Creekside Memorial Park"?uthe Last Stop

The proposed Creekside Memorial Park is tucked between Hidden Valley open space and Camino Tassajara in the Tassajara Valley, Calif., east of San Ramon.
Photo: Stop the Creekside Memorial Park Cemetery

In the late 1990s, Developer Sid Corrie envisioned 4,200 homes built on his 221 acres in Tassajara Valley, Calif. The valley, which is east of San Ramon (which is east of Oakland), was bucolic, trod upon only by cattle and horses.

However, by 2005 Corrie had second thoughts and decided what the valley needed was an appropriate setting for residents of San Ramon, Danville and Alamo to bury their loved ones. Lafayette Cemetery had only some 400 spaces left, and Alamo Cemetery was already "booked."

Corrie's proposed cemetery would have room for 150,000 burial plots, which could "house" the final resting place for all of San Ramon (pop. 74,000), Danville (pop. 42,000) and Alamo (pop. 14,750), and still have room for 19, 250 more souls. The project price of the cemetery is $43 million.

The project, called Creekside Memorial Park, has been in the works for almost eight years. An environmental report is nearly complete. The plan could go before the Contra Costa County Planning Commission in March.

Some raise water usage concerns. Corrie says a well on the property "that never goes dry" will meet the irrigation needs.

Former San Ramon Mayor Abram Wilson told the Mercury News she'd "love to be buried in the area," but some valley neighbors don't want this memento mori ever-present in their valley view. The Stop the Creekside Memorial Park Cemetery group believes the cemeteries in the Tri-Valley area meet the anticipated need. It also objects for these reasons:

1. Large scale, urban land use is not suited for the agricultural and open space nature of the Tassajara Valley. The proposal includes large structures: admin office/chapel with a 42-foot tower, one indoor and four outdoor mausoleums and columbaria. It would create about 13 acres of impervious areas (roads, buildings, and 82 space parking lots).

2. It would reduce the height of a highly visible ridge by up to 30 feet and put mausoleums and columbaria on it. Total grading would be over 500,000 cubic yards, of which over 130,000 cubic yards would be excess.

3. The environmental impact report draft states the water use would be a "significant and unavoidable" environmental impact, even after mitigation.