California
Environmentalists call this project ‘the worst ridgeline development in Northern California’ — and just got it delayed
CONTRA COSTA — Fearing the development of a major ridgeline just outside Pittsburg, environmentalists are hoping to convince local officials and the developer to create an open-space buffer between them.
Twice approved by the Pittsburg City Council, the Discovery Builders’ Faria project proposes to build some 1,500 homes in the hills southwest of Pittsburg overlooking Thurgood Marshall Regional Park in Concord, where the former Naval Weapons Station was once located.
But before any work can begin, the 606 acres of land must first be annexed into Pittsburg. The Contra Costa Local Agency Formation Commission, which oversees such boundary changes, was set to do that this week, but the item was continued after the small agency was flooded with hundreds of emails and letters, mainly from members and supporters of the nonprofit Save Mount Diablo who have environmental concerns about the proposed project, according to Lou Ann Texeira, executive officer of LAFCO. On its website, Save Mount Diablo calls the planned development “the disastrous Faria project that would bulldoze the top of Pittsburg’s hills.”
Texeira said she reached out to the involved parties to arrange a meeting before the project comes before the agency again on June 12.
“I’m just encouraging them to talk to one another and maybe work something out, to preserve permanent open space in that area,” she said.
In an April 3 letter to LAFCO, Juan Pablo Galván Martínez, senior land use manager at Save Mount Diablo, laid out the group’s concerns, including the project’s potential grading and development of the major ridgeline between Pittsburg and Concord. The project, they say, “would damage resources and agricultural land,” and mitigations are “not sufficient.”
In the 10-page letter, the nonprofit said the Albert Seeno III development group “never provided project-level environmental review as LAFCO has repeatedly said it requires,” nor has it submitted a detailed grading plan or an engineered subdivision map with house lots and streets — something that routinely happens everywhere else at the beginning of environmental review.”
The environmental group also wants the developer to provide more detailed “information that would allow analyses of what would be visible and what would prevent drastic visual and biological impacts.”
In addition, the group is asking for a 400- to 500-foot buffer from Faria’s western fence line to reduce aesthetic and biological impacts, reduce fire hazards and “offset negative impacts of carbon pollution due to project construction, and serve as mitigation for impacts to agricultural land.”
Seth Adams, land conservation director for Save Mount Diablo, said the buffer zone would help.
“I think a whole bunch of issues can be resolved by making a bigger buffer on this county unincorporated land between the development footprint and the edge of Concord,” he said.
Louis Parsons, president of Discovery Builders, said on Monday that Save Mount Diablo “is confused about the Contra Costa LAFCO’s role or is attempting to confuse the public and decisionmakers.”
“The fact is the shape and scope of the project is already approved by the city of Pittsburg,” he wrote in an email.
As for LAFCO’s role, it is to approve the city’s boundaries and “is limited to determining whether the project site can be served by public facilities and services, and related matters,” Parsons wrote. All service providers have already confirmed that they can provide necessary services, he said.
“The agency has enough information to make this decision,” he added. “State law is very clear that LAFCO only needs, and only can demand, adopted zoning plans and general policies to make a decision in these circumstances.”
Parsons further called the project’s environmental review “robust, encompassing thousands of pages” and said the proposed development “satisfies all environmental regulations, including important habitat conservation policies adopted by various local cities and the Contra Costa County Habitat Conservancy.”
He called Save Mount Diablo’s challenge “meritless.”
Plans to develop the hills date back to 2005 when voter-approved Measure P moved the Faria site within Pittsburg’s urban boundary. The city then approved an agreement with Seeno that established guidelines for a permanent greenbelt buffer along the inner edges of the boundary.
The developer filed an application in 2010, modified it in 2014 and again in 2017. The council first approved a version of the project in 2021. But months later, Save Mount Diablo sued, challenging the city’s approval of a planned 1,500-home project.
