It's still years early in the game before the real battle hits the field, but the SF Examiner took a closer look yesterday at the Redwood City megadevelopment that would turn Cargill's old salt harvesting site into somewhere between 8,000 and 12,000 homes. Under the banner of the "50/50 Balanced Plan," Arizona-based DMB Associates is planning to develop half of the salt-harvesting site, while restoring the other half to open space use and tidal marshes. This is all happening on a $200 million site that Cargill held onto after selling most of its other salt land to government agencies that plan to restore shoreline habitats.
A little over a week ago, former San Francisco mayor Art Agnos showed no shyness in declaring the Saltworks project pretty much the best thing ever. In the spirit of claiming the fashionable eco high ground, the project does aim for a "transit-oriented" community, perhaps linking homes with downtown with a trolley. Before this is all over, the project has to be approved by a ton of agencies — one of which has jurisdiction over approval of bay-fill projects. A taste of battles to come: no one even agrees on whether Saltworks will be a bay-fill project, since it'll happen in salt ponds, and therefore may not be considered as filling in the bay. This should be fun.
· Land war heating up over Cargill salt ponds [SF Examiner]
· Redwood City Saltworks [Website]
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