.Neighbors and Environmentalists to Appeal Zoo Approval

Last week, after a prolonged and often heated discussion about the future of the Oakland Zoo and the details of its expansion into upper Knowland Park, the City Planning Commission gave the zoo’s amended plan the rubber stamp. But critics of the plan, who say that the full environmental impacts of the 56-acre expansion have not been properly studied, aren’t ready to give up yet. Thomas DeBoni of Friends of Knowland Park, the community organization on the battle’s front lines, said that his group and the California Native Plant Society have banded together in pursuing a formal appeal to city council, where the zoo’s application heads for its next and possibly final step.