After five years of discussions and negotiations, the City of Concord and the federal government are getting closer to an agreement for reuse of land used at one time by the military.
The land is part of the old Concord Naval Weapons Station property – approximately 58 acres off Olivera Road that hosts buildings where enlisted U.S. Coast Guard personnel once lived. The land is still owned by the Coast Guard, having received it from the Navy in 2007, and Coast Guard enlistees lived there until 2014.
According to a city staff report, it is hoped that by early 2020, the 58 acres can be sold to the City of Concord, with Concord-based DeNova Homes as master developer of new houses there.
Several agreements still must be signed before that process begins.
The city sent a formal letter on Aug. 30 to the federal General Services Administration (which is handling the sale for the Coast Guard) with a price the city is willing to pay and DeNova Homes is willing to fund.
Updates on the negotiations for the Coast Guard land will be presented at Tuesday night’s Concord City Council meeting, which begins at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall, 1950 Parkside Drive in Concord.
The city should do updates on the existing housing and use it for low income housing for military veterans only. It would be a very close knit community if they did that.
This is a cool idea. I’d like to see this happen.
I was just thinking this same thing!!
Great idea! So, unfortunately, it will never happen!
Stop building homes in Concord.
We’ll stop building homes if you stop having kids.
Don’t have kids.
They’re already built!
I recently moved to that area and drive by there often, didn’t know about it before. Seems to me with the housing shortage and homeless problem, all those unit with just a little update could be turned into affordable housing.
Affordable for who? You think these human occupants beneath overpasses were renting luxury apartments before they got booted out? Think they will have enough money to rent a place and still afford drugs booze any tobacco? That will make for a great neighborhood.
It’s my understanding that it would be cheaper to demolish and start over because they’re not to code anymore and full of asbestos. With all the housing going in that area in the next 10+ years, they really need to widen the streets around there (Willow Pass, Port Chicago and Olivera) — it’s already too much traffic for those streets to handle since there’s so many cars coming off the freeways for a shortcut through town and the widening of Hwy 4 won’t help the backup very much (although I hope it does).
Yes, you are correct and I agree with you.
While I see the need for widening of streets like Willow Pass and Port Chicago, I don’t consider it a good idea to widen East Olivera just because of the increase in traffic. It is after all a residential neighborhood street for the most part. Ideally these streets shouldn’t be used as shortcuts.
Sure lets fix it up for the homeless… let’s go ahead and add a needle dispensary too, maybe give them money for food and then lets watch them destroy the neighborhood. You soft headed fools inviting crime do you not see what happen to Antioch when they relaxed the rules for section 8? All those beautiful new neighborhoods now look horrible… cars parking on the lawns, maybe 6 or 8 cars at each house, unsafe schools and shopping areas. Will people never learn that the more you give the more they take? Why does the city council keep pushing Concord further into the liberal Abyss? Can yiu say tax increase to pay for this? Just a horrible idea. Tear them down build a better Concord.
Don’t do anything with it. Let the feral humans take over, and all the asbestos and lead will take care of the problem.
Old military housing is perfect for the homeless. However I’m sure the city is looking to turn over a dime.
Seriously? This is Coast Guard’s vacant housing complex. ~40 units were built in the 50s, so these are probably uninhabitable by now. But the rest – about a 100 units – was built in 1980s. So no lead or asbestos there.
Also these were built for Coast Guard families, so the vast majority are 3-4 bedroom duplexes and triplexes. Would be a waste to turn them over to homeless, no?
@ tashaj
You’re right. The newer ones are actually very nice. A friend of mine lived in one with his family. Great little places. Would be a crime to tear them down. Now the old ones next to them, they can go.
These people that are assuming affordable housing is for the homeless are annoying. Do they not see that housing is not affordable around here anymore!?
I went grocery shopping today … neither is the food.
I didn’t mean for the homeless only, nor did l mean for any homeless. I was thinking of homeless or near homeless that don’t have a drug or drinking problem and can afford rent btw $500-800.00 a month. I recently met a women in her sixties, does not drink or do drugs, lost the apartment she was sharing because her roommate went into a nursing home. This women cannot work due to a disability, but not infirm enough to qualify for a nursing home. She didn’t have a car, makes it difficult. There more people like that than we realize. I know about the housing crunch l have encountered it myself. Finally found a decent place l can afford, but lived in a place l hated for several month and not cheap. I might move to Sacramento or Sonora the next few years.
I have lived here my whole life and played with a girl who lived in Navy housing in the 70’s. My friends dad told my parents they were moving bc the water and ground was contaminated and it wasn’t safe to live there. They built the condo/apt in the 80’s a hand full of people have lived there.The excuse that the city gave was asbestos doesn’t really make any sense since all the houses around here have asbestos and its ok for us to still live here. Many women in this area and in sun terrace neighborhoods have had breast cancer. Could it be related? I live in a court with 12 homes and I know of 6 women that have either died or has had breast cancer. That is half of my court!!! What does the city know and how long have they known that in contra costa county Concord has the highest rate of breast cancer. What is the city hiding from the public???
I agree I know three people personally that close to that area and have breast cancer as well .
Thanks Jade
I can’t believe Concord has the highest rate of breast cancer in the county and the city of Concord doesn’t say anything. City only cares about money!!!
They should make them low income housing for people that work
Lord knows what the City will find as they demolish those structures. Nothing was to local codes because the Government can do anything it wants on its land. As you know, that is an abandoned military airfield. Remains of the runways are still there.
I lived in Monterey during the Ft Ord sale and transition. It took many years but it is now home to a beautiful college campus, CSUMB.
I did a tour of the CNWS last year. They are going to make Willow Pass 2 lanes in each direction and take out the bridge. They also putting a small park between the current neighborhood and new housing on the 58 acres. The area on the east side of Willow Pass will be a county park. We were told this on the tour last year so some changes may have been made. They told us it would cost too much money to fix the current housing on the land.
I hope the traffic issue is also addressed. It would be a nightmare commute coming and going with the current one lane in each direction coming and going!
Return it to nature, we don’t have roads to handle the traffic, there’s no more seats on BART and we have a water crisis in California.
everybody has an opinion on the matter and is happy to speculate without any actual information, but not one of you will show up at the council meeting – not one.
I think it could help the homeless situation. Give only vouchers for food, other necesseties. Have all these large companies (like Kaiser, Google, etc..) who want to help the community provide vollunteers to help with counceling, medical, physch, etc. These people are humans and we, as a free country, should be able to assist. They can repay by working to clean streets and parks for vouchers? Idk…..seems like its wasted without being used.
Concord has a ton of affordable housing down monument, Detroit and the apartments down clayton road. Thats enough already. Can we get some middle class homes for once. Why must everything be low class?? Look at the strip malls down clayton road they are horrible and low class. Can we get something nice for once???