Category Archives: Natomas Campaign Updates

Airport South – What Happened at LAFCo and What’s Next

April 9, 2025

Here is an update on the Airport South Industrial Project!

The Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) held the first hearing on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. The Community response during the nearly four hour hearing showed the depth of feeling and opposition to this project. About 80 written comments were submitted and more than forty people spoke against the project.

Some highlights of the hearing included expert testimony on the failure of the EIR to discuss truck ultrafine particulate emissions’ impacts on health of children and residents in the neighborhood. A retired planning commissioner and a retired school district board member spoke to the incompatibility of the project with the adjacent neighborhood. Other issues: I-5 corridor traffic and trucks already disrupting the neighborhood; the incompatibility of the 96 acres of detention basins with airport runway. The hearing is available on YouTube.com in the video below.

In the end, LAFCo continued the hearing (delayed their decision). Staff and lawyers appeared to be concerned about getting their paperwork in order, and because the City has not yet held a hearing on the project. The next LAFCo meeting is scheduled for May 7. Plan to be there and show your opposition.

Meanwhile, please help get more signatures on our petition. Over 1050 people have signed our petition against approving the project.

Click here to go to the petition.

Airport South Industrial Project Vote

April 2, 2025

LAFCo is scheduled to vote on Airport South Industrial on April 2, 2025.  Please be there to help protect open space.

The Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) will vote on including the acreage proposed for Airport South Industrial (ASIP) into the City’s Sphere of Influence (SOI).  This is the first step to approving the landowner’s request to build warehouses on agricultural land west of the City limit.

If five people on this commission vote yes, they will undo decades of public planning of land use in our community without the Sacramento City Council ever having a public hearing. We need to put a stop to this outrage.  We must be there in large numbers to ask Commissioners to vote NO on expanding the City of Sacramento at the request of one landowner. 

ECOS opposes this project for its inconsistency with every plan approved in the region for the last 25 years including: the City General Plan, the County General Plan, the SACOG Metropolitan Transportation Plan, the Urban Services Boundary line, and the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan.  In addition, according to the draft Environmental Impact Report, the three main issues that CANNOT be mitigated to an acceptable level are the increased air pollution, the loss of farmland and loss of aesthetic value of open space.  Sacramento already has some of the dirtiest air in the nation and the City should not put industrial warehouses with their trucks and pollution next to an elementary school and residences.

Perhaps most important is that ASIP is the first of three major proposed projects in Natomas, and if approved, would provide precedent and justification for the following two, which would add up to 70,000 new residents and several million square feet of commercial development.

On March 30, 2025, at 5 pm, ECOS will hold a Zoom meeting to review the project and talk about how to make a spoken or written comment to LAFCo.

For your Calendar:

  • Wednesday, April 2, 2025 5:30 pm, LAFCo meeting, 700 H St, Board Room, Sacramento
    The vote on the proposed Airport South Industrial project

Actions:

  1. Ask your friends, family, neighbors and networks to SIGN the PETITION to LAFCO! Just put your name here. We need 1000+ signatures. 
  2. Ask people you know to attend the LAFCo meeting on April 2, 2025. Comments are limited to 2 minutes each.
  3. To submit a comment:
    • Send your email comment to the Commission at BoardClerk[at]saccounty[dot]gov
      (Refer to April 2nd Agenda item #6, Airport South Industrial)
    • Write a letter: send to Sacramento LAFCo, 1112 I Street, Suite 100, Sacramento, CA 95814

Updates on the Campaign to Stop Warehouses Next to Residential Neighborhood:

At our presentation at Paso Verde School 50 people and two TV stations were present.  Heather had a great interview, with the proposed site for ASIP in the background.  See the CBS interview here.

If you want to learn more about the Airport South Industrial Project – An article by Heather was recently reprinted in N Magazine.  Nmag.net  It is on page 8.

Dennis Spear, publisher of N Magazine, wrote an article about the meeting at Paso Verde school.  Find it here, on Facebook.

Thanks:

Thanks to all of you who have attended meetings, organized meetings, passed out flyers at meetings and more. 

