Sacramento pauses Railyards deal. Union calls for 25% affordable housing
Sacramento tabled a multimillion-dollar expanded financing agreement for infrastructure in the Railyards district, Tuesday, as labor and housing advocates called for a revised deal that would put developers on the hook for more affordable housing in the area.
The agreement — which would have expanded a special taxing district from a smaller, eastern section of the Railyards to a much broader, 244-acre area — was hit with a protest last month by union members and residents of the two apartment buildings there. The committee overseeing the financing agreement for the Railyards voted, Tuesday morning, to officially accept the results of the protest and put the deal on hold for one year, as required by law.
A group of Railyards residents and representatives from the union that organized the effort, Unite Here Local 49, celebrated their victory while calling on the city to negotiate a deal that would require 25% of the housing built in the Railyards to be designated affordable.
As precedent, the union cited Sacramento’s regional housing needs assessment and the Surplus Lands Act, which has some provisions around projects that devote at least 25% of new units to lower-income households. The act, said Sonya Karabel, a campaign researcher for the union, does not apply to the Railyards, but serves as an example of what the state has deemed possible.
Developers previously said that of the first 6,000 housing units built in the Railyards, 500 would be affordable, or about 8%.
The Tuesday vote closed the latest chapter in city and economic development officials’ decadeslong efforts to clean and develop the area, which has remained largely vacant since railroad operators moved out in the 1990s, but has gained momentum.
Kaiser Permanente broke ground in March on a 310-bed hospital on the north side of the district, slated for completion in 2029. Sacramento Republic FC and its owners — the Wilton Rancheria tribe — plan to build a new soccer stadium on the east side of the Railyards. And developers have also proposed retail, a concert venue and additional housing.
After the city determined, last week, that the union and residents had amassed enough support to put the agreement on hold, the soccer team said it was nonetheless committed to the stadium build. Downtown Railyard Ventures, which owns much of the real estate in the district, said it would begin infrastructure work on its retail and entertainment area later this year. The health system said the hospital is still on track. City officials said they would work on other means of supporting infrastructure in the district, and potentially revisit the special taxing district expansion in a year.
The move depended on a relatively new piece of state statute, which established a process for residents to block such taxing districts, which are designed to use expected increases in property taxes to repay developers’ upfront costs for water, sewer, road and other infrastructure.
Three city residents — including two who live in the Railyards — had filed a lawsuit against the city last week, accusing it of taking too long to determine whether enough formal protest letters had been filed to put the agreement on hold. One of the plaintiffs, Nancy Williams, said after the Tuesday meeting that the residents planned to drop the lawsuit.
The protest effort has set officials’ longtime efforts to develop the Railyards at odds with residents and labor and housing advocates, who argued that Sacramento must be more aggressive in building affordable housing.
“We’re the only ones with a voice in the Railyards right now,” said Judy Hollis, a resident of the Wong Center, after the meeting.
Hollis said she was motivated to protest to ensure that people who eventually work in the Railyards — staffing the soccer stadium, hotels and retail that may one day exist in the district — can afford to live there.
“The developers,” Hollis said, “should listen.”
This story was originally published July 22, 2025 at 2:28 PM.
