Alameda County approves Mosaic Project conditional use permit amid water and wildfire concerns

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted on April 16 to approve a conditional use permit (PLN 202093) for the Mosaic Project, a proposed outdoor education campus on a 37-acre site at 17015 Coal Canyon Road, near Castro Valley. The motion to adopt staff’s resolution — including the four CUP findings, certification of the final environmental impact report using the reduced-footprint alternative, and approval of mitigation and monitoring measures — passed on a roll-call vote: Supervisor Marquez: Aye; Supervisor Tam: Aye; Supervisor Miley: No; Supervisor Fortunato Bass: Aye; President Halbert: Abstain.

The Mosaic Project, which staff said would develop roughly 2 acres of the parcel and leave about 35 acres in open space, would host three classrooms per session (about 95 children and counselors), 12 camping cabins, a multiuse dining and meeting building, caretaker and staff housing, and agricultural activities including small-scale wild-harvest and a community-supported agriculture component. Planning Director Albert Lopez told the board that staff recommends the environmentally superior, reduced-footprint alternative, which shrinks some buildings by approximately 15–20 percent and relocates a council ring outside the creek slope.

Why it mattered: Supervisors, technical experts and hundreds of members of the public spent the hearing focused on three core issues: whether the proposed two private wells are demonstrably separate from Coal Creek and neighboring water users; whether the site’s one-way-in/one-way-out roadway and local topography allow safe and reliable evacuation during a wildfire; and whether the project complies with…