  • We were delighted to meet about 60 new supporters at the meetings at Leroy Greene Academy and at Paso Verde School. 
  • We met with another 85 who live along Garden Highway in the Alamar Marina, Bar and Restaurant. 
  • And a big thank you to the Ecology Task Force of Natomas Performing Arts Charter School and the student interns of Sierra Club and 350 Sacramento who have met with us several times and have provided invaluable help in creating flyers and wonderful videos. See a video about bird life on rice fields north of Elverta Rd!

ECOS letter

You can see the letter ECOS submitted in preparation of this meeting here.

From the ECOS Natomas Team, January 2025

Hi Everyone –

Thanks for your help– attending public meetings and speaking up, writing comments, meeting with the Natomas team, attending presentations, and making financial donations — all to stop rampant, unnecessary and damaging development in the Natomas Basin. We appreciate you and all our colleagues and partners at Sierra Club, 350 Sacramento, Habitat 2020, the Sacramento Audubon Society, Breathe Sacramento and neighborhood organizations.

This missive is an overview of our 2024 accomplishments and will help us organize for 2025.

Overview

From the ECOS Natomas Team

The Natomas Team is focusing on two projects, Upper Westside (UWSP) and Airport South (ASIP). For UWSP, the next hearing will be before the County Planning Commission after the final EIR is prepared. For ASIP, the final EIR must be prepared before a next hearing with LAFCo. In the interim, the team continues to meet with and educate community members about negative impacts of these projects on the habitat and neighborhoods. We are also reaching out to appointed and elected officials who will decide whether to approve these projects or not. For more information or to join the effort, please go to the Natomas page on the ECOS website.

Issues that will affect neighbors and others: increases to traffic congestion and decrease in traffic safety, increased noise, air and light pollution in neighborhoods, increased danger of flooding, loss of wildlife habitat and gross violation of our community’s major land use, transportation, air quality and habitat conservation plans.

ECOS will assist volunteers in organizing and responding to these projects. If you are unable to volunteer, please donate. We need to finance a lawyer, other experts and a mailing campaign – all are expensive activities.

Projects

Airport South Industrial Project (ASIP) – 450 acres are proposed for over 6 million square feet of warehouses, next to a residential community and a school. We provided two sets of comments to the ASIP DEIR, one from volunteer experts and a second from paid experts. The City has not yet issued a final EIR for the project, it could be in the spring of 2025. The project involves annexation to the City and must first be approved by the Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission prior to City hearings on the project.

Help Needed: We need neighbors of this project in nearby schools and communities to lead local organizing through email groups, social media, holding house parties, distributing flyers. Your help will be needed to pay for a lawyer to challenge the project approval. We must prepare and organize now before the final EIR drops. Contact Edith Thacher egthacher[at]gmail[dot]com if you have ideas or can help.

Upper Westside Project (UWSP) – 2,066 acres of prime farmland, next to the Sacramento River and designated as part of an adopted habitat conservation plan, are proposed for 9,000 residences and over three million square feet of commercial development. When the DEIR was released, ECOS provided two sets of comments from volunteers and from paid experts.

ECOS volunteers and a number of neighbors to UWSP have participated in public meetings and submitted comments on UWSP to both the Natomas Community Planning Advisory Council (CPAC) and the County Planning Commission. Natomas CPAC recommended UWSP to the Board of Supervisors in December (voting 4-2). N Magazine published an article on the meeting, link below.

The County Planning Commission will meet this spring (possibly February) to make a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors. We need you there to oppose the project.

As with the other development projects we are opposing, UWSP is outside the County Urban Services Boundary and contravenes the County and City General Plans and the regional transportation and air quality plans. It is also destructive of the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan.

Help Needed: A group of neighbors are organizing by community to respond. They have already written comments, spoken at public meetings and assisted in a big way by hiring experts. We are coordinating with them and developing strategies for the Planning Commission meeting. Can you join this effort to rouse public opinion? It will be critical to have many comments submitted and people to speak at the next Planning Commission meeting. The meeting date is unknown. Contact Edith Thacher egthacher[at]gmail[dot]com if you can help.

Grand Park – These 5,000 acres are used by farmers to grow rice and by birds migrating along the Pacific Flyway or overwintering in Sacramento. The proposed development project envisions high-end residences and commercial space. The DEIR could be released in the summer of 2025.

