
agreed with Lafayette’s
opinion and reduced the
number of homes to 123
units, included an 18-hole
golf course, that encompassed
460 acres. To mitigate
the impact of the additional
traffic, the Settlement Agreement
also called for Richfield
to allocate $5 per round of
golf to be split between
Lafayette and Moraga, and to
be spent only on road improvement
projects.
The Settlement Agreement
also specified that neither
Lafayette nor Moraga
could impede the development
of the project. For the
second time, Moraga’s Town
Council approved the Palos
Colorados subdivision.

With Lafayette’s objections addressed
to its satisfaction, the
Palos Colorados project went
through the Moraga Planning
Commission and Town Council
hearing and was approved.
At this point, Falk confirms,
“Lafayette felt satisfied.
We thought we were done.”
Let the Lawsuits Begin
But the project didn’t go through
as planned. An outpouring of
community opposition followed,
and after two years of
heated public hearing, the Moraga
Planning Commission denied
the project without
prejudice in 1996. Later, in October
of 1996, The Town Council
overturned the Planning
Commission denial and approved
the project. In November
1996, a new Town Council was
elected and tried to overturn the
previous Council’s approval by
granting a “motion to reconsider”
filed by the City of
Lafayette. The developer immediately
sued the Town of Moraga.
The City of Lafayette also
sued Moraga.
The project went to Court,

which issued a Writ of Mandate
saying that the reconsideration
was an abuse of discretion on
the part of Moraga’s new Town
Council. The Court ordered the
three parties, Moraga, Richfield
(then Richland Investments),
and Lafayette to come up with
an agreement that would allow
the Palos Colorados project to
move ahead.
That Settlement Agreement
was ratified in 1999, and
specified 123 units and a golf
course. The Settlement Agreement
also specified that neither
Lafayette nor Moraga could impede
the development of the
project. For the second time,
Moraga’s Town Council approved
the Palos Colorados subdivision.
The project is now
under Court Order to proceed.
The buzz around the project quieted
as the developer went back
to the drawing board.
Around 2001, according to
Mayor Metcalf, the project became
active again. Planning
Commission hearings resumed
as the applicant returned with
their next round of revisions.
At this point, a group of
concerned citizens formed Preserve
Lamorinda Open Spaces.

