The city of Martinez and a Texas-based real estate company have formally agreed to keep negotiating for the sale of 297 acres of hilly land south of state Highway 4 — part of it believed to have been part of environmentalist John Muir’s estate.
The Martinez City Council, at a special meeting, approved an agreement to continue negotiations with the Richfield Real Estate Corporation for the sale of the hilly land between Alhambra Avenue and Alhambra Valley Road. It’s about a mile south of the home of Muir, which is now a National Park Service historical site.
The newest agreement runs until mid-July, and could be extended into January 2021.
Martinez and Richfield (and Richfield’s predecessor company Richland Development Corp.) have had a long history with this piece of land. Richland originally approached the city in July 1990 with the first housing plan for that land.
In July 2011, the City Council approved Alhambra Highlands, a 109-single-family-home development on 76 acres within the 297-acre parcel.
But there were delays in construction, with a soft housing market at the time, and physical challenges in building on the hilly terrain.
Richfield then agreed to delay project grading until at least April 2014 to give outside parties time to explore buying the land to keep it as open space. No such parties stepped up.
In July 2016, five years after the Richfield housing project was approved, city officials began talks with the Texas-based developer to buy the land to preserve as open space. To date, the city and Richfield have not been able to come to terms on a sale.
Area conservationists have long been encouraging this sale. A small part of the 297 acres is believed to have originally belonged to John Muir, and they see Alhambra Highlands as a link in the envisioned John Muir Heritage Trail, a 17-mile loop incorporating existing trails in nearby Briones Regional Park, the John Muir National Historic Site and surrounding areas.
Meanwhile, plans for the housing project remain alive, with Richfield proceeding with various approvals needed to build.
photo credit: Sam Richards
It will pass. Martinez is trying to become the Next Antioch.
I guess the corona virus shutdown will leave the City with plenty of money to fund yet another NIMBY project.
Keep the preservation plan negotiations alive! The very last thing we need is 300 acres of million dollar homes on that parcel.
Martinez is corrupt from top to bottom. Only a handful of perople make decisions based on their own greed. They do not understand supply and demand. If they would focus on cleaning up the city and working with what it has instead of bulid build build it would be much better. People would want to move here and pay top dollar. Instead they are destroying the open space and not fixing the downtown area.
Exactly. At this point, Contra Costa County needs to Annex Martinez into County…….wouldn’t be any worse.
The code enforcement will not answer phones / are unaccountable, so you cannot get them to get people to clean up their front yard junkyards or bring in their garbage csns. And this has nothing to do with this current COVID situation, it’s been going on too long.
Now shopping carts are beginning to flood areas, no response.
I’m going to take the shopping cart to the metal recycling place.
Support the Alhambra Hills Open Space Committee https://www.facebook.com/Alhambra-Hills-Open-Space-Committee-189042531139359/
Support the John Muir Land Trust: https://www.jmlt.org/
That land has always been private property, correct? It’s never been open to the public? Considering we have miles and miles of open space next door in Briones, I’m not sure the loss of that land will have any major effect. I live very close to that area and as far as I know, it’s only been used for cattle grazing. If they can save the oak trees, what’s the harm? They’re no doubt looking to build another Hidden Pond subdivision like down the road in Lafayette, Homes in the $2-$3 million range.