Rare Flower Stops Developers
By Jeff Swenerton

    There is a flower so rare it only grows in two small locations—and one of them is smack in the middle of a new development in the Oakland hills.
The tiny endangered plant known as presidio clarkia, a member of the evening-primrose family, is found in a total habitat of less than five acres in San Francisco’s Presidio and the Oakland hills, but it is mighty enough to have put the brakes on a plan by Andalucia Properties to develop 11/3 acres of steep hillside around Crestmont Drive and Redwood Road in Oakland.

Purchased nine years ago, the property was originally intended to be developed into five homes, but after the pink flower was discovered on the land, the plan was scrapped in favor of building only four homes and adding a conservation easement on the remaining two-thirds of the property to help protect what is left of the flower’s shrinking habitat.

But a local environmental group called the Center for Biological Diversity (www.biologicaldiversity.org) objected to the plan, saying that in similar cases of plant versus developer (such as the Oakland Hills Tennis Club and Chabot Space and Science Center, located nearby) builders haven’t followed through on their agreements to protect endangered flora. The center also claims the city itself has contributed to the decline in population of these plants through “careless vegetation management activities” and is in violation of the U.S. and California Endangered Species Acts, which require anyone who plans to destroy a native plant to get a “take” permit first, as well as file a conservation plan.