In Mountain View, SCVAS supported the adoption of Google’s North Bayshore Master Plan, which looks for the construction of 7,000 residential units; 26 acres of public parks and open space; and 3 million square feet of office space, as well as community facilities and bicycle and pedestrian improvements.
Our organization has participated in planning processes in North Bayshore for over a decade. As trusted advisors to Google, we witnessed how they embraced nature and transformed North Bayshore from a standard office park to a beautiful, butterfly infused campus where monarch and swallowtail flutter, and a special place for birds where egrets and herons, black phoebes and bluebirds raise their new generations.
We look forward to implementation of the biodiversity-supporting elements of the North Bayshore Precise Plan and the Google Master Plan, especially the future Eco Gem which will replace buildings with a nature-themed park adjacent to the Charleston retention basin.
Our advocacy efforts in Mountain View are entering a new and exciting phase: Mountain View is starting to explore how to enhance the city’s urban landscapes for birds and pollinators and implement the City’s Wide Biodiversity goal.
Supporting nature in an urban environment takes intent and attention. Not only do we want to transition landscaping towards California-native species that support all life cycles of birds and pollinators, but we want to change our landscaping maintenance practices and allow leaf litter to accumulate where possible, allow plants to grow in their natural form and densities (rather than square and round plants), and reduce maintenance work during the nesting season.
Shoreline Park and the Google campus in North Bayshore set a spectacularly beautiful example of embracing nature in a human-dominated environment, and we are looking forward to participating in the upcoming development of a new Urban Forest Plan, a new Park Master Plan, and enhancements of urban habitats. We hope you, our members and supporters, will participate and guide Mountain View in this exciting and unique effort.
The City of Cupertino is in the process of preparing a Master Plan for Memorial park. Public engagement, as always, showed great support for integrating nature into future park design.
To support biodiversity and integrate nature into a vibrant and colorful parkland, to provide habitat for songbirds and monarch butterflies, and to provide people with a joyful experience, we suggested that in non-turf landscape areas of the park, Cupertino should:
plant a variety of plants that have high habitat value, bloom in succession over all seasons, and are at least 80% California native trees and flowering plants from our region
Plant at least 3 patches of 100-square feet each of native milkweed plants to support monarch butterflies
Work with local ecology stakeholders to develop maintenance best practices that support biodiversity and are bird and pollinator friendly. As the planning process continues, we hope you, our members and supporters, will participate as plans move forward.
Palo Alto has neglected mitigation and reporting requirements following the construction of the new municipal golf course in 2014. With other Environmental groups, our Environmental Advocacy team has participated in the CEQA process that allowed the reconfiguration of the golf course in 2014. We submitted a lengthy comment letter, concerned with the removal of hundreds of trees, the intentional introduction of an invasive golf course grass species that tolerates saline water, and encroachment of golfers into designated wetlands. Government agencies also commented, and in 2016 issued a long list of mitigations, conditions and reporting requirements for the creation, plantings and maintenance of mitigation wetlands on the golf course. Unfortunately, Palo Alto failed to implement the mitigations and to measure and report on success. The City is currently working with the California Water Quality Control Board to correct the problems, and we are working with the City, hoping for a good outcome for the wetlands and the species that depend on them.
On the bright side, the Palo Alto City Council has indicated that the anticipated new contract for the management of the Animal Shelter, release of feral cats will not be permitted. Predation by domestic cats is the number-one direct, human-caused threat to birds in the United States and Canada. Cats have contributed to the extinction of 63 species of birds, mammals, and reptiles in the wild and continue to adversely impact a wide variety of other species, including those at risk of extinction. The ecological dangers are so critical that the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists domestic cats as one of the world’s worst non-native invasive species.
We thank the city of Palo Alto for recognizing that feral cats do not belong anywhere in our landscapes. Domestic cats should be pampered and cherished in our homes, and not be released to hunt birds and other small animals in the baylands, in parks and open space, along creeks or in our backyards.