The group knew that the project
still needed approval from the
army corps of Engineers, the
Regional Water Quality Control
Board, and Fish and Game, because
of its impacts to wetlands
and wildlife. Says founding
member Suzanne Jones, “we realized
that it might not be a done
deal; community involvement
in this project was still possible.”
Jones and other likeminded
citizens of Moraga,
Lafayette, and Orinda wanted to
see the project scaled back to
minimize the environmental impact
of Palos Colorados on
wildlife and the ecosystem of
the area and to reduce traffic.
As Jones explains, “Our interests
were in the scale of the Palos
Colorados project and its impact
on open space. We wanted to
protect the character of the
towns of Moraga and all of
Lamorinda. We wanted to preserve
high-quality wildlife habitat
and creeks and wetlands. We
were concerned about traffic and
circulation.”
Jones says, “in particular we didn’t think a golf course
was a good use of that
acreage…that land has such
high habitat value, and there’s no
overriding need for another golf
course in Moraga.”
So, Preserve Lamorinda
Open Spaces launched a letterwriting
campaign to urge the
Army Corps of Engineers and
other agencies “to pay very
close attention to the impact a
golf course would have on
wildlife habitat,” says Jones. The
San Francisco Office of the
Army Corps received more letters
on Palos Colorados than it
had on any project in years. “We
put this project front and center
in front of these agencies so they
knew they needed to scrutinize it
very closely.”
That close scrutiny revealed
that the Palos Colorados
golf course “would have been
on a large, unstable part of the
land that would require a tremendous amount of grading
with a huge impact on water
quality and habitat,” Jones says.
The Regional Water quality
Control Board expressed these
concerns in several letters to
Richland, the applicant.
Concurrently, Preserve
Lamorinda Open Space hired
attorneys, economists and environmental
specialists (see the
sidebar on red-legged frogs for
an up close and personal view of
a key player in the controversy).
Those experts presented evidence
to the agencies that impact
on wildlife, creeks, and
ponds violated state and federal
environmental laws.
Goodbye Golf Course
The developer considered all the
reports and decided to forego the
golf course in March 2006, saving,
according to Suzanne Jones,
close to a million cubic yards of
grading while greatly reducing
impacts to the red-legged frogs,
raptors, and other animals crossing
the wildlife corridor from
Las Trampas Creek to the Lafayette Reservoir.
The Palos Colorados project
was now a subdivision of
123 homes on 423 acres. The
golf course disappeared. The
subdivision’s “footprint” was reduced
to 70-75 developed acres
from the 280-acre footprint outlined
in the Settlement Agreement.
But this new plan no
longer looked much like the Settlement
Agreement of 1999.
Both Moraga and Lafayette had
anticipated compensation for the
impact of traffic into the new
community. That compensation
would have been based on an
agreed $5 per found of golf.
According to Moraga
Mayor Mike Metcalf, Richfield
agreed to make the town whole
for the loss of golf revenues and
suggested that the reimbursement
for the lost revenue be split
50:50 between Moraga and
Lafayette. The next trick would to be to determine, in Metcalf’s
words, “what was the lump sum
value of that golf course fund?”
Enter lawsuit number 3.
Lafayette sued the Town of
Moraga for agreeing to drop the
golf course from its plans for the
Palos Colorados development,
and argued that their agreement
not to impede further development
of the project was also no
longer valid, since the scope of
the project had changed from
that of the Settlement Agreement
of 1999.
Lafayette Town Manager
Steve Falk explains that
Lafayette then sued Richfield
Developers. Richfield countersued
the City of Lafayette. The
project was at a seeming standstill
again, until, says Falk, “the
new Moraga Town Council was
elected in November 2006.
They worked hard to find a
breakthrough, and we’re gratified
for that.”
According to Falk, the
Lafayette and Moraga councils
recognized that spending thousands
of taxpayer dollars in lawsuits was not the best used of
funds.
The two cities thus formed
a cooperative subcommittee
and, according to Falk, “took a
real leadership role in bringing
this development into a position
to benefit all of Lamorinda.”
Moraga Mayor Mike
Metcalf and Councilmember
Dave Trotter met with Lafayette
Mayor Carol Federighi and
Councilmember Don Tatzin to
hammer out a way to move forward.
Along the way, according
to Mayor Metcalf, Richfield
agreed to pay $5 million to a
fund intended to make the cities
whole for the withdrawal of the
golf course. The fund would be
split between the two cities.
Each city will receive $225,000
when the Vesting Tentative Map
(VTM) is approved. That’s expected
this September. The remaining
$2.25 million per city will be paid when final plans are
approved, perhaps by April
2008.
In exchange for this agreement,
in mid-February 2007,
Lafayette dropped its lawsuit,
Richfield dropped their lawsuit,
and —-importantly – Lafayette
agreed “not to sue as long as
Moraga fulfills its requirements,”
explains Metcalf. The
plan will then need to go back
through grading permits and
final approvals. There could still
be complications, but says
Mayor Metcalf, “they won’t be
coming from Lafayette and
that’s really important. This is a
trust issue and Lafayette has
shown they believe we are capable
of administering this project
to everyone’s benefit.”
Above all, Metcalf is
pleased that the development
will proceed. “This is a good
thing for the Town of Moraga,”
he says, “and it should happen.”
From his City’s perspective,
Lafayette Town Manager Steve
Falk explains, “Lafayette got a
good deal. The developer really
extended itself and I cannot
speak highly enough of the new
Town Council of Moraga. I
think they’re doing a great job.”
For its part, Protect Lamorinda
Open Space says it’s
“about as satisfied as it could
hope to be now that the golf
course is gone.” Suzanne Jones
praises the developer, who was
“very willing to work with us.
And that’s the exception not the
rule.”
Look for frequent updates
on the Palos Colorados project
in the pages of Lamorinda
Weekly. The General Development
Plan is available for public
review in the Moraga Planning
Offices at 329 Rheem.