Why the city of Sacramento should oppose this terrible housing project | Opinion
Last October, the city of Sacramento sent a letter to Sacramento County officials “to express its opposition” to a proposed 25,000-person community that would be built north of downtown in an unincorporated part of Natomas that is surrounded on three sides by the city.
Months later, when a county planning commissioner asked in June about city opposition, county Planning Director Todd Smith portrayed things as if the differences had narrowed.
“We have responded to the city’s concerns, we think,” Smith told planning commissioners. “We think we’ve addressed what we believe are the appropriate issues.”
But Sacramento’s stance on the project known as Upper Westside has not wavered. The frustration felt by city officials over the county’s handling of this project is now coming to a head on Tuesday, as the city council will decide whether to oppose this project yet again with a recorded vote of city leaders.
When a city council debates any motion to oppose what a county is doing, something has gone terribly wrong. This should have never happened.
In 2002, a previous generation of county supervisors agreed to defer control of undeveloped land in Natomas to the city. But now, led by Supervisor Phil Serna, the board is moving toward to defy that agreement and to approve what would be an irresponsible housing development that is built too close to the Sacramento River. The Upper Westside Specific Plan is bordered by Garden Highway to the west and Interstate 80 to the south.
Serna’s aggressiveness to push Upper Westside is the root cause here. Hopefully a majority of Serna’s board colleagues will listen to reason — and listen to the city — when they decide on the Upper Westside project as soon as August 20.
A clash over an environmental commitment
Natomas, a natural flood basin with 22 protected species, is the kind of place that demands a balance between growth and preservation. The city of Sacramento has long been perfectly comfortable with this. The county, feeling pressure over the years from Natomas farmers who prefer to be developers, not so much.
The city found its balance between preservation and growth 22 years ago, in partnership with Sutter County (home to the northern third of the basin). The two got regulatory clearance to develop roughly a third of the basin’s 60,000-some acres. Sacramento County was conspicuously missing as the city and Sutter County committed to the Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan.
A cornerstone of this plan was a commitment to preserve for wildlife a mile-wide corridor along the Sacramento River. Both have scrupulously complied with this requirement, and this is where the conflict with Upper Westside runs the deepest. Most of this 2,000-acre project is within a mile of the river. That’s a big reason why the city objected in its October 2024 letter to the county.
“The city must express its opposition to the proposed Upper Westside Specific Plan due to its direct Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan,” Cheryle Hodge, the city’s new growth manager, wrote in that letter. “The City of Sacramento, as a signatory to the NBHCP, has a legal obligation to ensure the continued integrity of this regional conservation strategy.”
By the time county planning commissioners voted to support this project in June, planning director Smith suggested the city’s current position on the project was somehow unknown. “We have not received any confirmation or official position,” he said.
It’s up to the council on Tuesday to make it crystal clear to supervisors where Sacramento has stood on this project all along.
Will Sacramento stick up for itself?
It’s one thing for governments to have slightly different perspectives on some important issue. It’s another when they live in contradictory and parallel universes. That is what has been unfolding between the city and the county on Upper Westside. Only one universe, however, happens to be grounded in reality, proper planning, and adherence to plans grounded in environmental law.
Serna should never have sought to strip the city of its power to shape Natomas’ future by advancing this project. But he did. And now the governments are in this inevitable conflict. We need these two governments to collaborate now more than ever on homelessness and other pressing matters.
And now the conflict is getting more bitter by the hour. On Monday, Smith wrote to Hodge, chiding her about “inaccuracies” in her voluminous report to the council recommending to oppose Upper Westside. It is beyond curious that Smith in this circumstance positions the county as the arbiter of truth. This gives you a flavor of how the county under Serna’s leadership treats the city.
Sacramento for years has worked long and hard to grow in Natomas in a balanced way. The county put the city in charge here yers ago for the right reasons. On Tuesday in city council chambers, Sacramento either sticks up for itself, or it doesn’t. It’s really no more complicated than that. More to come.