The Knudsen building, now owned by Mr. Chau, had its own driveway and parking. These properties were separated by chain link fences, so the parking wasn’t shared. The Joyful House building that looks attached to Mr. Chau’s building had its own driveway and parking and there was more chain link fencing cordoning off the parking. The Flying A Service gas station building on the corner now home to Philz Coffee didn’t own property for parking . The driveway on Wilbeam between the Philz Coffee building and the office building is owned by the County of Alameda.

The County of Alameda brought the respective property owners of the buildings mentioned above together to create a shared space for parking and for community gathering. Each party contributed their land to this shared plan. Mr. Chau’s customers use the Castro Valley Marketplace driveway from Castro Valley Blvd or the County of Alameda’s driveway on Wilbeam to access the parking lot. Without these access points over the fee simple interest property of Castro Valley Marketplace and the County of Alameda, there is no access to the parking behind the buildings for Chau’s tenants and customers. The driveways for the Chau and Fong buildings were converted into “paseos” for pedestrian ingress and egress to the Castro Valley Marketplace and for outdoor seating and dining.

The contributions of land made were for the benefit of all the property owners to the agreement and to the people of Castro Valley whose tax dollars paid for the shared parking spaces and community gathering spaces. The contract between property owners doesn’t provide for one property owner to charge another property owner for their shared and equitable use of these spaces.

Mr. Chau didn’t own the building when the Knudsen family signed the agreement to share its land for this project. He bought the building one month after the shared parking agreement was signed by the Knudsen family. He purchased a property that is encumbered with rights for his neighbors to use his property just like his neighbors did with the property they contributed.