Behind the Meltdown: Lincoln's boom fades out

This was going to be Lincoln's turn to shine.

Happily shucking its farm-town image, Lincoln embraced suburbia during the Sacramento area's great housing boom. Its population tripled. Master-planned communities sprang up and prices hit blue-sky territory. And it spent millions on the crown jewels of the new Lincoln: a collection of state-of-the-art school buildings that would put the city on par with its more glamorous South Placer siblings, Roseville and Rocklin.

Then things went sour in what had been California's fastest-growing city. Home sales fell, prices plummeted and foreclosures grew, just as they did almost everywhere in California's interior.

But unlike other communities, Lincoln has an additional bill to pay, and it's a whopper: nearly $190 million in debt facing its tiny school district, the result of an ambitious construction program undermined by a housing market gone soft. The district, Western Placer Unified, has been forced to postpone additional schools, including an eagerly awaited high school to serve the families that flocked to the Twelve Bridges development.

"It's like salt in the wound," said Steve Pounds, a father of two school-age children and a Twelve Bridges homeowner since 2002. "Obviously, everybody is suffering with this housing market, but (Lincoln) took an extra hit because we aren't getting what we were promised when we moved in."

Lincoln was a small town with big dreams that got whipsawed by Sacramento's chaotic housing market. Though its long-term future looks bright, the community is suffering for its ambitions. It fancied itself a wealthy suburb and, according to some school officials, overspent on campus construction to match Roseville and Rocklin. (One frill cited by an ex-school board member: a clock tower overlooking the main gate of the new middle school.) Now, like many a Sacramento-area homeowner, Lincoln faces a mountain of debt.

"There were a lot of expectations about development and I don't think anybody saw the economy taking the kind of turn it did," said Cathy Dominico, a Sacramento consultant working to restructure the district's finances.

City's modern era begins

For years Lincoln was known mainly for Gladding, McBean, the 132-year-old maker of sewer pipe and other clay products located next to the old downtown. Motorists heading into the city from Rocklin along the main commercial thoroughfare are greeted by a 1940s-era rodeo stadium.

Lincoln's modern era began in the late 1990s, when three huge developments took shape: the Sun City Lincoln Hills retirement community, Lincoln Crossing and Twelve Bridges.

The result was more than 10,000 new homes, an influx of shopping centers and an emerging suburban culture. The rodeo site, in the path of development, was put up for sale. Asking price: $6 million.

Since 2000 Lincoln's population has more than tripled, to 37,410. In 2006 Lincoln grew by 23 percent compared to its 2005 population, faster than any other city in California. In 2004 and 2005, it captured a resounding 43 percent of Placer County's population growth.

"We looked at it and said, 'That's the way Sacramento is growing, people will be wanting to move out there,' " said Evan Weinzinger, a data-center manager from Vacaville who bought a home for $508,000 in Lincoln two years ago as an investment with his wife, Angela.

Some 14 percent of the homes sold in Lincoln in 2005 were purchased by investors like the Weinzingers, who schooled themselves by attending real estate seminars and watching cable-TV reality shows like "Flip This House." They bought a home in Texas and one on Keswick Court in Lincoln Crossing.

The Texas property is doing well. But the four-bedroom home on Keswick is another matter. The Weinzingers never found a tenant for it, maxed out their credit cards to meet the $2,900 monthly mortgage payments and lost the place to foreclosure in March. It's listed for $389,900.

"It's brand new," Weinzinger said. "No one's ever lived in it."

Keswick Court and the adjacent Keswick Lane are one of many lost precincts of Lincoln, neighborhoods that have become pockmarked with vacancies and "For Sale" signs. More than two dozen homes are for sale or rent within a half mile of the Weinzingers' place. At least a half dozen were foreclosed.

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