A Vote for Solar Power -- With a Hitch

Here in the sunny suburbs east of San Francisco, voters are being offered a chance to make their city a leader in solar power at a time of growing anxiety over energy prices and global warming.

A measure on Livermore’s Nov. 8 ballot would allow developer Pardee Homes to build what it says would be the country’s largest completely solar community, with 2,450 homes equipped to harvest the sun’s energy.

“This is an incredible opportunity to create a model community with the most energy-efficient homes we can provide,” said Carlene Matchniff, a vice president for the developer. “It sets a high standard for green building.”

But there’s a catch: Livermore voters must agree to allow construction on hundreds of acres of protected open space and expand the city limits to include more than two square miles of picturesque grassland.

Opponents, including environmental groups and the majority of the City Council, are fighting the measure, which they claim would encourage sprawl, destroy habitat and clog traffic on one of Northern California’s most congested freeways.

“The bottom line is, they want to build 2,450 homes outside the city on sensitive lands,” said David Reid of the Greenbelt Alliance. “All the solar panels in the world don’t make that environmentally friendly.”

Los Angeles-based Pardee Homes has been waging an expensive campaign to persuade Livermore’s 44,000 registered voters to approve Measure D, which it sponsored.

Pardee expects to spend about $3 million on a campaign that includes television and radio ads. Opponents, by contrast, expect to spend about $150,000.

The election is being watched closely as a test of whether a developer can use the ballot box to change land-use regulations and bypass traditional planning.

Residents of nearby Antioch, Brentwood and Pittsburg vote Tuesday on similar developer-sponsored measures expanding city limits to add housing, but those measures have wider community support.

This former ranching town about 45 miles east of San Francisco has become one of the Bay Area’s outer suburbs. Situated along Interstate 580, the city of 75,000 is also home to a burgeoning wine industry and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, known for nuclear weapons and energy research.

Measure D would incorporate 1,400 acres of ranch land, where residents have fought off developers for more than three decades. Five years ago, voters approved an open-space initiative that restricted development in that area and others.

To entice voters, Pardee offered to build a 130-acre sports park, preserve 750 acres as open space and provide land and funding for a badly needed high school. About 450 acres would be set aside for the new homes that backers say would help ease the region’s housing shortage.

“It’s probably the best project Livermore’s seen in decades, if ever,” said Councilwoman Lorraine Dietrich. “It adds amenities to the community at no expense to the taxpayer, and it enriches the balance of housing choices available.”

Pardee, a division of Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Co. of Federal Way, Wash., has vowed to make the Livermore Trails community a national example for sustainable living. Every home would have rooftop solar panels that could lower electricity bills 50% to 60% and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Homeowners would be credited for any excess energy generated.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. executives and California Energy Commission officials support the solar project. But Mayor Marshall Kamena and the City Council’s “slow growth” majority oppose the plan.