Help Needed: The Heritage Park Progressive Group is already well-organized and working to oppose this development. They are supporting their neighbors’ work opposing ASIP and UWSP as well. We will need funding to pay for experts to review the Grand Park DEIR also. If you live in this area, but not in Heritage Park, please contact Edith.

Links:

Attend County Planning Commission Meeting Oct 21, 2024

Please attend this meeting and speak out.

The Upper Westside Specific Plan is a proposed development in the unincorporated Natomas area, covering 2,066 acres of mostly rural land. It proposes: housing – 9000 units and commercial – 3 million sq ft. Traffic congestion will be intense with only 3 Connector Roads out of the development: Garden Hwy, West El Camino, and San Juan. The Planning Commission meeting is a public hearing. Come and speak!

The County Planning Commission is October 21st at 5:30 pm. 700 H Street, Suite 1450, Sacramento.

The Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR), which outlines the potential environmental effects of the project, is available for review. Submit comments by October 28, 2024.

Links
Read project documents here. Documents of note:
“Notice of Availability” document is a concise summary of the project.
“Draft Environmental Impact Report” is long – but there is an Executive Summary. Another way to read it is to look for a specific topic of interest to you, like Air Quality, Transportation, or Noise.

ECOS has already written a strong letter in opposition to this project, here.

Read more about ECOS work on Natomas here.

Feel free to share the flyer below to spread the word! Click here or on the flyer below for a PDF version.

MORE Development Proposed in the Natomas Basin

The Natomas Basin is under threat of development again, and we need your help to stop it. We need people who will join our mailing list, read our email blasts, look at and comment on the draft environmental impact report for Airport South Industrial, who will donate money and who will join us in the fall at a LAFCo hearing to consider expanding the potential city limit into Natomas farmland.

Thirty years ago the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan was approved in order to allow development in the floodplain of the Natomas Basin. The plan established a balance between residential and commercial uses, farmland and habitat preservation. The County also established the urban services boundary beyond which open space would be preserved. These plans are very much under threat from three projects.

Along Elkhorn Rd is the proposed project of Grand Park, 5675 acres slated for residential and commercial uses. An additional 2083 acres are proposed for residential and commercial development, west of El Centro to the Garden Highway, called Upper West Side.

The project up first is 6.6 million square feet of warehouses proposed for 450-acres, the Airport South Industrial project (ASI). It is south of I-5 and not part of the Metro Airport development. It would be located on valuable farmland and would add heavy duty trucks and other traffic to I-5. (See map)

It is also the first of over 8000 acres of development proposed outside of the agreed to urban service boundary.

What do we want to see in the Natomas Basin? Now is the time for our community to speak up. Should more farmland be paved? Should we sacrifice habitat for warehouses? Do we want to endure more traffic, more noise and more pollution?

The current timelines for the projects are:

  • Now – The ASI Draft Environmental Impact Review (EIR) is available and the public comment period is until July 17, 2024
  • July 2024 – Draft EIR will be available for Upper West Side
  • July 2025 – Draft EIR will be available for Grand Park

The ASI draft EIR is long and detailed, but it is critical to understanding the impacts (on air quality, water, traffic, habitat, endangered species, loss of farmland, flood protection, etc.) of this project and the mitigations proposed to make up for their damage. ECOS will brief you on these impacts on July 10. The EIR is an essential process used to inform both the public and government agencies on the consequences of land use proposals.

An ECOS Committee, the Natomas Campaign, chaired by Former Mayor Heather Fargo, is leading an effort to stop ASI as the precedent setting project in order to stop all three projects. These developments are NOT a done deal. Now is the time to make our voices heard about the impact of ASI.

Before July 17, please submit your comments on the Airport South Industrial Draft Environmental Impact Review to the City by emailing: Senior Planner Scott Johnson at srjohnson[at]cityofsacramento[dot]org

We need your support and action now to preserve our farmland and open space for the next generations.

If you would like to learn more about what’s in the EIR and can’t bear to wade through it ….. Join us on a Zoom discussion.

July 10, 6:00 pm – Zoom Call
We’ll give a preview of the significant issues in the ASI EIR and how the project will affect Natomas residents. We also want to know what you are commenting on.
Link to join: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6656164155
To phone in: 669-900-6833, Meeting ID: 665 616 4155