Kammerer Road-Highway 99 Sphere Of Influence Amendment DREIR

On September 11, 2017, ECOS submitted our comments on the Draft Recirculated Environmental Impact Report (DREIR) for the Proposed Kammerer/Highway 99 Sphere Of Influence Amendment (SOIA) Application for the City of Elk Grove.

Click here or on the image above to read the comment letter.

Summary

We appreciate the added attention to detail offered in the recirculated draft EIR, but rather than alleviate our concerns expressed in our original letter, the DREIR only further confirms those concerns. ECOS remains strongly opposed to the proposed Kammerer-99 Elk Grove SOI expansion and stands by our initial observation summarizing the project: Elk Grove’s anticipated growth can be accommodated within the existing City limits, and we find no justification for expansion beyond the Sacramento County Urban Services Boundary (USB) established in 1993 to be the ultimate growth boundary within the County. The proposal is inconsistent with the Sacramento Area Council of Governments’ (SACOG) Metropolitan Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (MTP/SCS) for meeting State mandated greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions, Federal mandates for Air Quality Attainment under the State Improvement Plan (SIP), as well as myriad regional goals for social equity, public health and natural resource conservation. There is an extreme lack of certainty that municipal water can be provided to this area without severe regional impacts, and the impacts to invaluable agricultural and biological resources by the proposal are potentially impossible to mitigate. The RDEIR confirms significant and unavoidable impacts in all these above-mentioned areas, with the exception of less than significant biological impact after mitigation which is a finding we disagree with. The question is, what justification is there for these impacts? We, again, find that there is not, and we strongly recommend that LAFCo decline the proposed Kammerer/99 SOIA.

Click here to read our comment letter to the Draft Environmental Impact Report, submitted March 31, 2017, which is referenced in our letter.

Click here for the Friends of Swainson’s Hawk’s comment letter on the Draft Recirculated Environmental Impact Report, submitted September 11, 2017, which is also referenced in our letter.

ECOS’ Comments on the 2017 SB 375 Update

July 28, 2017

The Environmental Council of Sacramento, along with Organize Sacramento, the Sacramento Housing Alliance, the Planning and Conservation League, Mogavero Architects, 350 Sacramento and the California Bicycle Coalition submitted our collective comments on the recent update to SB 375, The Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008. Below are our opening comments, with a link to the letter in full.

Dear Chair Nichols, Air Resources Board Members, and Staff:

In 2004, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) adopted the Blueprint. This plan provided vision for how the region would integrate land use and transportation planning to curb sprawl, reduce vehicle emissions, and cut down on traffic congestion to improve quality of life. This is to be accomplished by encouraging a sufficient variety housing options close to jobs, schools, and other critical community amenities. The adoption of the Blueprint—and subsequent Metropolitan Transportation Plans/Sustainable Communities Strategies (MTPs/SCSs)—has made SACOG a leader in the state and the nation in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and build more equitable communities.

While we support the recently adopted MTP/SCS, we also believe there is tremendous room to improve the plan. We believe that neither the SB 375 target recommendations made by SACOG staff (-18%) or Air Resources Board (ARB) staff (-19%) represent the full GHG reduction potential from improved land use and transportation behavior in the Sacramento region. Considering the substantial amount of greenfield development anticipated in the current SACOG MTP/SCS and the extremely low densities of the existing urban footprint, we feel that a stronger GHG reduction target is very feasible.

Read our full comment letter by clicking here or on the image of the letter below.

Photo: Smog over LA – is this what we want for the Sacramento region?

Sprawl monitor: Sacramento’s leading environmental protection nonprofit sees growing interest in demanding smarter growth

By Scott Thomas Anderson

July 13, 2017

Sacramento News and Review

ECOS prepping ballot initiative against suburban sprawl

South Placer County beware: An environmental organization is on a mission to educate people about the impacts of wide-scale suburban sprawl. And it’s getting big turnouts.

On June 28, the Environmental Council of Sacramento held a town hall-style meeting about potential ballot initiatives aimed at slowing the tide of business parks and subdivisions spilling across the valley.

