Major Local Advocacy Campaigns
OneShoreline Offshore Barrier
Burlingame/Millbrae
San Mateo County’s Flood and Sea Level Rise Resiliency District, known as OneShoreline, was formed in 2019 to address sea level rise, flooding, coastal erosion, and regional stormwater infrastructure throughout San Mateo County. OneShoreline’s work often spans multiple jurisdictions and involves a variety of public and private stakeholders.
Ravenswood Business District Specific Plan Update
East Palo Alto
The City of East Palo Alto last year kicked off planning to add 4.15 million square feet of new office space to the Ravenswood Business District/4 Corners area, nearly quadrupling the office space currently allowed; Mayor Romero likened that to adding NINE Transamerica buildings.
Redwood Life Development
Redwood Shores
Redwood City is considering a massive new biotech development project, spanning over 25 years of demolition and construction, that could negatively affect wetland ecosystems and shorebirds at the Redwood Shores Ecological Reserve as well as the health and safety of residents.
The developer, Longfellow, has asked for a new zoning plan that would allow new development at three times the size and intensity of buildings currently in the project area. The result would be 130 ft-tall high-rises permitted to work with hazardous organisms such as influenza and COVID-19.
Moffett Park Specific Plan Update
Sunnyvale
Final Specific Plan Adopted 2023: Environmental Wins in Sunnyvale’s Moffett Park Specific Plan (MPSP).
Sunnyvale envisions Moffett Park as a new “Eco-Innovation” district, presenting an opportunity for transformative planning to create a future mixed-use district that is resilient, biodiverse, sustainable, and livable. The proposed land use map lays out office, housing, industrial and mixed-use activity zones, but that’s as far as it goes. Putting the “ecology” into “Eco-innovation,” will require dedicated spaces and specific, dependable commitments to ensure flood resilience, biodiversity, sustainability and livability.
Issues Spotlight
Dark Sky
Life on Earth has a lot in common. Together we have evolved under consistent cycles of day and night. These rhythms are deeply intertwined with our most important behaviors and biological functions. Today, one thing which most living beings have in common is the loss of our dark sky. 80% of the world’s population lives under light-polluted skies, which is so extensive that the Milky Way, a band of white in our sky, remains hidden from more than one-third of humanity. The stars, which have inspired humans for generations and shaped our biology for far longer, have vanished.
Contaminated Waste
San Francisco Bay has been immortalized in countless tourist photographs and numerous movies, but it hides a dirty secret: toxic waste. The dumping of contaminated waste has been an accepted practice along the Bay shoreline for more than 200 years. Despite the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, and the terrible effects of Love Canal’s contamination on its residents in the late 1970’s, this dangerous practice is still commonplace today. Thousands of toxic sites have been identified around the Bay Area. Identified sites vary from businesses, such as dry cleaners or machine shops that used solvents, to sites used for disposal of lead batteries, to complex, massively contaminated areas such as the United Heckathorn and Zeneca sites in Richmond, and Bayview-Hunters Point in San Francisco.
Additional Advocacy
In addition to our Main Campaigns, we’re involved in many cities on a variety of different initiatives.