The Fort Ord Army base was decommissioned in 1994. The base was 28,000 acres large, roughly the same size as San Francisco. The Fort Ord Base Reuse Plan was developed to find new uses for the vacated land; 21,000 acres were designated for conservation while 7,000 acres were designated for development. The CSU Monterey Bay campus, housing, and retail are among the uses for the converted land. Seaside East is a strip of land designated for development under the Fort Ord Base Reuse Plan. The City of Seaside will assume control of the land in 2018. This capstone group interviewed a variety of stakeholders for what the community wanted this property to become. Stakeholders included county and CSUMB representatives as well as environmental, African American, and development interests. Stakeholder interviews for Seaside East suggested that City Hall should be relocated to Seaside East; Del Rey Oaks and Seaside should be socially connected to Seaside East; apartments, community fields, and business park development are appropriate land uses; and the chaparral land. Interviews that focused on Fort Ord assimilation suggest that county land needs long term ownership that can sustain maintenance costs, partnerships are needed for a long term management solution, and ecotourism should be a long term goal. Most also said that the land had great potential for ecological interpretation and as a learning laboratory, potentially through CSUMB and Monterey Peninsula College partnerships. Based on these interviews, this capstone provides specific recommendations for Seaside East and Fort Ord assimilation land use.
Read the final student report delivered to the local gov/community partner.
Sustainable City Years Program Contact Info
University Faculty Contact
Tori Derr
Natural Sciences
Assistant Professor
tderr@csumb.edu
Local Government / Community Contact
Rick Riedl
Public Works
City Engineer
rriedl@ci.seaside.ca.us