Development of Saranap Old Growth Oaks & Potential Native Burial Site

Tambri Heyden and David Montalbo challenged Oakland residents and city government as they developed what they claimed was going to be their dream forever home in the Oakland hills. The developers tore up protected plant species, including trees and Manzanitas. They built beyond the legal scope of their permits, damaged the hillside, and harassed their neighbors. As soon as the house was completed, they sold the house, not even spending a single night in it.

They are now repeating this process in the unincorporated community of Saranap, in Contra Costa County, hoping that the county officials would be a bunch of rubes. They presented their concept for their dream forever home, claiming they were ready to settle down and be part of the Saranap community. However, in their way stands a grove of old growth oak trees at West Newell Avenue.

The developers applied for a permit to remove the oaks, and were granted permission to do so. This drew opposition from the community and the California Wildlife Foundation. This past Tuesday was the appeals hearing on the permits. Many speakers urged the Board to save the trees, including Saranap residents, Oakland residents who had past experience with the developers, and the arborist caretaker of the famous 350 year old Danville Oak Tree. The CoCo County Board of Supervisors unanimously sided with the developers, ignoring the ecological evidence.

Under the protections that native oak species have in California, the Supervisors had the ability to deny the permits to remove the oaks. The County Supervisors had the ability to imminent domain the land for the public good. The land has sat unused as the community developed around it. There was a long standing history of this property being accessed by the community, and by local wildlife.

There is a very reasonable belief that the site was never previously developed, because it is the location of a Native burial ground. There are houses to the East and West of this site, but this particularly location has never been used for any development. Native people did live in in the area that became Saranap.

There is also a hiking trail on the western edge of the property that has been used for public access up into the hillside. The developers have strongly implied that they will close off access to this trail, despite it's long-standing historic public use as an access point to get up the hill.

There are still other parts of the permitting process that have to be completed before work starts on this location. There is still time to save these trees, and to preserve this land. No tree is supposed to be cut until the building permits are completed. However, the developers have a history of violating their permits, and may ultimately decided to start removing trees.

Contact information for the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors is here: https://www.contracosta.ca.gov/Directory.aspx?DID=238

For those wishing to monitor the site, and inspect the trees, the location of the land is bordered by Olympic Blvd, and the termination point of West Newell Avenue. The location is bikeable from Lafayette BART.