Tag Archives: sacramento

Sacramento Investment Without Displacement ACTION Alert 2/27/2024

ACTION ALERT: Attend Upcoming City Council CBAO Workshop on Feb 27 or Submit a Letter Sign-On

Dear Sacramento Investment Without Displacement (SIWD) Allies,

Please attend and/or send an organizational representative to the upcoming City Council Community Benefits Agreement Ordinance (CBAO) workshop happening Tuesday February 27, 2024 at 2pm at City Hall. SIWD partners will be attending this workshop and are calling all our coalition partners and community members’ voices to have a presence at this meeting.

If you are unable to attend or send a representative, please consider signing on to the SIWD letter (linked below) and/or submit your own letter on your organization’s letterhead by next Monday February 26, 2024.

See below for more details and steps you can take today.

WHAT: Attend the Upcoming City Council Workshop or Sign on to the SIWD Letter (see attached)
WHEN: Tuesday, February 27, 2024 at 2pm
WHERE: City Hall, 915 I St, Sacramento, CA 95814
WHY: The Sacramento Investment Without Displacement coalition has spent the last four years working with the City of Sacramento to establish a Community Benefits Agreement Ordinance for Council consideration. In the most recent and updated CBAO (view the posting here on the City’s CBAO website) most of SIWD’s demands to ensure that community voice is at the table have NOT been met nor included in the CBAO drafts. We are asking our SIWD partners, our trusted messengers, serving our most vulnerable, to help push these demands to be included in the City’s CBAO. Your leadership and support is critical to establishing a true CBAO that will include community voices at the decision-making table and ensure that benefits come back to the community in future developments.

Steps to attend the workshop or sign on to our SIWD letter:

  1. If you or someone from your organization will be attending the workshop and would like to join our SIWD partners for an in-person prep lunch/rally from 12:30-1:30pm right before the workshop at the Civic Thread office, please RSVP at this link here. We will walk over to city hall as a group and attend the CBAO workshop.
  2. Review the SIWD template letter and sign on at this link OR submit your own letter via your organization’s letterhead by 5pm Monday, February 26, 2024.

In Community,

Sacramento Investment Without Displacement Members

ECOS Letter re City of Sacramento Draft Climate Action & Adaptation Plan

On August 23, 2023, ECOS submitted a letter regarding the City of Sacramento Draft Climate Action & Adaptation Plan.

Our main comments are as follows:

  • The Plan should be upfront about its financial cost and clearly prioritize City actions according to cost-effectiveness in terms of emissions reductions per dollar.
  • The Plan should address funding for underground infrastructure needed for infill development.
  • The Plan should commit to preserving the Sacramento County Urban Services Boundary, which was put into place in 1993 to prevent greenfield development.

You can view our complete comments in our letter. Click here to read the letter.

We look forward to engaging with the City of Sacramento as the Climate Action & Adaptation Plan advances, in order to help make this plan the best as it can be for the present and future residents of the City of Sacramento.

ECOS Letter re City of Sacramento Draft General Plan Update

On August 23, 2023, ECOS submitted a letter regarding the City of Sacramento Draft General Plan Update.

Our main comments concerning the GPU are as follows:

  • The General Plan should include funding plans and a method of prioritizing projects based on funding availability.
  • New street standards for transit, tree canopy, and walkability should be connected to the Street Classification System to ensure uniform Citywide implementation.
  • The Plan should remove the Special Study Area in Natomas Basin and restore the protections to Biological Resources present in the 2015 GPU.

You can view our complete arguments in our letter. Click here to read the letter.

We look forward to engaging with the City as the General Plan Update advances, in order to help make this plan as best as it can be for the present and future residents of the City of Sacramento.

Comment on City of Sacramento Draft 2040 General Plan & Climate Action & Adaptation Plan by 8/23

Comments accepted through August 23, 2023

Share what you think about “Sacramento 2040″ by August 23, 2023! The City is updating its General Plan & Climate Action & Adaptation Plan, to guide how Sacramento grows, changes, & adapts over the next 20 years. Give input on the Self-Guided Online Workshop at http://sac2040gpu.org!

Sacramento’s first community Climate Action Plan (CAP), adopted in 2012, was a stand-alone document that was intended to guide City efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. In 2015 the CAP was incorporated into the 2035 General Plan.

The City of Sacramento is currently updating the Sacramento Climate Action Plan, and integrating an Adaptation Chapter and a Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment, in tandem with the 2040 General Plan Update process. The full Draft Climate Action & Adaptation Plan (CAAP) and Draft 2040 General Plan were released on April 28, 2023 for an extended public review period that will run through August, 2023. An online workshop was opened with the release of these documents, and will remain open through the full public review period.

Make Comments

PDFs to the full Draft 2040 General Plan and Climate Action & Adaptation Plan are provided below.

Interactive land use maps to support review of these documents are provided below:

Self-Guided Online Workshop

Click here to enter the self-guided online workshop

For more information: sac2040gpu.org

To visit the City of Sacramento’s webpage on this, including the latest update, please visit sac2040gpu.org.

ECOS 2022 End-of-Year Fundraiser

December 2022

Please consider supporting ECOS with a tax-deductible donation. Thank you so much for your generosity.

During the holiday season, let’s remember Mother Earth, and give thanks for her beauty and her stability. As we consider global and national efforts to fight climate change, let us pledge to do more locally.

