Pro-City Group Hosts Castro Valley Plan Discussion

Peter Rosen moderates a meeting on the Castro Valley Specific Plan held Sunday, November 5 at the Castro Valley Libray.

Alameda County’s Specific Plan for Castro Valley needs much more public participation, and the process should allow it, longtime resident Peter Rosen told about 50 people at a public meeting on that plan at the Castro Valley Library on Sunday, November 5. 

Only one public meeting has been held by the county to discuss the plan, Rosen said, and they are not planning more. For the Eden area, the county held multiple public meetings, and a year and a half was spent discussing the plan, he said

Rosen and other people active in Castro Valley cityhood efforts called Sunday’s meeting. However, cityhood was not the focus of the meeting, which looked at what Castro Valley residents would like their community to do to build a vibrant downtown.

“People may say they’d like a really nice restaurant, but they won’t get it if the rules that are in place attract little but fast food,” he said.

Communities usually update their general and specific plans every five to seven years, Rosen said. In the case of Castro Valley, though, the county last updated the Specific Plan in 1993. Since then, the state has mandated that more housing be built by all communities.

Attendees also reviewed parking, including behind stores on Castro Valley Boulevard; consideration of Adobe Park as a civic center; housing near BART, as well as right by it; outdoor gathering spaces; attracting jobs; improved internet access to attract businesses; and making downtown more vibrant overall. 

Craig Semmelmeyer, the developer of the Castro Valley Marketplace, compared Castro Valley’s planning results with those of Lafayette over time. The two towns looked similar in 1964, but Lafayette gained local control over planning when it became a city in 1968, and the two towns look quite different today, he said.  

Rosen showed slides of county plans for Castro Valley based on the one county public meeting in May and a presentation before the Castro Valley Municipal Advisory Committee (MAC) in October.

The county has proposed changes for the areas around Eden Medical Center, Castro Village, the BART station, and the site formerly occupied by Rite Aid. Members of the audience joined Rosen in finding fault with the proposals, with some saying it was clear the county planners lived out of town. 

While the meeting wasn’t concerned primarily with cityhood, Rosen reminded the audience that a long-awaited report on that topic is being presented tomorrow in Dublin. 

The Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), a county body, would need to approve any cityhood effort. The final report of a consultant on cityhood’s financial feasibility, along with recommendations, will be heard by the LAFCO board at Dublin City Hall, 100 Civic Plaza, at 2 p.m. on Thursday, November 9. 

One can attend in person or on Zoom at https://alamedalafco.org/meetings/.

Rosen urged everyone at Sunday’s meeting to participate in an online discussion of Specific Plan ideas, regardless of one’s views on cityhood itself, on the cityhood website,https://castrovalleycity.com/. Links to important documents on Specific Plan proposals and meetings can also be found on that website.