A judge in 2022 ruled that the city’s environmental review failed to properly analyze the project’s effects on air quality, traffic, water supply and possible impacts of the proposed 150 accessory dwelling units. The developer’s request for a new trial was rejected, and the city later revised some of the environmental documents.
The project was dealt another blow in early 2023 when the city’s planning commission failed to recommend it. But in April of that same year, the City Council gave it a green light.
Pittsburg city officials could not be reached for comment.
Adams said the nonprofit is not against all development but noted there are ways to protect the ridgeline, and the Faria development could be improved to do that.
As it is, Adams called the project “the worst ridgeline development in Northern California.” It not only would be overlooking park open space, “it would be next to it in various places,” he said.
Discovery Builders, meanwhile, said they previously agreed with the East Bay Regional Park District “to better harmonize the proposed development” with the district’s recreational plans. The developer had sued EBRPD in 2020, saying the new regional park would cause undisclosed impacts on the environment and their planned 606-acre Faria housing development. But after lengthy discussions, the parties settled, and the park district agreed not to object to annexation.
Adams blames any delays on the developer.
“All of the delays were caused by Seeno, primarily, because they’ve never, ever actually revealed the true nature of the project,” he said.
Texiera, meanwhile, said that if LAFCO approves the project in June, there will be a 30-day reconsideration period before approvals would be finalized, unless there are more challenges.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
California air regulators on Friday approved a contentious overhaul of the state’s carbon market, creating a program that could steer billions of dollars in free pollution permits to oil refineries and other major polluters over the objections of environmental groups, key lawmakers and three of the board’s own members.
Ten members of the California Air Resources Board voted to adopt the changes to its cap-and-invest program after two days of lengthy hearings, including a full day dedicated to hundreds of public comments.
The overhaul followed intensive lobbying by the oil industry as well as pressure from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration to help keep refineries operating in the state amid rising gas prices.
The approval sets up a potential budget fight in Sacramento. The Legislative Analyst’s Office projects that quarterly auction revenue for state climate programs will drop from roughly $4 billion a year to about $2 billion under the new overhaul.
Such a shortfall would effectively zero out programs lawmakers spent last year fighting to fund: affordable housing, public transit, drinking water in low-income communities and pollution monitoring in California’s most polluted neighborhoods.
The governor’s office praised the measure as a compromise that balanced economic uncertainty with the state’s climate goals. Refinery closures and the Iran-Israel war have driven average California gas prices above $6 a gallon.
Newsom, in a statement, used the moment to draw a contrast with President Donald Trump.
“While Trump sows ongoing chaos and uncertainty, California is staying focused by protecting our economy, safeguarding public health, and doubling down on the clean energy future all Californians deserve,” he said.
Environmentalists warned the changes to the program amount to a giveaway to the fossil fuel industry that weakens California’s only program setting a firm cap on greenhouse gas emissions.
Katelyn Roedner Sutter, California senior director for the Environmental Defense Fund, called the decision “deeply misguided” for prioritizing polluters over communities.
“Newsom’s air regulators are handing billions to oil executives at the expense of our climate, health, and affordability for working families in a rushed process that has shortchanged meaningful public participation,” said Bahram Fazeli, policy director at Communities for a Better Environment.
How the program works — and what changes
California’s 13-year-old carbon market forces major polluters to buy permits while the state lowers the overall cap each year. Friday’s vote will reduce those permits – and creates a new subsidy program carved out of the market.
The program, which may still see changes, could make available a new pool of free pollution permits available to industry valued at as much as $4 billion. Companies that pledge to invest in clean energy and efficiency may qualify for the permits in exchange for investments in clean energy.
The pool will be capped at 118.3 million permits — the same number the air board has said must come off the market for California to hit its 2030 climate target. Environmentalists say the proposal risks wiping out those reductions.
Half are reserved for the fossil fuel sector. A recent Berkeley analysis, by the chair of an independent committee that oversees the carbon market, found refineries could end up with more free permits than they need to cover their emissions.
