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Timeline accepted for large Harmony Naval Weapons Station growth

CONCORD — Drafts of detailed renderings and land-use plans for the huge transformation envisioned for the previous Harmony Naval Weapons Station ought to lastly be prepared for neighborhood enter by Nov. 14.

That’s a fast acceleration for a challenge that’s taken almost 20 years and three totally different grasp builders to conceive the newest billion-dollar imaginative and prescient: tens of hundreds of houses and tens of millions of square-feet of faculties, places of work, outlets and eating places.

Up till now, that imaginative and prescient has extra intently resembled a mirage because the flip of the century, largely due to a historical past of labor disputes, energy performs and allegations of backroom offers.

The present, daring timeline was unanimously accepted throughout a particular assembly Tuesday, when the Harmony Metropolis Council — appearing because the Native Reuse Authority — formally inked an unique negotiating settlement with Brookfield Properties — the primary of many a number of authorized agreements that may make clear ultimate timelines, prices and techniques to develop the positioning’s remaining 2,350 acres of barren land.

The intention is to sq. away all of those particulars outlined in a “Time period Sheet” for elected officers’ approval inside the first few weeks of 2024.

A few of these situations included guarantees to designate at the least 25% of housing on the decommissioned Navy base web site as reasonably priced, rent 40% of its development workforce from inside Contra Costa County and mitigate hazardous contamination discovered on the property — a portion of land south of the still-existing Army Ocean Terminal Harmony, which sits on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

If all goes in accordance with plan, that course of will kickstart a 24-month timeline for the developer, Brookfield Properties, to hammer out a number of essential planning paperwork, together with a Particular Plan and Environmental Affect Report. On the identical time, town will deal with an Financial Growth Conveyance settlement with the U.S. Navy to formally switch possession of the property to town.

Brookfield’s crew expects to have all the required entitlements prepared for ultimate approvals by Harmony’s Planning Fee and Metropolis Council by Jan. 2026.

Whereas that may be a lot to show round in such a brief period of time, Josh Roden, president of Brookfield’s Northern California land and housing division, was so assured that he signed the settlement earlier than Tuesday’s 6pm assembly started.

“Sure, (this) is an aggressive timeframe, however we’re as much as the problem of doing that,” Roden stated. “We’re extraordinarily excited — we’ve already began assembly with a number of the stakeholders, and we’re completely happy to be right here and look ahead to creating a tremendous new addition to Harmony.”

Harmony Mayor Laura Hoffmeister chimed in so as to add that town is allowed to approve administrative extensions for just a few weeks, if paperwork is taking longer than anticipated.

Tuesday’s contract additionally requires the developer to pay $250,000 upfront for any prices town incurs in the course of the subsequent 120 days of labor, in addition to reimburse town for all upcoming workers time and bills wanted to course of the in depth listing of paperwork that also must be mentioned between now and Jan. 2026.

Moreover, all Brookfield workers are forbidden from making any marketing campaign contributions to present and future candidates for the Harmony Metropolis Council — together with councilmembers operating for different places of work — throughout that timeframe. It’s unclear if Brookfield’s myriad enterprise subsidiaries are additionally barred from funding political campaigns.

Regardless of this ahead momentum, present timelines for ultimate phases of development should not anticipated to be accomplished for one more 30 to 40 years.

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