Posted 1/26/98

A proposal to destroy one of the Bay Area's spectacular remaining oak forests for a home / golf course development has rallied environmentally conscious citizens from around the San Francisco Bay. At stake in a Feb. 24, 1998, City of Novato special election is the Black Point Forest and adjacent baylands, for many years the annual site of the Renaissance Faire.

If voters approve them, Measures A and B would allow the Black Point Partnership developer to carve up Black Point's forest, hills and baylands into a residential and recreational complex. This would destroy precious oak woodland and bayland habitats, which are already in a major decline nationwide.

At Black Point a forest of about 30,000 trees connects with seasonal wetlands, making it an unusual ecosystem for the San Pablo and San Francisco bays. The entire site includes about 138 acres of upland forest and 100 acres of seasonal wetlands, which are habitat for wading birds, shorebirds and waterfowl.

Great Blue Heron by Larry Eifert

The woodland habitat of the proposed site is primarily dense forests of Coast live oak and Oregon oak intergrading with California bay and California buckeye on the north-facing slopes of ridges. These species generally range in heights between 30 and 80 feet, with Valley oaks occasionally attaining heights of 125 feet or more.

Black Point developers have said 4282 trees will be removed for the project. The developers have engaged in a four-year advertising campaign to mask the devastating environmental impacts of their proposal. Closer inspection reveals, however, that while several thousand mature trees with a circumference larger than 19 inches would be cut down, there are thousands more trees with smaller circumferences that would be felled without even being added to the count. The magnitude of the actual tree loss never has been disclosed, but it may be as much as three times more than developers have claimed.

A recently adopted Novato General Plan calls for woodland preservation and maintenance of diversity by requiring "replacing removed trees with others of reasonably comparable size and quality." The Black Point Partnership got an exception allowing them to replace the mature oak woodland trees with acorns and seedlings, with no requirements for the trees to survive beyond the first few years.

On Feb. 24, 1998, the issue comes to a head. Measure A is a developer-funded initiative to approve the project master plan. Measure B is a referendum of the Novato City Council's approval of the project. For both measures, a "yes" vote approves the project, while a "no" vote overrules it.

To assist the campaign to save one of the Bay Area's few remaining oak woodland ecosystems, call Citizens for the Right to Vote at 415/ 897-2575. Volunteers are needed for phone banking and other campaign tasks.