Yee offers HMB $10 million bill to put park on Beachwood

Senator Leland Yee has offered to sponsor a bill to allocate $10 million in parks bond money to the city of Half Moon Bay to assist in the acquisition of Beachwood from developer Charles "Chop" Keenan.

With the defeat of AB1991, the city is required by its settlement with Keenan to buy the Beachwood property from him for $18 million. The proposed bill, which Yee’s office says faces no opposition from environmental organizations, would provide the city with up to $10 million in Proposition 1C (2006) money to create a public park on the site.

Although this would prevent the city from building houses on the site, the city has already said that it would lose money if it had to build houses. In June the city released a financial analysis that claimed it would lose $35 million if it could develop as many as 50 houses on the site.

It is unknown how much of the site, which contains wetlands, could be turned into usable park space.

I spoke with Adam Keigwin in Senator Yee’s office and he said that although this was a new proposal, it was still possible to get the bill through the Legislature in the current session.

In June, the city received $5 million from the Association of Bay Area Governments insurance pool as a result of its loss of the Beachwood suit.