For critics of sprawl, the issue has become especially pronounced in cities like Folsom, which is currently allowing 11,000 new homes to be built across 3,600 acres of open space. Across the border in Placer County, expanding tract home developments are overtaking oak woodlands and merging the cities of Roseville, Rocklin and Lincoln. ECOS representatives charged that Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, north Natomas and unincorporated Sacramento County territories are also guilty of approving “egregious” levels of sprawl.

According to the Seto Lab at Yale University, suburban sprawl erodes California’s productive farmlands and delicate habitats, accelerates unnecessary energy demands and harms “high-value ecosystems.”

ECOS has noted that the trend is contributing to a large automobile dependency around the region, along with related air quality issues. According to its research, the region has zoning for nearly 120,000 new single family homes already approved, with another 50,000 single family homes being planned for “remote areas.”

ECOS’ June 28 workshop was held at Mogavero Architects on K Street. “The turnout was great,” said ECOS Director of Operations Alexandra Reagan. “It was standing room only.”

Reagan is planning similar workshops in the future, though she said the next major step would be identifying which municipality should be the subject of a sprawl-controlling ballot initiative from her group. Once that’s determined, she thinks her organization will have a lot of help. “When we asked everyone there who would be willing to work on a campaign, 95 percent of them raised [their] hands.”

Amador County says Sacramento growth plans will turn Jackson Highway into a parking lot

By Tony Bizjak

July 7, 2017

The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento County has asked Caltrans to give it control of 8 miles of the two-lane road so the county can turn it into an urban arterial street that would function as the spine for up to 30,000 new homes in the coming decades, allowing the metropolitan area to march east as far as Grant Line Road.

…

The Jackson corridor is one of several large undeveloped areas of east county slated for growth, along with projects underway to the south near Elk Grove and to the north in Rancho Cordova and Folsom, along the Grant Line Road corridor.

Several of the Jackson Highway development teams are conducting environmental reviews of their project proposals now, one of the last steps before they will receive county approvals to build.

The Bilby Ridge Sphere of Influence Amendment

June 9, 2017

The City of Elk Grove continues to fail to demonstrate a need for more land on which to build, and yet they want more anyway. The Bilby Ridge Sphere of Influence Amendment proposes to increase the City of Elk Grove’s Sphere of Influence, thereby allowing increased urban sprawl around the area of Elk Grove and South of Sacramento. The Environmental Council of Sacramento has submitted our comments regarding the Notice Of Preparation Of A Draft Environmental Impact Report For The Bilby Ridge Sphere Of Influence Amendment_(Lafc 04-16) Application.

Our comment letter addresses the Demand for the Project, the Loss of Agricultural Land, Water Demand and Availability, the Growth-Inducing Effects associated with this amendment, as well as the important Biological Resources at stake.

Click here to read the full letter.

Sprawl Control Ballot Initiatives Introductory Discussion

If you are interested in stopping urban sprawl please come to a meeting to discuss possible ballot initiatives on Wednesday, June 28th, 2017, 6:00pm – 7:30pm at Mogavero Architects, 2012 K Street, Sacramento, CA.

Background: Low-density sprawling suburban communities cause automobile dependency and large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as many other negative impacts on our communities. Redirecting growth into existing neighborhoods has synergy in many areas of social, economic, and environmental aspects of daily living. Currently there is zoning for nearly 120,000 new single family homes already approved in the Sacramento region, not counting the much larger number of residences that can be built on empty lots in existing neighborhoods. Nonetheless, Rancho Cordova, Elk Grove, Folsom, Roseville, Placer County, El Dorado County, and Sacramento County are working to approve development for over 50,000 new single family homes in remote areas.

This Meeting: the purpose of this meeting is to gauge the level of interest in undertaking a campaign to run ballot initiatives to control sprawl boundary and urbanization expansions by regional cities and counties over the next few years. If you would like to stop this egregious violation of the public trust and public value giveaway to land speculators please join us.