Could 247,000 More People Be Coming to Contra Costa County?

Massive Population Increase Over Nine Years

Contra Costa County has been allocated 20,630 high-density units. You can assume four to six people will move into each unit as that is what occurred in Dublin. Multiplying just four residents for each unit brings another 82,520 people to our County alone. Now add existing real estate projects already underway that will boost the number by another 200% (based on development that is already approved in Lamorinda). This leaves a total of 247,560 more people coming to Contra Costa Couny in just nine years. Effectively, Plan Bay Area (and developers) are constructing another huge city twice the population of Concord, in our crowded Contra Costa County. And more of those sized cities will be added to the eight other Bay Area counties.

So, could existing real estate projects really be this aggressive? Let's examine Orinda. City of Orinda approved five developments: Orinda Senior Apartments, Orinda Grove, Wilder Subdivision, Lavenida Lane and J and J Ranch, totaling 418 properties. Thus, Orinda will be providing for approximately 1,356 more people (not including a Bolinger Canyon development, currently under consideration.) ABAG's allocation for Orinda is 227 units for this nine year period.

Combined, Orinda will be taking on 45 times the population growth in nine years as compared to what it realized between 2000-2010, according to the U.S. Census Report. In a few short years, Orinda is growing by over 10% and the same has been approved for Moraga by Moraga City Council. How will this impact Moraga Road, our educational corridor and life line, that is already operating at maximum capacity? That is for another blog post.