8,000 new homes are coming to Placer County. Here’s how it’ll affect Rocklin, Roseville and Lincoln

The Placer County Board of Supervisors approved Tuesday final planning documents for a major housing and job development that could be home to more than 19,000 new residents off Highway 65, the cornerstone of which is a public university campus.

As part of the plan, more than 13 square miles of the Sunset Area bordered by the cities of Lincoln, Rocklin and Roseville will be designated for new land uses, including major hubs of entertainment, business and industry. Nestled in the area is the Placer Ranch property, which would be home to a proposed Sacramento State satellite campus and serve thousand of new residents.

The county, which had been both the applicant and approver of the project, had stressed that the need to “rebrand” in area. For years, it was a chicken and egg problem: Potential buyers of the agricultural and industrial land weren’t interested in land that lacked infrastructure, but the county struggled to justify building out services without the pressure of proposed development.

“The phrase today was used twice — game-changer. That’s an understatement for this project,” said George Phillips, a representative for the Placer Ranch property owner during the Tuesday meeting. “It changes the center of gravity for this region.”

The project had received push back from residents, who argued the county was rushing a development plan that didn’t sufficiently account for future traffic congestion, environmental damage, housing issues, or the possibility that the California State University system might back out of its commitment. The development’s proximity to a county landfill, which is at the center of the Sunset Area, also concerned residents.

“Don’t be the supervisors known for approving Dump University, or Dump U,” Sue Ingle, a member of the county’s Solid Waste Local Task Force, told the board Tuesday.

More housing, worse traffic

In the early years of construction, traffic could worsen significantly for streets running through nearby cities. That’s because even if fewer cars are on Highway 65, more traffic would be diverted to Fiddyment Road, Athens Avenue and Blue Oaks Boulevard, among other busy corridors running through the area.

In particular, the increase in cars on the road would create “over-capacity traffic conditions” on Sunset Boulevard, and “degrade operations” at other intersections, according to the county’s impact report.

The Placer Parkway — the long-anticipated four-lane expressway that could ultimately connect Highway 65 to Highway 99 in the west — is highlighted in the county report as its main means of mitigating traffic issues.

The first phase of the expressway would connect North Foothills Boulevard to Highway 65 at the Whitney Ranch Parkway interchange in Rocklin and is expected to be complete by 2022. But full funding for construction has yet to be secured.

Given the development’s size, neighboring city roads will still operate at extremely low levels of service, even after major traffic improvements to Highway 65 and I-80 are completed, according to the county’s impact report.

More than 8,000 new homes are expected to be built out in the Sunset Area. The county is expecting nearly 6,000 of those homes to come online in the next 20 years, including about 3,400 single-family homes and 1,500 multi-family units.

In addition, the county expects new development in the Sunset Area will generate 55,760 new jobs, including those created by the proposed new campus.

Impacts on Roseville, Rocklin and Lincoln

The city of Lincoln had requested the board postpone approving the development, arguing that the new land use designations would create confusion in the future as the city moves forward with annexing parts of the Sunset Area.

Steve Prosser, Lincoln’s community development director, also said the plan undersells potential traffic impacts based on assuming major infrastructure improvements may or may not be built in the next few years.

The city of Roseville, which had also raised concerned with the county’s planning documents regarding the development’s impacts on fire response services, ultimately supported the project after an 11th hour correction submitted Monday night. The county acknowledged emergency calls may increase as a result of new homes in the area, and that it will negotiate with the city on a mitigation plan as needed.

There are still several issues the city of Rocklin has identified with the project — in particular, the city worries that new development is too close to the existing Western Regional Sanitary Landfill, and that the overall density of the project cannot be supported by existing and planned road improvements.

As part of the plan, there is a 2,000-foot buffer for residential homes surrounding the landfill, but the county recognized “odor complaints have been recorded well outside the 1-mile existing landfill buffer” in its impact report. Rocklin argues the county “totally neglects” the true cost of fixing odor problems, and that making those improvements will be paid for existing city ratepayers.

“It’s extremely difficult to comprehend how introducing more homes or sensitive receptors even closer to the landfill will result in an acceptable outcome that does not threaten future operations and the long term viability of this extremely important facility,” the city wrote in a letter to the county.

When will construction start?

There is no defined timeline for when construction will begin on Placer Ranch, according to Michele Kingsbury-Perez, the county’s principal management analyst.

No development plans for the Sunset Area have been proposed, though the approved planning documents provide a framework to start building out infrastructure.

The county’s principal planner county Crystal Jacobsen previously told The Sacramento Bee that “investment interest from folks that are eagerly awaiting the completion of the Sunset area.”

As for the proposed campus, the California State University Board of Trustees is expected to review the finalized planning documents early next year, as well as an agreement with the county and a deal for receiving 300 acres of donated land from Placer Ranch Inc., the group that owns the property.

It’ll be “at the minimum several years” before shovels are in the ground for the Placer Ranch development, Kingsbury-Perez previously told The Bee.

This story was originally published December 11, 2019 at 1:04 PM.