This year, lovers of the East Bay shoreline got a boon: a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to transform a piece of prime shoreline into a park for the people. Governor Gavin Newsom wants the state to foot $125 million of the $175 million purchase price for the former Golden Gate Fields horse-racing track—using funds from the $10 billion 2024 climate bond, Proposition 4.
The catch: Using this money could come at the expense of many other projects, says Annie Burke, executive director of TOGETHER Bay Area, a regional coalition of conservation organizations. Coalition members alone had a $1.26 billion list of potential projects for Proposition 4 money—and Golden Gate Fields wasn’t on it.
The state money would go toward helping the Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit organization, purchase the former Golden Gate Fields, a 161-acre site across Albany and Berkeley, just south of the Albany Bulb. The site has long been envisioned as a landmark park that would provide disadvantaged communities a natural gem in their backyard.
This March, the Trust for Public Land secured an option with the Stronach Group, the owner of the property, to purchase the land for $175 million and then transfer it to the East Bay Regional Park District. Trust for Public Land has until December 15, 2026, to come up with the money, which will also cover the demolition of the remaining grandstands, stables, and other relics of the site’s horse racing past. “This timeline is moving quicker than anyone imagined,” says Allison Brooks, assistant general manager for external affairs at the East Bay Regional Park District. “There’s a lot of variables coming together… We have this administration that’s changing… and a property owner that really wants to move.”
According to Newsom’s May budget revision, the Trust for Public Land says it can raise $30 million from local and philanthropic sources for the purchase, adding to the $20 million that the East Bay Regional Park District has committed. (The May budget revision is an update of the governor’s original budget proposal to incorporate new economic forecasts.)
Newsom’s May budget would round it off. The $125 million would come from about $633 million in remaining funding (accounting for other 2026-2027 budget allocations) from pots in Proposition 4, the bond for environmental and climate work approved by voters in 2024. The money draws from grant programs and funds under the California State Coastal Conservancy (SCC), the Wildlife Conservation Board, and the California Natural Resources Agency. “This acquisition is a once-in-a-century opportunity to repurpose a former horse racing track into an iconic shoreline park and recreational hub,” the proposal says.
The transfer would nearly halve the $43.3 million left for the SCC to give to San Francisco Bay programs, and would reduce funding in competitive grant programs for coastal resilience and fish and wildlife resources that are run by the SCC and the Wildlife Conservation Board. Amy Hutzel, the SCC’s executive officer, wrote in an emailed statement to Bay Nature that supporting the project “aligns squarely with the Conservancy’s objectives for the region and the aims of the Climate Bond.”
Prop 4 money is intended to be spent over a 15-year period. Language in the bill authorizes the Department of Finance to transfer money back to the SCC and Wildlife Conservation Board “to the extent additional philanthropic or other non-state funding sources are identified to offset the state’s contributions.”
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But TOGETHER Bay Area leaders worry, given the limited pot of Prop 4 funds, other projects could lose out with this transfer. “The allocation of funds to the really exciting, really transformative project of Golden Gate Fields can take funding away from the competitive grant-making program that those funds were originally allocated to,” Burke says. In a letter to the State Assembly Budget Committee, Burke wrote, “It’s critical that we invest in smaller projects which are capably led by Native American Tribes, Native-led organizations, community-based organizations, and many others.”
In the letter, Burke requested that $25 million of the $125 million come from the state’s general fund, as opposed to Proposition 4, and for the SCC to get an additional $60 million for its coastal resilience grant program. “We hope this opens the door for further discussion about the funding structure, and not the merit of the Golden Gate Fields Project itself,” wrote Jessica Little, policy director for TOGETHER Bay Area. East Bay Regional Park District supports Burke’s request, says Brooks, especially as money from the general fund has more flexibility. She notes that the park district, too, has projects that were counting on this year’s Prop 4 money that may now need to wait.
The California Council of Land Trusts has not taken a position on the fund transfer. In an emailed statement, executive director Caroline Goodkin wrote, “We are acutely aware that there are more land conservation projects throughout the state than there is funding available.”
Norman La Force, the vice-president of Citizens for East Shore Parks, has spent three decades working to secure a park at Golden Gate Fields. “We have this opportunity, and we need to grab it as we can,” he says. In an emailed statement, Daniel Villaseñor, deputy director of communications for the California Natural Resources Agency, likened the future park to San Francisco’s Crissy Field, a former airstrip that 25 years of restoration transformed into a tidal marsh and popular tourist destination. (Crissy Field’s construction was funded through a historic philanthropic campaign.) “Like the Klamath Dam removal, Salton Sea restoration and big urban park projects, transformational and complex efforts like this require state leadership and directed appropriations,” wrote Villaseñor.
California’s state budget will be finalized on June 15, 2026, for the July 1 start to the fiscal year.
