Dear Brisbane Residents, Business Owners, and City Staff,
San Bruno Mountain is one of the most important conservation landscapes in the Bay Area. It is home to rare native plant communities and several federally protected butterfly species, including the Mission blue, San Bruno elfin, and Callippe silverspot butterflies. For decades, residents, conservationists, public agencies, and volunteers have worked together to protect this remarkable resource.
As we have continued to refine the Quarry Innovation Center (QIC), we have asked ourselves a fundamental question:
What future best serves San Bruno Mountain?
After several years of study, environmental review, and community outreach, we believe the answer is a future that combines habitat protection, active restoration, long-term stewardship, and reliable conservation funding.
We believe the Quarry Innovation Center can provide meaningful conservation resources that support the long-term stewardship and restoration goals of San Bruno Mountain. The project presents an opportunity to strengthen conservation efforts while transitioning the site from active mining to restoration and new economic use.
The San Bruno Mountain Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) is widely recognized as one of the first and most innovative habitat conservation programs in the United States. It has played a critical role in protecting rare species and preserving thousands of acres of habitat.
While the HCP has achieved significant conservation successes, important habitat management challenges remain.
Today, San Bruno Mountain faces ongoing pressures, including invasive vegetation and the absence of natural disturbance processes that historically helped maintain open grassland habitat. Preserving habitat requires more than simply setting land aside.
Successful conservation depends on active management, restoration, monitoring, and long-term stewardship.
One example is the gradual loss of open grassland habitat to invasive scrub and woody vegetation. Studies prepared as part of HCP implementation have noted that portions of the Mountain continue to experience habitat conversion as shrubs and invasive plant species expand into areas that once supported the grassland ecosystems relied upon by sensitive butterfly species and their host plants.
These challenges reflect the ongoing realities of conservation management and do not diminish the important work already being performed by HCP partners, conservation organizations, scientists, and volunteers. Rather, they highlight the need for continued investment, active stewardship, and habitat restoration over the long term.
Protecting butterfly habitat therefore requires more than preserving acreage. It requires invasive species control, vegetation management, restoration of native grasslands, scientific monitoring, and ongoing stewardship. Without sustained intervention, even protected habitat can gradually become less suitable for the species it was intended to support.
The challenge facing San Bruno Mountain is not simply protecting land—it is maintaining and improving habitat quality.
The project creates an opportunity to provide additional resources for habitat management while permanently ending a 130-year-old mining operation and beginning long-term reclamation of a heavily disturbed industrial site.
The Guadalupe Quarry is not an undisturbed natural landscape. It is a heavily altered industrial site that has been actively mined for more than a century. Reclamation of disturbed quarry lands, and preservation of undisturbed and restored lands, requires substantial investment, long-term planning, and ongoing stewardship.
Under the current proposal:
- Approximately 82 acres, representing about 57 percent of the property, would be dedicated to long-term open space and habitat management. This includes 46 acres of undisturbed land to be incorporated into San Bruno Mountain Park and managed by the County, and 36 acres of revegetated terraces that will be protected under a conservation easement.
- The project would permanently retire quarry operations and mineral rights and begin the transition of the site from mineral extraction to restoration, conservation, and advanced manufacturing.
- Disturbed portions of the property would be reclaimed to ensure site stability and safety under State and County oversight.
- The project would provide both near-term and long-term funding to support habitat restoration, invasive species management, biological monitoring, and stewardship activities associated with the San Bruno Mountain HCP.
- The project would create new resources to help address habitat management needs both on and adjacent to the project site.
We recognize that any major project must undergo rigorous environmental review and address potential impacts, which is well underway for the QIC.
The key question is whether the project can provide lasting conservation benefits while transitioning a long-active quarry toward restoration, stewardship, and long-term reclamation.
If the project is not approved, several alternative outcomes remain possible, including:
- Quarry operations could continue subject to applicable mining rights and market conditions.
- The timing of large-scale reclamation efforts could remain uncertain.
- Funding limitations of the HCP will continue to constrain management activities.
- The future use and potential for preservation and/or restoration of the quarry property would remain unresolved.
We understand that reasonable people may have differing views regarding the project. We respect those perspectives and appreciate the passion that so many residents and environmental advocates bring to discussions about San Bruno Mountain.
Our commitment has always been to listen, learn, and improve the project. Over the years, the Quarry Innovation Center has undergone substantial revisions in response to environmental studies, agency input, and community feedback. Throughout that process, one objective has remained constant: to create a future in which the quarry is permanently closed, habitat is protected and restored, conservation resources are strengthened, and San Bruno Mountain is positioned for long-term ecological stewardship.
San Bruno Mountain has benefited from decades of dedicated stewardship by public agencies, conservation organizations, scientists, volunteers, and local residents. We believe the Quarry Innovation Center can help build upon that foundation by providing additional resources for restoration, habitat management, and long-term stewardship.
We look forward to continuing public conversation as the project advances through environmental review and public hearings. We encourage residents to stay engaged, ask questions, and help us ensure that the project achieves the HCP’s environmental standards.
Thank you for your time, your thoughtful consideration, and your continued commitment to the future of San Bruno Mountain.
Sincerely,
Tyler Higgins