As promised, Millbrae is taking the California High-Speed Rail Authority, Caltrain and BART to court in an effort to gain control of a thin strip of land near the train station.
The parcel is needed to facilitate a stop for the state’s high-speed rail project — the bullet train planned to one day link San Francisco to Los Angeles, per plans recently released by the rail authority.
Envisioned by the authority is an expansion to Millbrae’s existing train station to serve the line, which would share Caltrain tracks through the Peninsula.
But, in a lawsuit filed this month, the city maintains it needs the 11,000-square-foot plot instead for a road to serve an apartment and office building planned to be built adjacent to the tracks.
The land is currently owned jointly by Caltrain and BART, which have agreed to let the rail authority use it for the station. The city is hoping to acquire the land via eminent domain — a law that allows governments to acquire private property for public use.
The complaint argues the city’s aspirations for the site are for the “greatest public good,” something the city will likely need to prove through litigation. The City Council earlier this year approved a resolution questioning if the rail project would ever come to fruition given funding shortfalls.
“Affordable housing is a more necessary use than either a vacant lot or the future speculative and unfunded relocation of Caltrain rail tracks,” the resolution reads.
The plans approved by the city are for two 10-story and a nine-story building with 488 apartments and nearly 300,000 square feet of office space to go between the tracks and El Camino Real. The city signed off on the project in 2018, however, the area was first slated for such a development in 1998, according to the city.
But those plans are in direct conflict with the rail authority’s vision, outlined in an environmental impact report released last month, which calls for the space to instead include multiple surface level parking lots to serve the station.
The city has long sought to have the station built underground, something the apartment and office plans could necessitate. Before that development can move forward, however, the road will need to be built, according to the city.
Voters in the state in 2008 approved the rail project with a proposition that detailed the route and stops. In 2009, the authority studied placing a track underground through part of Millbrae, Burlingame and San Mateo. But with cost estimates blowing past the original $45 billion estimate, the plan to share Caltrain infrastructure was born.
Construction is currently underway on a 172-mile stretch to link Merced with Bakersfield. Funding to complete the project is now estimated to be more than $100 billion.
As for the city’s new road, acquiring the parcel would allow an existing portion of California Drive to be rerouted closer to the Caltrain tracks and extended further north, before turning to El Camino Real to create a four-way intersection connecting to Victoria Avenue.
The extension would “provide enhanced multimodal circulation with access to the existing BART/Caltrain Station and access to much needed housing,” according to the city’s resolution.
The city already acquired multiple other parcels needed for the task that were previously owned by BART. While the parcel in question spans roughly three blocks, only a half a block section is needed for the road.
An attorney for Caltrain earlier this year said the high-speed rail project intends to use the parcel for tracks, a platform and a pole to support electric infrastructure.
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