Sacramento Suburban Development

[Ghost of Econgrad]

Environmental group sues Sacramento County
Published Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011

Friends of the Swainson's Hawk is trying to overturn an environmental impact report and approval for a 3,766-acre development in southeast Sacramento County that the county supervisors supported last December.

The environmental group filed a lawsuit this week to overturn the EIR for the Florin-Vineyard area project. The group's news release alleged that the county's EIR "falsely declares that Swainson's Hawk habitat loss from development of the area would be only a fraction of what it actually will be."

The group claims the county violated the California Environmental Quality Act and that the current plan will result in a loss of Swainson's Hawk habitat of 1,000 to 2,000 acres.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Friends of the Swainson's Hawk is a funded arm of the Sierra Club. Sierra Club started in SF, but is now an international Environmental interest group. I wish the above story explained that, because the above story is an example of an international special interest group, meddling in the affairs of local Sacramento developments. These lawsuits cost millions of tax payer and private dollars, raising the costs of local development and the costs of housing. -- G of Econ

[Surefiresacto]

I saw that there is a fence around the old Tower Books location on Watt and El Camino and as of this morning, the building is being bulldozed. Does anybody know if there is something planned to take its place? I looked up the construction company's website (tiltonpacific.com), but didn't find anything about current projects.

[Web]

Originally Posted by Surefiresacto

I saw that there is a fence around the old Tower Books location on Watt and El Camino and as of this morning, the building is being bulldozed. Does anybody know if there is something planned to take its place? I looked up the construction company's website (tiltonpacific.com), but didn't find anything about current projects.

This was going to be a Fresh and Easy Grocery store......but the company has been slow expanding into sac.....I think they are in the bay area and modesto so far......coming from So Cal

[ltsmotorsport]

Affordable-housing advocates sue Folsom

By Loretta Kalb
lkalb@sacbee.com
Published: Monday, Sep. 5, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 1B
Last Modified: Monday, Sep. 5, 2011 - 12:43 pm

After the city of Folsom stopped requiring developers earlier this year to provide low-income units with every large residential project, housing advocates talked of filing suit.

It didn't take long.

Within months of the City Council's January vote, Legal Services of Northern California and the Public Interest Law Project sued the city on behalf of the Sacramento Housing Alliance to block the action.

The suit in Sacramento Superior Court urges the judge to halt the issuance of any building permits for market-rate housing and to block zoning changes until the issue is decided.

On its face, the lawsuit seems simple enough.

The Housing Alliance complains that by voting to quit the ordinance, which called for affordable units with large market-rate projects, the city lost a primary tool to ensure it will meet future housing needs for residents of all income levels.

"The city of Folsom really has not developed an impressive track record in producing affordable housing," said Brian Augusta, a board member for the Housing Alliance.

Instead, he said, the city over the past decade or so "has produced a tremendous number of high-end, single-family homes and lots of commercial development that has produced low-wage jobs in the retail sector."

Less apparent is that the stakes over the issue have risen significantly since the City Council voted in June to seek annexation of 3,500 acres south of Highway 50.

"The question everyone is asking is, without that inclusionary ordinance in place, are they the best stewards of this land?" Augusta said.

It's not the first time the city of Folsom has been sued over affordable housing.

The city settled a similar suit filed a decade ago by Legal Services of Northern California on behalf of a low-income Folsom resident. To help resolve that case, the city approved the very ordinance it abandoned at the start of this year.

The ordinance had required builders of residential projects with 10 or more units to set aside 15 percent of the homes for limited-income occupants.

With its elimination, voluntary initiatives would get the job done, city officials said in January.

The mandatory approach has not worked, council members said then, and it helped stymie market-rate projects by squeezing developers during the real estate slump.

"All you ideologues out there may think you have the theoretical solution" to getting affordable housing built, Councilman Jeffrey Starsky told members attending the council meeting.

But, he added, "this is the city that actually puts things on the ground and gets it done. You will see in the next 10 years we're going to actually build this stuff."

In the ongoing suit, the Housing Alliance complains that the city has failed to act in accordance with its own housing element, a document in which a community defines its future housing needs and the policies and the programs established to achieve them.

But Folsom City Attorney Bruce C. Cline said the city has other effective ways to ensure affordable housing outside of an inclusionary ordinance.

"Our City Council has remained committed to the production of affordable housing," Cline said. "Our method by which we choose to generate affordable housing is different than that of the Sacramento Housing Alliance."

City officials have long said that other initiatives for low-income properties are filling the breach within the next three years, including 215 units now under construction or in the pipeline.

USA Properties Fund has a 55-unit project on Greenback Lane that will be finished in eight months, said David Miller, Folsom's community development director.

Another affordable property developer, St. Anton Partners, is nearing a development agreement for 80 units, Miller said.

He said still another 80 affordable units by Lewis Development at Parkside are also on tap, pending the outcome of a lawsuit against the state over the future of redevelopment agencies.

