Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...LIVERMORE — For more than 25 years, Alameda County voters have held the final say over changes to Measure D, the landmark growth-control measure protecting ranchland and open space around Livermore. County supervisors are now considering whether to ask voters to surrender some of that authority.
District 1 staff have begun reviewing ways to ask voters to allow the Board of Supervisors to amend Measure D without seeking countywide approval for each change. Under one proposal, amendments would require a four-fifths vote of the board. That authority could eventually allow mid-sized wineries and event spaces to operate on parcels smaller than the 100-acre minimum established by the urban growth boundary measure voters approved in 2000.
Opponents warn that giving supervisors such authority could weaken the urban growth boundary and encourage estate housing or commercial development on land voters intended to protect.
Measure D limits development on the vast majority of unincorporated rural land — primarily in East County surrounding Livermore and in the Castro Valley Canyonlands — to single-family home and agricultural uses. The ordinance explicitly states it can only be amended through a countywide vote.
The county’s effort could open the bucolic, cattle-speckled hills north of Livermore for midsize wineries, vineyards, tasting rooms and event spaces, which supporters say would help grow the region’s wine and tourism industries.
A 2022 UC Davis study commissioned by the Tri-Valley Conservancy found that roughly 1,900 of the Livermore Valley’s 2,800 acres of grapevines were at least 20 years old and would likely be removed or replaced by 2030. The study also found that many independent vineyards had not been profitable in 2019 and 2020.
Darcie Kent Estate Winery cited the study, noting that “the Livermore Valley wine country did not attract the level of investment that other emerging wine regions, such as Paso Robles, attracted. One of the issues has been that there are a finite number of landowners inside the (South Livermore Valley Area Plan) and by limiting investment in the Area Plan to a relatively small group, we perhaps restricted the investment pool too severely.”
Alameda County Supervisor David Haubert argues that easing size requirements would help support what he considers the backbone of the Tri-Valley economy.
“Hundreds of acres of vines have been torn out and not replaced. The region has only one modest bed-and-breakfast and only one restaurant,” Haubert said. “This is a direct result of the restrictions.”
Voters in 2000 rejected a competing developer-backed Measure C and approved Measure D, which passed with about 57% support. Measure C offered less restrictive language and would have allowed a proposed 12,500-home development in North Livermore.
Measure C failed after receiving about 47% of the vote, disappointing Livermore officials who were left without county support for thousands of planned homes, according to Contra Costa Times reporting at the time.
“The idea then and now is if there is going to be continued population growth, it should occur in the cities that already allow urban infill,” Dick Schneider, a Sierra Club leader who helped raise support for Measure D in 2000, told this news organization in a recent interview. “Let development occur within the already developed area.”
Proponents of the original measure, including environmental and conservation nonprofits such as the Sierra Club, said allowing supervisors to rewrite its restrictions without returning to voters each time could undermine Measure D’s original intent.
Schneider said that if the county opens Measure D to allow development on smaller parcels, “what you get is large wealthy estates, estate housing for the wealthy, and not real agriculture happening.”
He pointed to the South Livermore Valley Area Plan approved in the 1990s, which allowed property owners to plant vines on 20-acre parcels. While the plan was intended to preserve open space and encourage small vineyards, Schneider said that 30 years later, many of the original vines are being uprooted as they age while market conditions discourage property owners from planting replacements.
“What you end up having is instead of viable agriculture, what you have is estate housing. And that’s not agriculture, and that’s not open space,” Schneider said. “No grazing, no crops.”
Legal challenges to Measure D in 2001 and 2003 were rejected by California’s First District Court of Appeal. According to a 2003 California Planning and Development Department Report, developers alleged Measure D violated state housing law by limiting residential development and the state’s single-subject rule for ballot measures because it affected both the urban growth boundary and land-use designation. Judges rejected both claims.
Ballot initiatives that sought to open nearby land for development have also been overwhelmingly rejected. In 2014, Dublin’s Measure T, which would have allowed development in Doolan Canyon, lost with 84% of voters opposed.
While landowners and business operators have frequently petitioned the county to permit nonagricultural commercial uses, the only successful amendments have been limited changes approved through ballot measures. In 2022, Alameda County voters amended Measure D to increase the allowable size of agricultural buildings and covered equestrian arenas relative to the surrounding parcel. The restrictions have fueled a long-running debate over whether Measure D continues to protect working farms or has made agricultural land too difficult to use economically.
“Farming has changed a lot in the past 30 years. I believe hundreds of people would invest in a 10-acre farm, even a 5-acre farm,” Haubert said. “However, a 100-acre minimum is just not consistent with reality today.”
At Darcie Kent Estate Winery, a nationally recognized business known for its Sauvignon Blancs and Pinot Noirs, CEO David Kent said updating Measure D to permit more uses in the county’s unincorporated areas could have a multiplier effect on the Livermore Valley economy.
“The (Board of Supervisors) should consider amending Measure D to allow the supervisors to expand the Area Plan to select parcels outside the current 1-mile expansion limitation so that other agritourism investments in wineries, vineyards, lodging and destination restaurants, in sensible locations, can benefit from the winery-related uses that landowners inside the (South Livermore Valley Area Plan) currently enjoy,” Kent said.
Samantha Lanzone, an equestrian trainer on Doolan Road north of Livermore, said the property offers easy access to Interstate 580 while feeling as remote as Wyoming’s golden hills. But she said drought and reports of dry aquifers have made her hesitant about additional development north of Greenville Road.
“Just look at the hills. They went brown at the beginning of June this year. We normally have green hills until the middle of July,” Lanzone said. “It’s great to support the business of wine, which I’m not anti-that at all. I’m just saying we need a water source.”
Sarah Ranney, director of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter for Sierra Club, said it’s still too early to tell what exactly the board wants to do with Measure D. She said her organization is watching the board’s intentions closely.
“Any change to that really needs to go before voters so that they have a say in future decisions,” Ranney said. “Our strategy for managing the environmental crisis is to support infill housing and to protect open space and preserve it for ecosystems. Measure D has been one way that’s been very important in our region to maintain that.”
During a board meeting Tuesday, supervisors discussed a county survey that indicated limited public support for development in eastern Alameda County. A question about giving the Board of Supervisors authority to amend Measure D with a four-fifths vote produced mixed results: 48% supported the proposal while 46% opposed it.
Supervisors Nate Miley and Haubert said the poll was a good start toward understanding the community’s interest in amending Measure D, but the county needed to build greater consensus before attempting to ease its land-use restrictions. They said more outreach would be needed to inform the public about Measure D and pledged not to rush any amendment.
“Let farmers decide about the future of agricultural land,” Haubert said. “Let farmers decide what they need.”