In an 11th-hour decision late Tuesday, the City Council voted to forgo what it thought was the city's last chance to buy 14 acres adjacent to the Arastradero Open Space Preserve.
The land, located at 1525 Arastradero Road and known as the Bressler property, is in foreclosure and was to go on sale Wednesday at a public auction at an opening price of nearly $1.5 million. However, the owner, Jacqueline Bressler, filed for bankruptcy, halting the auction, according to Vice Mayor Joe Simitian. Thus, the city may get another chance to purchase the property after all.
Although a notice of foreclosure and the public sale had been advertised for several weeks, city officials did not learn of the sale until last Friday. That's when Council members received a mailing from a group of doctors from the Veteran's Administration Hospital who want to buy the property and build four or five homes on it. They were testing the political waters, said Council member Gary Fazzino, but they ended up tipping off the competition.
The city has had its own designs on the property for a number of years. Before the Council dedicated 77 acres of the Arastra property across the road as parkland in 1992, the city had spent three years attempting to negotiate a land swap with Bressler.
Last Friday, believing that the property was about to be sold from under their noses, Mayor Liz Kniss and Simitian placed the item on a revised Council agenda for Tuesday's meeting so members could decide if they wanted make a bid the next day. But the Council on Tuesday voted 5-4 to reject a motion to discuss in closed session a possible purchase price for the property. Kniss, Simitian, Fazzino and Council member Micki Schneider were those in favor of making a bid.
Bressler's property is attractive to the city because it would make an ideal location for a parking lot for the Arastradero Preserve. Hikers now have to park on the east side of Arastradero Road and walk across the road to get to the preserve.
Owning the 14 acres would provide other benefits, Simitian said. "It would allow flexibility for possible recreation facilities, eliminate the potential for intrusive development and clearly mark the urban limit line."
However, the majority did not want to make a rushed decision on a bid without assurances that there weren't any other liens or environmental problems associated with the property.
"I would not be comfortable making a decision on 24 hour's notice to spend $1.5 million," said Council member Jean McCown. "I think it's bad public policy."
Council member Dick Rosenbaum was most ardently opposed to the purchase. He said he had never heard any complaints about potential development on the property being obtrusive to the rural character of the neighboring preserve, even before a 1985 fire destroyed Bressler's sprawling ranch house. Rosenbaum said he would rather spend $1.5 million, "one-eighth of our budget stabilization reserve," fixing up developed parks or on other city services.
"There are very few open space areas that seemed like a good deal at the time," Kniss countered, including the 600-acre Arastradero Preserve, which the city paid $7.4 million for in 1976. "Although 24 hours is a short amount of time to make a decision, this is a unique opportunity . . . that would protect the land from development and allow us to continue to connect open-space preserves."
"I don't want to see any additional development in that area," Fazzino said, noting that there has been significant disagreement over the amount of development allowed on the property. The city has maintained that only one house is allowed, albeit a very large one of up to 20,000 square feet. But Bressler and her attorneys say the property is zoned for multiple homes.
Were it not for the time crunch, it appeared that several other Council members would support the purchase, including McCown, Lanie Wheeler and Joe Huber. Now it appears they may get another chance.
--Peter Gauvin
Back up to the Table of Contents Page