Newark Activates Plans for 18-Hole Golf Course and 500 New Homes

 If you’ve driven the Dumbarton Bridge or headed south on 880 lately, you’re painfully aware how morning commute traffic backs up into Fremont and Newark. Ignoring these long-existing conditions—ones that generate air pollution and aggravate health problems—the City of Newark is planning both an 18-hole golf course and 500 new homes. 

 If the City’s impaired vision were realized, the public would endure several years of the additional truck traffic required for construction—and then experience increased congestion on city streets and overcrowding of schools. Clearly these plans threaten our quality of life in Newark, a suburb that advertises its “small town” atmosphere.

 Moreover, these two projects would encroach into the wetlands adjoining Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge. Not only would they disturb existing wildlife habitat; they would also destroy some of the last-remaining wetlands around the Bay. Newark’s wetlands, a little-known treasure, are home to several endangered species, including seals who nurse their young in the Mowry Slough. 

Concerned about all this craziness? Then plan to speak up at the Newark City Council meeting this Thursday Dec. 12th at 7:30 at the Newark City Hall, 5th floor. 

—Paul W. Rea, PhD, Newark