Oakley Drops Data Center Plans, Approves Massive Industrial Project

Following hours of public testimony and discussion, the Oakley City Council voted 4-1 on Tuesday to approve a controversial industrial project that will convert vineyards into a logistics hub, though the plan no longer includes data centers.

The developer removed that possibility from the project’s application before the council’s final vote around midnight.

The 164-acre Bridgehead Industrial Project site sits in the northwestern corner of the east Contra Costa County town of Oakley, south of the San Joaquin Delta. The vineyards on the site also border single-family residences and the Big Break Regional Shoreline Park to the east.

Oxfoot Oakley LLC, the project applicant, requested the council approve a series of land-use changes to begin construction on 10 buildings that could be used for general warehousing, logistics facilities, truck and trailer parking and industrial battery storage. The original project also included data center use as a potential permitted use.

In total, the project will exceed a whopping 7 million square feet, making it one of the largest of its kind in the Bay Area. By comparison, Tesla’s Fremont Factory is more than 5 million square feet. The future tenants have not yet been identified.

During Tuesday’s meeting, residents packed the council’s chambers to express their concerns about the environmental impact of the project on their community and nearby ecosystems. The most pressing objections centered on the enormous water and electricity demands of the potential data centers.

“The risks obviously outweigh the benefits and your commute and comfort is likely not worth the health of our community, right?” 16-year Oakley resident Alyssa Thomas said during public comment. “We certainly cannot house an AI data center, but it’s also important just to keep in mind and for everyone to understand that Oakley does not need another lot full of warehouses.”

Thomas also pointed to the “significant and unavoidable impacts” listed in the project’s Environmental Impact Report, which detailed the loss of farmland, conflicts with air quality plans during the project operation and an increase in air pollutants.

On the other hand, union representatives argued that the project would be a boon to the local economy, providing an estimated 3,500 jobs to a region starved for them.

Eric Haynes, a business representative with the Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 104, argued that even temporary jobs matter to workers.

“If I could work on one job for one year and I live in Oakley, that’s going to give me an extra thousand hours to spend with my family and with my community. I think you have to weigh that heavily,” Haynes said. “I think this is a wonderful opportunity to build something nice, new, shiny, sustainable. And I applaud the developer and the property owner for working with the trades and taking pride in union membership to build this project.”

Former Oakley Councilmember Brad Nix pointed to what he described as a massive jobs-to-housing imbalance in east Contra Costa County.

“The number one issue Oakley has always had has been jobs,” he said. “This is an opportunity to address that.”

When the applicant’s representative Jason Bennett, a principal with development firm JB2 Partners, rose to address the council, he acknowledged the community’s concerns and announced the developer was pulling data centers from the project entirely.

“We have certainly heard the concerns of the community and, in line with the fact that that was never our principal strategy to develop data centers here … I respectfully request a modifier application to remove [the] data center from … the application in its entirety,” he said.

Bennett’s announcement drew cheers and immediately shifted the council’s deliberations.

“I was not in any way ready to support this project with the data centers in it. I just think that it wasn’t something that my constituents were going to support,” Councilmember Shannon Shaw said, before casting her ‘yes’ vote. “It made this a whole lot easier.”

The soon-to-be-uprooted vineyards belong to Fred Cline of Cline Family Cellars, who also owns Oxfoot Oakley LLC. The family claims the vineyards have reached the end of their lifespan.

Even as the data center’s opponents claimed a partial victory, Oakley resident Savioso Ramirez worried the chemical runoff from the project in any form could threaten the local salmon population, and that increased truck traffic would worsen air quality.

“Regardless, if the data center is built there or not, we want to be clear that it will be devastating to the environment,” Ramirez told KQED.

KQED’s Spencer Whitney contributed to this report.