The redevelopment of San Leandro Marina is caught in a legal deadlock, delaying plans to bring hundreds of new affordable homes, a hotel, and community upgrades to the waterfront property.
At issue is a golf course.
The developer, Cal Coast, claims the city’s bureaucratic bottleneck delayed permits to redesign the site, leading to the collapse of a $68 million real estate deal. The city, meanwhile, demands Cal Coast pay its $24.9 million debt to the city and relinquish ownership.
“I’ve never been strong armed in all these years in dealing with major cities across the country like this,” Ed Miller, CEO of Cal Coast, said. “The city has used this golf course to delay the processing. They continue to use it. This is blatant.”
Cal Coast’s most recent bankruptcy court filing represents an ultimatum.
If the city approves the golf course plan, Cal Coast will pay back the city’s loan within a year. But if the city moves ahead with selling the property, then Cal Coast will use bankruptcy rules to withhold payment for up to five years and simultaneously force the city to restart the development process from square one.
The city refused to comment on active litigation.
In 2012, the city of San Leandro entered into an exclusive negotiating agreement with Cal Coast to redevelop the 75-acre waterfront.
In June 2022, the city and Cal Coast agreed to a formal development plan to build 144 single-family homes, 62 townhomes, a hotel, and to replace and upgrade the existing 9-hole golf course. Cal Coast, in return, would secure the necessary permits to redevelop the area, then flip the newly entitled land to a major homebuilder.
Cal Coast transferred the property to an affiliate, Monarch Bay For Sale LLC, a legally separate entity from Cal Coast, on Dec. 20, 2022. Monarch Bay then paid $5.2 million to San Leandro on Dec. 22, 2022, and executed a $24.9 million promissory note – a city loan functioning as a corporate I.O.U. – to complete the purchase.
The city’s loan was originally to be paid off in six months, but could be extended up to two years, according to court documents.
A few months into the project, the city’s senior engineering staff stated they lacked the internal “manpower” to process voluminous permit applications. And by June 2023, Cal Coast was already falling behind schedule, according to court documents.
Cal Coast notified the city that it had not received approval for several “critical” permits and requested the city provide an extension “until such time the city processed and approved the necessary permits,” according to court documents.
“We were virtually told that if (city staff) worked seven days a week and never took a vacation, they couldn’t keep up with the amount of work necessary to provide the information to our consultants to even develop plans,” Miller said “Forget about getting into plan check, we’re just talking about developing plans.”
San Leandro did not provide an extension, however, and recorded Cal Coast’s first default payment on the loan in February 2024. At the same time, the city began to pressure Cal Coast to re-zone the golf course for another 500 homes, a deviation from the original development, Miller said.
Enter Craig Bettencourt, a senior adviser to the city on the project, who met privately with Miller on March 6, 2024, to discuss how to move forward. According to Miller’s notes from the meeting, Bettencourt said Cal Coast had moved too slowly on the development, but if “we can get on the same page,” he could work with the city to provide an extension.
Miller said he would not accommodate the request.
“At some point in time, they decided they didn’t want to build a golf course,” Miller said. “But they didn’t decide to talk to the developer who had already done this work.”
The city hired an outside engineering firm in April 2024 to help process the redevelopment permits — just a month before the May 22, 2024, foreclosure date and a public auction scheduled for June 21, 2024, according to court documents.
Left without time or alternatives, Cal Coast’s affiliate Monarch Bay For Sale LLC declared bankruptcy on June 20, 2024, to halt the foreclosure sale, according to court documents.
Meanwhile, Cal Coast continued to pursue a real estate deal with Century Communities of California, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders.
In January 2024, Cal Coast simultaneously executed a letter of intent to sell the property to Century Communities of California for $68 million and submitted its site plan to remodel the critical golf course element in January 2025, according to city documents. But a condition of the real estate deal hinged on the city’s approval of the golf course.
After six months, Cal Coast was nowhere close to a public hearing required to move forward. It hadn’t even been scheduled.
“All we were asking for was that meeting. I can’t call a public hearing, only the city can. And the city basically continued to slow roll us,” Miller said. “Why are you delaying this?”
By December 2025, Century Communities of California, citing the uncertainty caused by the city’s failure to approve the golf course layoff, officially terminated its $68 million purchasing agreement. Court documents state that Century Communities of California maintains interest in the site if the golf course should gain approval.
The case now heads to bankruptcy court in Los Angeles on July 29 where a judge will determine whether to accept Cal Coast’s bankruptcy restructuring plan.
The city of San Leandro has set a public hearing for July 30 to review the golf course.
Miller emphasized that he did not want to pursue bankruptcy, but he was not ready to drop the project after more than a decade of effort.
“A couple months ago I was in front of the City Council and I said, ‘I’ve been in front of 35 councilmembers, four mayors, and five city managers. And the only thing that’s consistent with all that is we’re here,” Miller said. “We don’t want any of this bankruptcy. They forced us to do it because they want to take the value we have created.”
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