Outrage as Bay Area racetrack to be turned into giant park at taxpayer cost: ‘We need homes!’

Bay Area residents are outraged that a once-storied racetrack is going to be turned into a giant waterfront park at taxpayer cost when there’s an ongoing housing crisis.

The 161-acre Golden Gate Fields, along San Francisco Bay, has been optioned for purchase for $175 million by a non-profit group called Trust for Public Land, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

After nearly 80 years of thoroughbred racing, the former racetrack closed in 2024. Complicating the purchase of the property for other uses has been the fact that it borders both the city of Berkeley and Albany. The nonprofit group helped negotiate the deal between the landowner and the two cities. 

The group said it will raise the funds for the purchase and next year the land will be handed over to the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD), who will maintain the site, and celebrated the partnership.

Money for the purchase is also expected to come from California’s Prop 4, which was passed in 2024. The ballot measure allows for $10 million in bonds for so-called climate-related projects, such as “increasing recreational opportunities at local parks” and “used to repair state parks.”

Several Bay Area residents are not thrilled and have taken to social media to slam the idea, saying the last thing they need is another recreational space.

“Here’s a better idea: replace this shuttered 160-acre racetrack with 50 acres of ultra-high-density development, and build a park on the remaining 110 acres,” one person wrote.

“This will meet Albany’s housing element 50 times over while helping fund the new park (and burying the highway).”

“So it looks like CA taxpayers will be shelling out the big bucks to ‘protect’ 160 acres of land on the border of Berkeley and Albany from any housing development,” a law professor at UC Davis wrote. “Wouldn’t a new waterfront park have more value if more people could live beside it?”

“We are addicted to ideology and luxury beliefs. There is no shortage of parks and recreational space,” a  third person continued. “We have a shortage of housing in the Bay Area, but we would rather do everything else than build homes.”

“This is a DISGRACE. Here we are in the middle of a massive housing shortage, our kids are leaving California in droves to find an affordable place to live, and we turn this prime housing site over to another park?” a fourth person wrote on Facebook, pointing out the proximity of numerous parks nearby. “WE DO NOT NEED MORE PARKS, WE NEED MORE HOMES!”

However, not everyone agrees. One resident threw their support behind it online, saying that turning the area into one “giant waterfront park is gonna be sick.”

Elizabeth Echols, EBRPD board member for Ward 1, said in a statement on the park’s website that the “opportunity to convert Golden Gate Fields to a fabulous shoreline park serving East Bay residents and the broader Bay Area community is a dream come true for the East Bay Regional Park District Board of Directors.”

“If the acquisition is successful, 161 acres of beautiful shoreline will forever be preserved for parkland for all to enjoy.”

Echols added, “Not only that, restoring the land to a more natural state will go a long way to protecting sensitive shoreline habitat not only for wildlife but also as a means to protect coastal residential communities from the impacts of our changing climate.”

As part of the purchase option, the land must not contain any above-ground infrastructure when it is handed over, the outlet noted.

Guillermo Rodriguez, California state director for the trust, said that they were “still early in the process” and that they “will be engaging community members and stakeholders across” the region for support.

The California Post reached out to East Bay Regional Park District and the nonprofit for comment.

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