Daly City Housing Development Plans Squeezing Out Beloved Community Garden
DALY CITY (KPIX 5) -- Daly City's Serramonte Del Rey neighborhood is about to undergo a major change.
The Jefferson Union High School District is updating outdated facilities and will be replacing them with faculty and staff apartment housing, and will also eventually develop the site into a neighborhood with 6 buildings, including a 14-story building.
"The community meetings that we have had, the people who live right here, are I think, largely in favor of this," said JUHSD Superintendent Toni Presta.
The site is located at 699 Serramonte Boulevard in Daly City.
But there's a group of people who are not pleased with the move, as it means a garden that's been in Daly City for around 20 years will have to go.
"We've been calling it Mystic Garden. This is Daly City's only community garden. It's been here for more than 20 years," said Hibba, an advocate for keeping the garden. "It's a community site, a community space. A green space."
The garden was originally built to be used as an instructional garden for the school district. However, it has since become more of a community garden.
Erick Campbell volunteers to be a caretaker of the garden.
He's holding onto the idea of preserving the green space, and wants to protect the little amount of it that Daly City has.
"They could have easily worked around this and realized this is not just a garden - this is part of nature that is still here," Campbell said.
The school district attempted to work around the garden but it wasn't possible, according to Presta.
"We actually have looked with our architects - we asked, 'how can we build around it, can we keep it a certain way?' We're not able to build the building types and amount of housing that's needed if we do that," Presta said.
The re-developed neighborhood project does include a new community garden, says Presta, with more green space.
"There will be a community garden, probably double the green space that we have now. At least double," she said. "It may not be exactly the same. It's going to be a garden. A community garden. Really what we're saying is we want to work with the community to put in what they would like."
But the garden advocates don't buy it.
"It's not so much about a new garden, it's environmental," Campbell said.
"They say they're going to double the green space, but why would they even demolish this space if that was true? Look how big this space is. It goes so far. It's huge," Hibba said.
Hibba is concerned taking the garden away will have a negative impact on local youth.
"I would describe the garden, first and foremost as a community space, a green space, just a space that is necessary for mental health - especially for adolescents growing up here," she said. "If you continue to keep taking away the safe spaces for our youth, you're pushing them to the streets."
The superintendent says the redevelopment project will have a positive impact. It will bring a much-needed revenue source for the school district, which will benefit its students and the greater community.
"It's a great project for many reasons. It will help fund our underfunded school district - and - it will create a beautiful neighborhood in Daly City and increase housing for the community," she said.
