The Orinda Geologic Hazard Abatement District (GHAD) was formed on March 4, 2008 by the Orinda City Council and includes the Orinda Oaks and Wilder developments. The Board of Directors for the Orinda GHAD are the members of the Orinda City Council.
The Orinda GHAD is responsible for prevention, mitigation, abatement, and control of geologic hazards within the GHAD boundaries, including mitigating or abating landslides and erosion hazards that could directly affect properties within the GHAD boundaries. These responsibilities are detailed in the Plan of Control for each of the developments. The Plans of Control are the guidance documents for management of the GHAD’s responsibilities.
The Orinda GHAD is financed through the collection of supplemental tax assessments from homeowners and habitable structures within the GHAD. Revenue is typically split between an ongoing operations/maintenance fund and the accumulation of a reserve for less frequent major repair items. The 2008 Engineer’s Report for Wilder and the 2013 Engineer’s Report for Orinda Oaks serve as the basis for the annual operating budget. Each year, an annual budget is considered and adopted by the Orinda GHAD Board of Directors.
The Orinda GHAD currently has maintenance and monitoring responsibilities for all of the parcels within the Orinda Oaks development. The GHAD does not yet perform maintenance or monitoring responsibilities within the Wilder development and cannot perform such services until the responsibilities for doing so are transferred by the developer to the GHAD and the GHAD Board of Directors accepts such responsibilities. We anticipate that parcels within the Wilder development will be offered for transfer to the GHAD within fiscal year 2018/19.
Orinda Oaks Development
As summarized below and detailed in the Orinda Oaks Plan of Control, site improvements for which the GHAD provides monitoring and maintenance are:
- Land within Orinda Oaks development
- Stormwater system
- Subdrains and subdrain outlets
- Bioretention areas and flow-through planters excluding vegetation management
- Project developer or Orinda GHAD-constructed debris benches, berms or walls
- Slope stability and erosion repair of the roadway, trail, and wetlands
Within the Orinda Oaks development, the GHAD does not own property and is not responsible for general maintenance of open-space areas (vegetation management for fire suppression, litter, or graffiti removal, etc.). The role of the GHAD is limited to overseeing and supervising the open space general physical maintenance of the open-space areas to prevent, mitigate, control or abate erosion, sedimentation, and potential landslide hazards.
Wilder Development
The GHAD will be responsible for the maintenance of geologic stabilization and hydrogeologic features in the common open space and the unimproved areas. Specifically, the GHAD’s maintenance responsibilities include prevention and abatement of geologic hazards such as landslides and slope erosion within the developed area and open space. The Orinda GHAD will have the responsibility to manage geologic hazards within the Wilder development only after the transfer process from the developer to the GHAD has been completed.
The GHAD will assume maintenance and monitoring responsibilities for the following site improvements and activities. Details are provided in the adopted Plan of Control for the Wilder development.
- Perpetual maintenance of the stormwater system
- Debris benches and berms
- Subdrains
- Restored and unaltered creek channels including grade control structures
- Settlement instruments
- Selected retaining walls
- Slopes
- Slopes and graded areas for the PG&E access roads
- Landslide and erosion control of trails and fire roads within the Western Hills open space area
- Emergency vehicle access roads located outside of private residential lots
- Vegetation management for fire suppression on GHAD-owned parcels