Over this past year, partners and members of ECOS have worked together to further the sustainability of our land, water, and air in the Sacramento region. As we have for many years, we leveraged our advocacy efforts and relied upon each others’ expertise and good will.

This coming year, we pledge to collaborate again, and support our major jurisdictions and transit agency as they develop programs of projects related to community infrastructure, transportation, and green building to address climate change and take advantage of federal funding now available.

With the climate crisis escalating, we need to be even more effective in our advocacy. We need to persuade our elected leaders to take bold steps to reduce GHG emissions as fast as possible. To do this, we need your help.

We invite you to join us in 2023 and share your time and talents. But for today, please support ECOS with a tax-deductible donation at https://www.ecosacramento.net/donate/.

Best wishes to you and your friends and families.

Report on Activities in 2022

Climate Action Plans (CAP)

Over the past two years, our advocacy resulted in improvements to Sacramento County’s CAP, however many of the greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction measures are still vague and unquantifiable. Although we remain concerned the CAP relies too heavily on SMUD’s 2030 clean energy goal, we applaud the County’s collaboration with the City and SMUD on building electrification. We continue to push for an explicit prioritization of infill development near transit over sprawl; requirements for water conservation and transition to drought-tolerant landscapes; and a requirement for new development to be carbon neutral. We support Sacramento County’s Climate Emergency Task Force and look forward to its recommendations. We reviewed early draft chapters of the City of Sacramento climate plan and will soon comment on the adaptation chapter.

Measure A

We are glad to report that Measure A, the sales tax initiative sponsored by large-scale housing developers, has been voted down. This initiative sought to fund the Southeast Connector and road expansion projects that would have spurred sprawl development and hindered our region’s ability to curb GHG.  ECOS opposed the measure and thanks the “Measure A Not OK” campaign.

Affordable living

We continue to support Sacramento Investment Without Displacement and its discussions with the City of Sacramento to develop an ordinance for a community benefits agreement (CBA). To stave off displacement effects of new large projects, the ordinance would require rent supports, affordable housing, complete streets, transit, and prioritization of the local workforce for jobs.

Induced travel demand analysis

We settled our suit against Caltrans for widening the CapCity Freeway (Business 80) bridge over the American River. We were concerned about the growth in air pollution, GHG emissions, sprawl development from induced travel, and damage from bridge construction to bat and plant habitats on embankments. The settlement requires Caltrans to analyze, as part of CEQA, the impacts of induced travel demand (per SB743), and to provide additional structures for bat habitat.

Natomas Projects

Our Natomas Team is leading the charge on three projects that would threaten the future of the Natomas Basin Conservancy, habitat, and farming. The Airport South Industrial and two others are proposed for land zoned for agriculture, outside the City, and outside the County’s Urban Service Boundary.

Water and Habitat

ECOS’ Water Committee advocates for a safe and reliable water supply that supports people, rivers and wildlife, recreation and aesthetic values, and agriculture. Our committee, with 40 others, is a member of the Water Forum, where water priorities are negotiated. As part of the Environmental Caucus, our committee developed a statement of principles for the upcoming negotiations of the Water Forum 2.0 agreement. The Water Committee supports a regional approach to ensure supplies of groundwater and surface water are sustainable for both the community and the environment.

ECOS’ Habitat Committee (Habitat 2020) works to protect our land, water, native plants, and wildlife. Our committee commented on the Delta Conveyance Draft Environmental Impact Report, highlighting problems with how the impacts on our region’s terrestrial species were addressed in the analysis. In eastern Sacramento County, we are working on a campaign to relocate the Coyote Creek Solar Voltaic Project so it will not imperil Blue Oak Woodland habitat. In Rancho Cordova, we are working to preserve a key habitat area in the American River flood plain, opposing a proposed housing development there.  We continue to review implementation of the South Sacramento Habitat Conservation Plan, which will conserve more than 40,000 acres.

Partners and members with whom we worked in 2022, in addition to government entities:

350 Sacramento
Breathe CA Sacramento Region
California Mobility Center
Citizens’ Climate Lobby Sacramento
Civic Thread
Civic Well
Cleaner Air Partnership
ClimatePlan
Community Resource Project
Environmental Democrats Sacramento
Friends of Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge
Friends of Swainson’s Hawk
Green Incubator
Impact Foundry
International Dark-Sky Association
Legal Services of Northern California
Mark Berry of Rancho Cordova
Measure A Not OK
Organize Sacramento
Physicians for Social Responsibility Sacramento
Regional Rail Working Group
Sac Area Congregations Together (SacACT)
SacMoves Coalition
Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates
Sacramento Area Creeks Council
Sacramento Audubon Society
Sacramento Building Healthy Communities
Sacramento Climate Coalition
Sacramento Community Land Trust
Sacramento Electric Vehicle Association
Sacramento Environmental Justice Coalition
Sacramento Housing Alliance
Sacramento Investment Without Displacement
Sacramento Metro Advocates for Rail + Transit
Sacramento Natural Foods Coop
California Native Plant Society, Sacramento
Sacramento Vegetarian Society
Save Our Sandhill Cranes
Save the American River Association
Sierra Club Sacramento
Splash
Sunrise Movement Sacramento
The Water Forum
The Xerces Society
United Latinos
Valley Vision