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/09/05/388...cates-sue.html

[kamehameha]

FBI settles on Roseville site for regional headquarters
Sacramento Business Journal by Sanford Nax, Staff Writer
Date: Tuesday, August 7, 2012, 6:52am PDT - Last Modified: Tuesday, August 7, 2012, 7:53am PDT
Enlarge Image Officials in Roseville say the federal government has apparently settled on an almost 12-acre site in the Stone Point master planned community as the site of a new FBI regional office.

Sanford Nax
Staff Writer- Sacramento Business Journal
Email | Twitter | LinkedIn Officials in Roseville say the federal government has apparently settled on an almost 12-acre site in the Stone Point master planned community as the site of a new FBI regional office.

Nothing has been filed with the city, but John Sprague, CEO of the Roseville Community Development Corp., said FBI offices are expected to be consolidated onto the property, which is one of the few remaining commercial sites in the master planned project.

“It is our understanding that the FBI has focused on property within Stone Point, and now is out with an RFP to select a contractor,” he said.

Public records show Bank of the West sold the land for about $2 million in April to an entity called Cordova 83 LLC, which is connected to Pappas Investments of Sacramento. In a solicitation issued in November, the General Services Administration said it was looking for a developer to construct a building under a 20-year lease on 11.8 acres in Roseville. The project would be 121,511 rentable square feet, with occupancy expected in 2015.

Sprague said the development is evidence of Roseville’s desirability. “We’re very excited,” he said. “It continues to focus on the fact that Roseville is strong economically, and helps businesses be successful.”

Bank of the West took ownership of 44 acres at Stone Point in 2009 after developer Richland Planned Communities, which had carved off and sold portions of the master planned community to other developers for years until the real estate market collapsed, was unable to resolve outstanding debt that reached $29.5 million.

Suburban commercial property doesn’t get any more blue-chip than Stone Point; the acreage sits atop a hill off North Sunrise Avenue and it had been targeted for everything from a boutique hotel to homes bordering a natural ravine. Homebuilder Taylor Morrison is reportedly buying a large chunk in Stone Point too, according to real estate sources.

[ozone]

I would say its more like the FBI wanted to be in a location as far away from politically aware and active people as they could get.

[wburg]

The "Centrage" development site (the lozenge-shaped lot in between Business 80 and the Union Pacific main line north of East Sac) is back in play. The previous plan was for about 400 single-family homes on 50 acres and a Greek Orthodox church. The current plan is still being formed but the church is out, as is the small mixed-use component. They also want to make the lots a bit bigger. Access will be via 28th Street and an outlet on Elvas Avenue, with a pedestrian/bike underpass on Alhambra. There is no plan for public transit to the site, so the project will be entirely car-dependent and single-use. Sounds basically like a slice of Elk Grove at East Sac prices.

[ozone]

Originally Posted by wburg

The "Centrage" development site (the lozenge-shaped lot in between Business 80 and the Union Pacific main line north of East Sac) is back in play. The previous plan was for about 400 single-family homes on 50 acres and a Greek Orthodox church. The current plan is still being formed but the church is out, as is the small mixed-use component. They also want to make the lots a bit bigger. Access will be via 28th Street and an outlet on Elvas Avenue, with a pedestrian/bike underpass on Alhambra. There is no plan for public transit to the site, so the project will be entirely car-dependent and single-use. Sounds basically like a slice of Elk Grove at East Sac prices.

Hate this. It adds nothing to the city- but more crappy McMansions. I would rather the site be turned into a park and joined with the future Sutter's Landing Park with a ped./bike bridge across Cap City Freeway.

OK now you can tell me why it's such a horrible idea and why it could never happen.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by ozone

Hate this. It adds nothing to the city- but more crappy McMansions. I would rather the site be turned into a park and joined with the future Sutter's Landing Park with a ped./bike bridge across Cap City Freeway.

That sounds like a great idea to me--there is already a small bridge off Cap City Freeway that connects to Sutter's Landing Park that would be ideally suited to ped/bike traffic, and until as recently as 2005 this site was still an orchard. Considering that the Mayor wants to promote Sacramento as the "Farm to Fork" Capital, this part of Sutter's Landing could be very easily used as an orchard/park (with a "pick your own fruit" feature in harvest season) and urban farm, with a nonprofit urban-farming business partner like Soil Born Farms working in conjunction with the city. Because it is centrally located, it would be a great urban amenity while showing off regional strengths. It might also be a great site for the solar power project that was planned for Sutter's Landing itself, which would provide shade for park visitors.

OK now you can tell me why it's such a horrible idea and why it could never happen.

Because Angelo Tsakopoulos owns the site, and he makes his money by turning farmland into crappy McMansions.

[ozone]

Yeah and Tsakopoulos is one of the top political donors in the state. But if he wanted to leave a legacy besides El Dorado Hills- why not Tsakopoulos Park?

[wburg]

Sounds like a great idea to me--now it's just a matter of convincing Angelo to donate the land and enough money to build a park. Typically anything that AKT "donates" is a lever to get more sprawlburbs built, like the Greek Orthodox church which was supposed to relocate to the Centrage site (which has since pulled out), or the proposed college site on his planned suburbs near Roseville, or the proposed college that pulled out of the recently-approved Cordova Hills, one-third owned by AKT's brother George.