County rejects growth change
Tsakopoulos' plea to extend planning boundary is denied.
By Mary Lynne Vellinga - Bee Staff Writer
The Sacramento County supervisors on Wednesday rejected a developer's proposal that they consider opening up 3,400 acres of pasture along the El Dorado County line for development. The unanimous vote by the five-member board followed more than five hours of testimony from people opposed to the proposal by developer Angelo K. Tsakopoulos to redraw the county's growth boundary to include his property. More than 100 people signed up to speak.
The decision came despite a last-minute offer by Robert Holderness, the lawyer representing Tsakopoulos' AKT Development, to scale back the request to include only the 500 northernmost acres of the eight-mile swath Tsakopoulos had proposed. Tsakopoulos had argued that expansion north of White Rock Road by Folsom and growth in adjacent El Dorado County made his land ripe for development. Three supervisors -- Susan Peters, Roberta MacGlashan and Jimmie Yee -- last month said they needed more information before making a decision.
Planning staff members, who opposed the developer's request, returned with an arsenal of maps showing most land across the county line from the Tsakopoulos property remains zoned for agriculture, although the northern portion abuts developments with thousands of homes and a business park. "Now that we have that information, it's fairly clear that most of what's on the other side of that land is not urban development," MacGlashan said.
Peters said she was concerned that including the area in an environmental study could delay planned improvement of White Rock Road, which borders the property to the north, and jeopardize $22 million in state-approved funding. One of the most prominent people to speak against the proposal was former Supervisor Illa Collin, who received cheers as she walked to the podium.
Collin, who recently retired after serving 28 years, explained the rationale behind the growth boundary -- officially known as the urban services boundary -- which was adopted in 1993. "The county was making a statement that beyond (the line) it would be very expensive and inefficient to provide services, and the county was making a statement that this (area) was not going to urbanize," she said.
Speakers cited traffic, air quality, global warming, the need for urban revitalization and the loss of open space and habitat for birds of prey as reasons to keep growth within the boundary. Even without considering the Tsakopoulos proposal, the supervisors already have agreed to look at opening more than 20,000 acres to growth.
One of the youngest speakers was Ciara Wirth, home on spring break from Duke University. "I don't want to see the day when people ask me (what Sacramento is like) and I answer, 'There's nothing special about it, really. It's just a bunch of strip malls and low-density residential development.' "
Other speakers reminded the supervisors of the resounding defeat of Measure O, a 2000 ballot initiative sponsored by developer C.C. Myers that would have moved the growth boundary to allow building of a senior golf course community at Deer Creek Hills. After that measure was defeated, Sacramento Valley Conservancy bought the 4,000-acre Deer Creek Hills property and made it an open space preserve. Tsakopoulos' land abuts Deer Creek Hills on the east.
Graham Brownstein, executive director of the Environmental Council of Sacramento, asked the supervisors to make it clear that the urban services boundary is permanent. "Anything else sends the signal to developers that we're open for business," he said.
Prev
A decision like this should be a no-brainer. You'd be hard-pressed to find any voters who support this crap development. The people already in the suburbs have had enough, the long-time residents in the suburbs long for the benefits of living in a medium-sized city, and the urban-core is tired of being overlooked. This is a good sign but it's definitely not the last battle.
Linear Mode
