The high life

Some cities along the Bay receive a degree of protection from wetlands, although due primarily to commercial development the Bay Area has far fewer wetlands than it once did. Redwood City is fortunate to receive some protection from Bair Island, and if Cargill could be convinced to restore its Redwood City saltworks properties back to a more natural state, a much larger portion of the city would gain some protection. But even with that, plenty of the city — in particular, Redwood Shores — could someday find itself in real trouble unless additional steps are taken.

Protecting a city against sea-level rise is going to be an expensive, complicated and time-consuming effort. Although the problem is being discussed at a number of levels ranging from the city all the way up to the federal government, most of the real action taken lately — at least in Redwood City — has been by private developers working to protect their projects.

Beginning in early 2019, I spent a lot of time on the east side of Highway 101 monitoring the so-called “Strada” project site. There, on a roughly triangular 7.9-acre site essentially bordered by Maple Street, Highway 101 and Redwood Creek, a developer hoped to (and still does, as far as I know) build 131 townhomes. Being right up against the creek, these homes would be some of the first in Redwood City to be threatened by sea-level rise if not otherwise protected, so immediately after the parking areas and buildings supporting the former Docktown Marina were demolished, truckload after truckload of soil was brought in to raise the entire 7.9 acres by an impressive 14 feet or so. As the soil was brought in, it was continuously compacted, after which the site was left alone, to naturally compact even further. Today, the raised site stands empty, seemingly well-protected from some degree of future sea-level rise, but as-yet undeveloped.

Not long after the Strada project site had been raised, the county’s project to build a new Navigation Center just next door got underway. That site, although smaller, also had to be raised to a similar degree, affording me a chance to watch the process yet again.

Today, a site just a short distance to the north is being raised as protection against sea-level rise. Currently, the former Century Park 12 Theaters site, more than 14 acres in size, is being raised by “3 feet above the FEMA base flood elevation” using a combination of trucked-in soil and ground-up concrete from the former theater complex. Eventually, a 480-unit apartment complex and a VillaSport athletic club and spa will be built on the elevated site.

Raising up individual sites in this way may protect whatever is built on those sites, but it does not protect their neighbors. Unless the gaps between protected sites are also protected in some manner — either by constructing dikes or by raising up the intervening sites as well — water will still be able to flow around these private islands of protection and make its way into the more vulnerable parts of the city.

Thus, we cannot rely solely on private developers to protect the easternmost low-lying parts of the city. This is perhaps most evident in the plans for the Redwood LIFE project, which would redevelop an 84-acre portion of Redwood Shores that lies along Belmont Slough. If the proposed project is approved, the developer intends not only to raise the entire site by some amount, but also to raise the levees that currently protect that site. But those efforts, while protecting the developer’s 84 acres, would do little to protect the many homes and businesses that occupy the rest of Redwood Shores. For that, private developers will not be of much help.

The battle to protect our cities against sea-level rise is going to be a long, expensive, drawn-out one. Private developers are one key weapon in the fight, but to win we are also going to need massive efforts by a variety of organizations along with creative new ideas.

Greg Wilson is the creator of Walking Redwood City, a blog inspired by his walks throughout Redwood City and adjacent communities. He can be reached at greg@walkingRedwoodCity.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @walkingRWC.