City to install new landscaping
on seven gateway medians

Seven of the city’s entry medians are scheduled for landscape upgrades this year. At the Feb. 16 council meeting, the city council directed staff to move forward with the improvements for entry medians at (1) Eagle Peak and Oakhurst (west); (2) Keller Ridge Dr. and Eagle Peak Dr; (3) Eagle Peak Dr. and Oakhurst Dr. (east); (4) Peacock Creek Dr. at Clayton Rd. first median; (5) Regency Dr. at Marsh Creek Rd.; (6) Entry to the city on Marsh Creek Rd. at Diablo Parkway; (7) Marsh Creek Rd. on the east side from Town Center sign to Center St.

With the recent rains, the city is finally seeing some light at the end of the water-restriction tunnel and is ready to move forward on one long-needed landscaping project.

Last April, the City Council directed Maintenance Supervisor John Johnston to draw up plans for replacing the landscaping in entry medians and set aside $300,000 from the Clayton Landscape Maintenance District reserves for the project.

At the Feb. 16 council meeting, Johnston presented conceptual designs for the entry medians at the main subdivision entries and the eastern entry to the city on Marsh Creek Rd.
All of the designs incorporate a variety of hardscapes with water –saving features and drought-tolerant plants, saving existing trees and shrubs wherever possible.

Johnston plans on using bricks and boulders to give texture and color to the designs.

“They are better than plants,” he said. “They don’t grow and block sightlines, and they don’t take water.”

Johnston favors a more formal look at the city entrances and low-growing shrubbery and pavers in the subdivision medians. All hardscape will be designed to catch rainwater for absorption into the ground.

The council was impressed with the designs. “I know how much love you put into this,” said Mayor Howard Geller.

“Looking really good,” said Councilwoman, Julie Pierce.

The designs are similar in feel to the landscaping around the city fountain.

Some say trees first

Less impressed with the median designs were Peacock Creek residents Kahni and Dane Horton who question the city’s priorities. They want more attention given to the median that runs up the hill along Peacock Creek Drive where sometrees have been destroyed in separate car and van accidents over several years.

“We want our Flowering Pear trees replaced,” says Kahni Horton, who says the city has received insurance proceeds for some of the trees, but has not spent it on replacements.

“We haven’t replaced them because of the drought,” said Johnston, who said the replacement is a “priority,” and suggests replacing the Flowering Pears with Chinese Pistache, a hardier variety.
The missing trees and lack of watering has created visual blight and a safety hazard, say the Hortons, who want the trees replaced before the entry median landscaping.

Johnson has referred the Peacock Drive project to the Trails and Landscape Committee for evaluation and recommendation.

Ballot measure looms

All of the city’s landscaping costs, except the city parks, are financed by the Clayton Landscape Maintenance District, which is set to sunset in 2016.  The Council has opted to put a ballot measure renewing the District on the June 2016 ballot. The renewal proposes to continue the same tax rate calculation as the current $234.84 per year for a single family residence. Any CPI increase is capped at 3 percent per year.

When the Landscape Maintenance District was formed in 2007, it passed by a whopping 83 percent, far higher than the two-thirds required.  The council expects residents to support the District again. Should the measure fail, there is no other option for landscape funding.