Sacramento residents, including former Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo, were against the project altogether, saying it’s too close to schools and other residential areas. Residents were concerned about construction and the annex will have environmentally, especially with the Natomas Basin Conservation habitat plan.
By Ben van der Meer | May 9, 2025 | Sacramento Business Journal
“I think our main concern is it crosses the urban services boundary,” said Heather Fargo, the current ECOS board president and a former mayor of Sacramento. She added the land is also active farmland, and developing it violates the spirit of the Natomas Basin Conservancy Plan, first approved by local governments in 1997. “It starts to unravel the conservancy plan.”
“It is farmland, it is habitat, it is next to a school in a neighborhood, and it is not suited for warehousing. It needs to go somewhere else,” Fargo said.
On May 7, 2025, ECOS submitted a letter to the Sacramento Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCo) regarding the Continued Public Hearing To Consider And Certify The Environmental Impact Report And Approve The Respective Amendments To The Spheres Of Influence For The City Of Sacramento And Sacramento Area Sewer District (LAFCo Project #2023-03).
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:
Ask your friends, family, neighbors and networks to SIGN the PETITION to LAFCO! Just put your name here. We need 1000+ signatures.
Ask people you know to attend the LAFCo meeting on April 2, 2025. Comments are limited to 2 minutes each.
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.
On July 31, 2024, ECOS submitted a letter to Sacramento-area Elected Officials, Executive and Planning Staff regarding our position on the proposed Airport South Industrial Project for the parcel south of I-5 in Natomas Basin.
Below is an excerpt.
This project would require annexation of farmland into the City and construction of all infrastructure. It will cause great harm to the integrity of the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan, existing preserves, wildlife, and to the Natomas community and school children. It should not be approved.
Review by experts of the Airport South Industrial Project
Sierra Club, Friends of the Swainson’s Hawk and ECOS submitted expert opinions to the City of Sacramento and LAFCo on the draft Environmental Impact Report for the Airport South Industrial Project. The legal opinions are those of Patrick Soluri, Soluri Meserve, a Law Corporation, expert comments on transportation issues prepared by Daniel Smith (Exhibit 1) and expert comments on biological resource issues prepared by Shawn Smallwood, PhD (Exhibit 2).