Breuner Field

Breuner Marsh is a 238-acre (96 ha)regional park on San Pablo Bay in the East San Francisco Bay Area city of Richmond, California, In 2009 the East Bay Regional Parks District acquired the Breuner Marsh site, adding it to Point Pinole Regional Shoreline. A habitat restoration plan for 60 acres of wetlands and 90 acres of California coastal prairie was subsequently approved.

The boundaries surrounding Breuner Marsh are approximately:

The Breuner Marsh land was owned by Fred Parr in the mid 20th-century. It was/is located between the bay and Parchester Village, a post-WW II master planned community that was the first in the state to sell to African Americans. It was built by Parr with the promise of maintaining the marsh free from development. However, Parr subsequently sold it off, leaving the community's open space in uncertainty.

The new owner was Gerald Breuner, the owner of the former Breuners Home Furnishings chain. During the 1970s he had much of the wetlands illegally destroyed, with the intention of building a private general aviation airport, to be called Breuner Field. However community and political opposition prohibited it, and the small model plane airfield was the largest he could build, and some of the mixed wetlands—grasslands still remained. In the 1980s Bruener tested experimental aircraft, a gyrocopter, at the site, and used it as his primary residence.

Breuner Field or Breuner Airfield was a 5-acre (2 ha) private radio controlled aircraft airfield or "flying field" and club built in the 1970s. It was located on the illegally reclaimed wetlands, at 4114 Goodrick Avenue, and was accessible from the Richmond Parkway. The site had a sports club, some cottages, and a fishing pier. The runway was about 300 ft (91 m) and is marked with x's to state that it is not suitable for landing by any planes. It was run by the Bay Area Radio Control Society.

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