Back when the housing market resembled a Gold Rush stampede, it was hard for this region to engage in a sustained conversation about preserving open space and farmland.
Local government leaders, competing for tax revenue, were anxious to develop. Farmers were being heavily courted by land speculators and homebuilders, whose ambitions were being supercharged by a market fed by subprime loans.
All that is different now. Developers who bet recklessly on the boom have gone bankrupt. Farmers are seeing a value in planting crops instead of rooftops. While it's hard to detect many silver linings amid the current gloom, the economic slowdown creates an opening for local leaders to plan this region's quality of life.
This conversation should start with a basic question: What makes the Sacramento area special? What makes people and businesses want to move here, and stay here?
There are many answers, but one of them is the parks, fertile farmland and river corridors of this region. It's not every metropolitan area that has an American River Parkway, an Auburn State Recreation Area or several distinct wine regions within an hour's drive.
None of these places happened by accident. Generations of activists created the parks we cherish now, and protective land zoning helped keep farms and vineyards from being carved into ranchettes.
Now there's a need for a new spurt of conservation, with an emphasis on saving land that provides multiple benefits – for flood control, recreation, wildlife habitat and rural economic development.
Here are some places where this vision could be put into action:
• Natomas: It will be several years before levee upgrades allow new development to go forward in this deep flood basin. Sacramento leaders need to continue their progress on the Natomas Joint Vision – an attempt to settle differences between the city and county over future open space, tax sharing and encroachment on the airport.
• Placer County: The county is pushing ahead with plans for a future university and other development on 1,157 acres west of Roseville. To prevent such a project from stimulating sprawl – gobbling up the farmland that buffers Roseville and Lincoln – Placer needs to get serious about creating a greenbelt between these two cities.
• Sacramento County: Will changes on the Elk Grove City Council prompt this city to scale back its growth plans and foster a more workable relationship with Sacramento County on habitat planning and farm preservation? The signs are hopeful.
Several stars are aligned for this region to make some conservation breakthroughs in coming years. Land prices are dropping, and though local governments are short of funds, there's still money available through Proposition 84, a state bond measure that authorized $5.4 billion for conservation projects, including purchases of park land.
At the same time, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments has launched a "rural-urban connections strategy" that seeks to maximize the economic development potential of our local farms and food products.
The next several years will be tough. But they'll really be especically tough if we emerge from this downturn having missed a rare opportunity.
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