A rendering showing a green space and public garden that would be part of the new Serramonte Del Rey neighborhood project proposed by the Jefferson Union High School district in Daly City.
Community members planned to gather Monday afternoon at Daly City’s City Hall to protest plans by the Jefferson Union High School District to remove a 20-year-old community garden to redevelop the Serramonte Del Rey neighborhood.
The school district plans to replace outdated district facilities with faculty and staff apartment housing and will eventually develop the site at Serramonte Boulevard, Campus Drive and Callan Boulevard with six buildings, including one up to 14 stories tall. Plans call for a walkable, bikeable neighborhood with shopping parks and nature trails.
The district sees the project as a future revenue stream and plans to include a community garden in the new space. The City Council approved the preliminary plan on Jan. 10, the district said.
The group 4DalyCity will gather at 4:30 p.m. Monday to protest the project, which would remove The Mystic Garden, which was started as part of a therapeutic school garden project and is a source of “great public benefit and community pride.” An online petition to save it has more than 4,200 signatures.
Garden supporters said the proposed development will obstruct coastal ridgeline views and damage a ridgeline above the garden that protects a fruit orchard, vegetable plots and native plants from coastal fog and wind.
“As we are experiencing devastating climate disasters and Indigenous people are fighting to defend their lands it is extremely reckless of the school district to destroy sequestered carbon on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land to add to the concrete jungle which is so-called Daly City. We must preserve what little community and green spaces we have in our city not only for us, but for the generations after us,” the group said in a press release.
“The new Serramonte Del Rey Neighborhood project will double the amount of the open space at this site by creating family-friendly public parks that include an ADA-accessible community garden, a central green, a playground and a recreation trail,” Toni Presta, superintendent of the Jefferson Union High School District, said in a statement.
“Under the proposed plan, the instructional garden will be relocated. The garden was created on the site of a former tennis court by the District to provide learning resources for adult education students. Over the years, JUHSD has been unable to fund and support those kinds of programs at the garden and right now it does not have the resources to monitor or oversee any educational activities at the site, making it a potential public health and safety liability,” Presta said.
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