As pro-housing candidates seek leadership positions, some warn of ‘hostile takeover’
by Riley Cooke
October 2, 2025 10:30 am
Longtime members of the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club are raising alarms about what they call a hostile takeover of their organization by a pro-housing coalition.
The internal divide in the chapter — and the organization as a whole — stems from a tension between the Sierra Club’s historic environmental and conservation policies and a new wave of climate activists who are struggling to find the space to advocate for denser housing and public transportation.
The Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club, which will hold elections in November, spans three counties in the Peninsula and South Bay: San Mateo, San Benito and Santa Clara. It was founded in 1933, the fourth local chapter of the organization.
If the fake environmentalists succeed, the Sierra Club, like many of the true environmental groups in recent years, will lose its focus on conserving natural resources for future generations.
lydia kou, former palo alto mayor
In the Peninsula, one of the top advocacy priorities of the chapter is open space protection and preservation. In East Palo Alto last year, Sierra Club members successfully advocated to protect 17 acres of wetlands that were part of the city’s plan for shoreline development. Similarly, the group blocked a 2.5-mile offshore flood barrier wall proposed for Millbrae and Burlingame, arguing that it would endanger the water quality and shoreline ecosystems. Members are still pushing for local cities to adopt dark sky ordinances to reduce light pollution and bird-safe design standards for new construction.
A rock a few miles up a trail from Hidden Villa’s visitor center commemorates the Sierra Club’s founding. Photo courtesy Pat Michels.
Splitting over priorities
While these environmental efforts are critical to the organization’s mission, many Sierra Club members see denser housing and public transportation as equally important — and they have been frustrated for years at the chapter’s lack of action in those areas.
“There’s a sort of symbiotic relationship between open space preservation and density, right? One of the key pieces of being an open space activist is supporting density in already developed areas,” said Leora Tanjuatco Ross, who has been a member of the Loma Prieta Chapter for 10 years.
Tanjuatco Ross is also the California director of YIMBY Action, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for more housing as part of the “Yes In My Back Yard” movement. YIMBY activism spun out of a frequent talking point among opponents of new development, which is that they support more housing, so long as it is somewhere else in the city — in other words, “not in my back yard.”
In records obtained by this publication, Tanjuatco Ross sent email blasts from the YIMBY Action account urging recipients to join the Sierra Club in order to become eligible to vote for leadership positions. The subject line of an Aug. 13 email reads: “Get in, we’re flipping the Sierra Club.”