February 18, 2022
Dear Neighbors:
Many of you know about the Claremont Hotel’s plan, initiated in 2016, to construct a four-story 43-unit condominium with 2 floors of subterranean parking atop the Hayward fault near the Tunnel Road entrance. The project includes a single-family home on Tunnel Road; 15% club expansion (+250 members); another pool; 7,000 square foot addition to club facilities with a new children’s club, club building, and cabana; another pool; an illuminated basketball court facing private homes on Claremont Avenue; 98 additional parking spots; and a road routing traffic a stone’s throw from private homes behind the hotel. Signature (the developer) and Richard Blum (the biggest investor) are poised to turn a large profit by selling off the landmarked acre slated for the condoplex, a move that would neither benefit the hotel nor the community.
The development further threatens emergency ingress and egress just downhill from the 1991 conflagration that incinerated over 3,000 homes and took 25 lives, exacerbates congestion (as well as air, noise, and light pollution) along Tunnel Road and surrounding streets already choked with traffic, and is situated atop the Hayward Fault. It spells disaster.
All has been quiet during the Covid pandemic… but no longer. A draft environmental impact report (DEIR) is in preparation, marking the start of hearings and litigation.
Two non-profit groups oppose existing plans: Save Our Claremont (https://www.saveourclaremont.org/) and Claremont Preservation Coalition (http://www.claremontpreservationcoalition.org/). We believe there are sounder and safer alternatives to seriously compromising public safety, alternatives the Fairmont, the hotel chain’s owner, has successfully implemented elsewhere.
Please join us by donating, joining our mailing list, signing our online petitions, and volunteering, all at: https://www.saveourclaremont.org/. This will be a very costly, labor-intensive, and protracted endeavor. Together we can build a sensible, safe, beautiful, and livable future for the neighborhood.
David Kessler for Save Our Claremont
