June 9, 2025

Today, Sierra Club, the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) and Friends of the Swainson’s Hawk (FOSH), represented by Patrick Soluri, of the firm, Soluri-Meserve, filed a lawsuit in Superior Court challenging the approved expansion of the City of Sacramento’s potential boundary in North Natomas. The 474-acre expansion requested by private landowners is intended to allow them to develop 6 million square feet of megawarehouse space on farmland next to wildlife preserves managed by the Natomas Basin Conservancy, and the Westlake Community, including the Paso Verde School.

The lawsuit challenges the project’s deficient environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act. It also challenges the failure of the Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission (SacLAFCo) to follow its own policies in its approval of the landowner application. The Project site is currently zoned and used for agricultural purposes. Its ongoing status as agricultural land is critical to maintain continued effectiveness of the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan (“NBHCP”), an enforceable legal agreement between City, Sutter County, and Federal and State wildlife agencies which has guided urban development in the Natomas Basin for over 25 years.

Click here to read the media release in full.

May 21, 2025

Dear neighbors,

We need your help. The Airport South Industrial Project (ASIP) – the project that would replace farmland and wildlife habitat with warehouses and place traffic-inducing diesel trucks next to a neighborhood and school – is going to the Planning and Design Review Commission this Thursday, May 22, 2025.

Please help us protect our open space and keep the “farm” in “farm to fork.” We need you to:

1. Submit an e-comment to the Planning Commissioners. Many of the Commissioners haven’t heard much from the public about this project, so they don’t know how many people care about it or why. Let them know that their decisions on Thursday matter to you. Submit an e-comment here.
2. Attend the May 22 Planning and Design Review Commission meeting. The meeting will begin at 5:30 pm this Thursday at 915 I St. Please plan to speak for 2 minutes, or bring a sign to show your opposition from the audience.

Every voice counts. We need yours to convince the Planning and Design Review Commission that they should recommend that the City Council reject or require significant changes to the project.

May 9, 2025

ECOS is taking its message of opposition on the Airport South Industrial Project (ASIP) to the City Planning and Design Review Commission on May 22, at 5:30 pm. 

Unfortunately, the Sacramento Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCo) voted 7 to 0 on May 7, 2025 to certify the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and approve the Sphere of Influence (SOI) for the Airport South Industrial Project. This project would create 6 million square feet of warehouses on a 450-acre site next to the Westlake neighborhood, the Paso Verde elementary school, and existing habitat.

Despite 60 speakers voicing opposition at the April 2 meeting; despite 700 pages of comment letters; despite air quality and other negative impacts; despite our best efforts, they voted to move the project forward.

The next opportunity to turn things around is the City Planning and Design Review Commission hearing on May 22 at 5:30. The meeting will be held in the City Council chambers at 915 I St. If convinced of the flaws in the proposed project, the Commission may recommend that the City Council reject the project or offer suggestions for changes. I urge you to mark your calendar and plan to attend. Soon after that, the issue will go to the City Council for a final decision.

Thank you to everyone who wrote, called, posted on social media, and testified at the LAFCo hearings. Please contact your representatives as the meetings get closer. We still have a chance of saving this valuable farmland and open space.

Thank you and stay tuned.

Heather Fargo
President of the ECOS Board of Directors

In the News

Below are links to the report on Channel 10, a Sacramento Bee article published May 7, 2025, and today’s Sacramento Business Journal article.

Channel 10, “Battle over Sacramento annexation plan pits jobs against environmental concerns.”

The Sacramento Bee, “Sacramento commission approved annexing 472 acres. Residents are concerned.”

Sacramento Business Journal, “Sacramento LAFCo approves step toward Airport South project near Metro Air Park.”