The air board has defended the design. Officials say the credits will go only to companies undertaking decarbonization projects, will be limited and temporary and can be clawed back if companies misuse them. The plan, they say, is meant to keep California refineries operating at a time of mounting closures and global market pressure. According to air regulators, the amended program will spur clean-energy investment as Trump cuts federal support.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
A 40-year-old Los Angeles man was charged with murder after allegedly killing his girlfriend and kidnapping their young child before fleeing to Mexico, according to authorities.
Ruben Fregosojuarez has been charged one count of murder and one misdemeanor count of child abuse under circumstance or conditions other than great bodily injury or death, according to a Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office news release. Authorities first identified him as Ruben Fregoso but Los Angeles County prosecutors listed him as Ruben Fregosojuarez.
On Monday around 12:39 p.m., the Los Angeles Police Department conducted a welfare check in the 2600 block of South Alsace Avenue in West Adams, police said in a news release.
Officers found a woman dead inside the home “as a result of violence” and the woman’s daughter missing, police said. On Monday night, the California Highway Patrol issued an Amber Alert for the child, Daleza.
Photos obtained by NBC4 appear to show Fregosojuarez in a parking garage in San Ysidro with the girl on Sunday. The California Highway Patrol has listed her age as 4 years old but Los Angeles police say the girl is 5. She is also described as the suspect’s daughter.
The alert said that the girl was last seen with Fregosojuarez, who allegedly abducted her in a 2019 Land Rover Discovery, on Sunday at about 4 a.m.
The CHP posted in an update that the vehicle was found but that the child and man were still missing. The girl is described as 3 feet tall, 45 pounds, and having black hair and brown eyes.
California’s attorney general is suing the consumer genetics testing company formerly known as 23andMe, alleging the company failed to protect customers’ sensitive personal information in a massive 2023 data breach that exposed the ancestry and genetic data of nearly 7 million people.
Attorney General Rob Bonta filed the lawsuit on Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court against Chrome Holding Co., formerly known as 23andMe, accusing the company of failing to properly investigate or respond to numerous warnings that its systems had been compromised. The company’s mail-in self-testing kits became synonymous with DNA testing before it filed for bankruptcy in 2025.
In 2023, cybercriminals breached 23andMe’s systems by using a “credential-stuffing attack,” which involves bombarding online accounts with huge sets of user names and passwords stolen in previous unrelated attacks. Over a period of months, the intruders were able to make off with the personal data of more than 6.9 million people.
“23andMe’s security measures were so lax that the threat actor was able to operate undetected within 23andMe’s systems for over five months, and remarkably, 23andMe only began investigating after the threat actor offered the stolen user data for sale on the dark web and reached out to 23andMe to demand a ransom,” Bonta’s office said in the complaint.
The San Francisco-based company, which allowed people to submit genetic materials and get a snapshot of their ancestry, revealed in October 2023 that hackers had accessed customer information in the prolonged data breach that targeted customers with Chinese or Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. The stolen data of more than 1 million Asian-Pacific Islander and Ashkenazi Jewish users was later posted for sale on the dark web.
“The sale of this data on the dark web took place amidst a period of mounting anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander and antisemitic hate and violence,” Bonta said in a press release. “This is disturbing and incredibly dangerous.”
A January 2024 lawsuit accused the company of not doing enough to protect its customers and not notifying certain customers that their data had been targeted specifically. It later settled the lawsuit for $30 million.
23andMe representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
At its peak, 23andMe became the best-known name in the emerging area of DNA self-testing, with users paying upwards of $99 for kits that gave them insights into their genetic makeup, potential relatives and ancestry. But the company’s momentum slowed down in recent years after its $3.5 billion public offering in 2021.
Last July, TTAM Research Institute, a nonprofit led by Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe’s cofounder and former CEO, acquired 23andMe’s assets for $305 million.
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