Open Space Above Bay-O-Vista Threatened?

San Leandro's Bay-O-Vista, located nearby , offers sweeping panoramas of San Francisco to the west, but some residents of this upscale neighborhood fear that their bucolic eastern flank could be headed for a change.

Local residents recently received notices that the owner of the San Leandro Rock Company on Lake Chabot Road hopes to rezone an area just beyond the city limits and had submitted a plan for a 126-unit housing development where there is now open space.

"People would see it as a dimishment of the quality of life up here," said Wayne Gregori, president of the Bay-O-Vista Homeowners Association.

The fact that the rezoning and housing proposals both fall under county purview adds some extra concern.

But San Leandro community development director Luke Sims said his reading of one county ordinance suggests that it would be awfully difficult to get the area rezoned from open space to housing.

He noted that in November 2000, county voters passed Measure D, which "effectively precluded development on the 58-acre former San Leandro Rock Quarry on Lake Chabot Road east of the city," according to San Leandro's 2010 Housing Element. (The document is online but huge. Search for "Growth Control Measures" to find the relevant section.)

The city's housing element goes on to state that "Measure D has no sunset clause and is expected to remain in effect at least through 2014."

Sims said that a conversation with county planner Andrew Young, prompted by a Patch inquiry, further suggests that it would take a countywide vote to change the rock quarry's open space designation.

Young was not reachable Thursday.

A call to the San Leandro Rock Company was referred to a contact in San Francisco who could not be reached.

A copy of a site map, a geological look at the site and a layout of the housing plan are attached to this story in PDF form.

Meanwhile, the rezoning and subdivision application will be screened by the county.

The first stage in the process will be a public hearing at 6 p.m., Monday, April 9 at the Castro Valley Library at 3600 Northbridge Avenue. It will be conducted by Alameda County Planning Department staff and the .

A second public hearing before the Alameda County Planning Commission is tentatively scheduled for 6 p.m. on Monday, May 7 in the meeting room at 224 West Winton Avenue in Hayward.