Sacramento developers are still using deception to sell this terrible housing project | Opinion
The ultimate leapfrog development project in rural southwest Sacramento County should be officially dead by now. Instead, it clings to life based on a false promise of environmental sensibilities under a new name on a new website.
Call it the same old Cordova Hills Project. Or call it by its new name, Braden. But let’s call it one of the worst development decisions ever made by the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors. But it is not too late.
It is beyond time to deny this project a penny of future sales tax revenues for its massive road needs, and that alone will likely kill it. The real growth work to be done is redeveloping in communities within cities and the unincorporated county that already exist rather than continuous sprawl.
Braden is one of the first three phases of the large development plan known as Cordova Hills, situated on nearly 2,700 acres in southeastern, unincorporated Sacramento County, near the corner of Grant Line and Douglas roads. Two other parts of the development, subdivisions known as “University Village” and “Ridgeline Village” have also been approved, according to the county’s planning department. They have not yet begun to build but recently, the development company reported to the county that they would seek tentative map approval and shift their focus to the “town center” area now called Braden with its nearly 8,000 new homes.
The original developers listed in paperwork filed with the county nearly a decade ago were Mark Hansen and Ron Alvarado, but it’s now Somers West, the “sustainable real estate developers” that owns Cordova Hills and Braden; and Senior Vice President Corey Harpole, who has taken over control of the project from Hansen and Alvarado.
Neither Somers West nor Harpole returned multiple requests for comment.
Shattering climate goals
Building beyond the fringes of existing communities creates longer trips in cars and greater emissions, all contrary to mandates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Regardless, Sacramento County Supervisors have delayed the adoption of its Climate Action Plan for nearly as long as Cordova Hills has been in development, ensuring that developments approved before the adoption of the climate plan would not be subject to many, or even most of, its requirements.
Given the commute and the expected prices of the new homes, only upper-income buyers will be able to afford living at Braden, making a mockery of the acute housing shortage facing the regions low-income residents and of the county’s climate goals. So, too, would building yet more sprawl into the wildlife urban interface, or WUI, which is especially susceptible to devastating destruction in wildfires.
Cordova Hills is also in a prime wetlands conservation area, something the developers are trying to sell as an amenity to would-be homeowners, claiming that all the homes will be built within a quarter-mile of trails or other outdoor amenities. But in fact, the project appears to be in direct opposition to the goals outlined in the South Sacramento Habitat Conservation Plan (SSHCP), which seeks to ensure the preservation of species, natural communities and aquatic resources in the area that Cordova Hills occupies.
The SSHCP is intended to preserve 28 species of plants and wildlife, including 11 that are listed as threatened or endangered under the federal and state Endangered Species acts (including that adorable Western Burrowing Owl) and was prepared by five local agencies in coalition, including the County of Sacramento the city of Galt, the city of Rancho Cordova, the Sacramento County Water Agency and the Southeast Connector Joint Powers Authority several years ago.
In reality, the nearly 500 acres Braden gloats it has “set aside” for conservation — making them look as though they care very much about the nests of Western Burrowing Owls and other endangered animals — are actually a required land donation in lieu of incurring mitigation fees.
Breaking promises
It’s important to know the Cordova Hills project never really made sense, and was contested right from the start. The Cordova Hills developers first had the project approved in 2013, when it skipped to the front of the line over closer development projects and against all of the county’s careful growth models — mainly because it promised to gift a university at least 200 acres of the property.
At that time, Cordova Hills’ developers were in discussion with Hillsdale College, a Catholic university based in Michigan, to establish a West Coast campus. After Hillsdale quietly dropped out of the project, the team began discussions with the now-defunct University of Sacramento, but it too pulled out of the tenancy deal in July 2011 when the university went under.
But back in 2012, when the Cordova Hills Development Co. was seeking project approval from the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, the company’s lawyer Gregory Thatch promised the supervisors that Alvarado would never dream of building this project without a university on the property.
“Mr. Alvarado is very adamant that I say this and so I want to make it clear, he is not proposing a project that does not include a university. That is not his project,” Thatch said at the board meeting on Dec. 12, 2012, when supervisors began discussing what utilities would be required, with or without a university at the location. “We appreciate that some folks will not like this project for a variety of reasons, we appreciate that you may vote against it. But it is, in fact, not his project if it is not a university, so (this is) somewhat of a hollow analysis.”
In order to approve the project, the county then requested yearly documentation from the developers regarding their progress. the most recent update was made in June, a letter from Harpole to the county stating that they “continue to strategize and seek meaningful discussions” with universities, but that “as of the present, our outreach has only materialized to general discussions in regard to individual perspectives on where higher education is heading.”
In other words, there’s still no university attached to the project, despite all their promises.
Braden is now branded as a new kind of sustainable community that seeks to help to solve climate change.
Greenwashed, rolling hills
The Braden website touts the development as “A new way to live and work in Sacramento County!” and is thick with marketing images of young people living their best lives. They’re tapping into a cultural zeitgeist that tends toward sustainability and have even hired Cheri Chastain as a sustainability director, who helped build the impressive sustainability programs at Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. and at Chico State University.
“Braden’s carbon reduction strategy relies upon additional investments and key decisions to intentionally drive down greenhouse gas emissions,” wrote Chastain in a blog post on the Braden website.
For what it’s worth, when I asked Chastain how Braden would combat the greenhouse gas emissions sure to result from its distance from the city’s urban core, one of the main features of Braden described were the internal transit shuttles they hoped to one day run at regular intervals, with a light rail connection to Mather Field — which doesn’t currently exist. All of these promises are so far in the future that they’re as real as Monopoly money, with just as much value.
Home sweet Braden?
Braden came to my attention after a friend attended a local discussion about the project, and she excitedly sent our group chat the link to the website. She wanted to buy a house in Braden because it looked like a great place to live. That makes sense, because people our age are exactly the demographic Braden is hoping to ensnare.
Climate change and protecting the environment is the No. 1 and No. 2 concern for Gen Z and MIllennials, according to a recent Deloitte survey, and revealed that around three-quarters of Gen Zs and Millennials think the world is at a tipping point when responding to climate change. Today, nine in ten MIllennials make an effort to protect the environment.
Cordova Hills has been a part of Sacramento County’s political past, but it doesn’t have to be a part of Sacramento County’s future. Sacramento County still has the power to kill this project, which would be the best outcome for everyone, and especially if you truly care about climate change.
This story was originally published August 25, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
