Sacramento (and its lawyers) confront county on Natomas. What’s next? | Opinion
Undisclosed by either government at the time, the city of Sacramento’s big-gun law firm out of San Francisco sent a scathing letter August 19 to Sacramento County on why it objected to a proposed 25,000-person community near the Sacramento River north of downtown.
That same day, the county tabled the project known as Upper Westside in the Natomas Basin and called off an August 20 Board of Supervisors hearing to approve it.
It’s not every day that Sacramento County leaders are told by the city, page after page, just how poorly they are conducting urban planning. But the letter from this firm, Buchalter and its stable of 300 attorneys in 14 offices, carries a larger significance in the devolving relationship between our two largest local governments.
The city has shared many of these same concerns with the county, some for as long as five years. When lawyers get involved, it can signal that last step before a planning/political dispute turns into a legal one.
“My client finds itself at a crossroads concerning the future of the Natomas Basin,” wrote Buchalter attorney Alicia Guerra on August 19, suggesting a pivotal choice on the horizon.
The county, incredulously, is acting as if it was just hearing from Sacramento about Natomas for the first time.
“In recent days, the county has received a number of comments raising concerns about the project,” said county spokesperson Kim Nava in a written statement on August 19. “It is important to take the necessary time to thoroughly review this input to ensure that, when the plan is finally presented for public discussion and board consideration, it aligns with the county’s vision for exemplary, well-planned development.”
Theatrics aside, Sacramento has eloquently laid out a two-part case as to why Sacramento County is breaking the law and threatening a landmark Natomas growth/preservation plan by entertaining Upper Westside and other huge Natomas development projects on farmland.
The county can continue to ignore the city, approve the project, and see if Sacramento blinks. Or study this project again in ways that the city is requesting and see where a better process leads them all.
Resolving environment questions now, not later
Since 2003, the entire Natomas Basin has been guided by a contractually binding multi-government plan to develop only a quarter of this basin while preserving the remaining lands. The so-called Natomas Basin Habitat Conservation Plan is a landmark 50-year agreement on how balance growth and protect 22 different species that call the basin home.
Now with Upper Westside and even larger projects under review, the county is looking to retire farmland and expand urbanization at levels 40% greater than this 2003 plan ever envisioned. The city rightly believes this threatens the whole plan, as does the Natomas Basin Conservancy, no matter what groundless spin the project landowners say.
Buchalter told the county that it’s time for them to confront the totality of what it is contemplating. The solution is for the county, the city, and the wildlife agencies to determine upfront how much more urban expansion, if any, is environmentally sustainable in Natomas.
Show Sacramento the water
Guerra reiterated how the city has not committed to providing this neighboring project with city water, and is requesting that the county formally consider an alternative supply in a full-blown new environmental analysis.
The county staff has claimed that its backup supply is the local provider of Sacramento River water for area farmers, the Natomas Central Mutual Water Company. But Natomas Central has no right to use water for municipal purposes. Getting such authority would require a vote of the State Water Resources Control Board in a proceeding that would attract just about every water lawyer in the Sacramento Valley.
This is because change is causing water scarcity in parts of the valley for the first time. In the last drought in 2022, Natomas Central only received 18% of a full supply, a historically low delivery. (The city, with more senior rights, had no shortages in 2022 whatsoever.) How can Natomas Central guarantee a reliable supply for 25,000 people in a way that doesn’t impact fellow senior water right holders?
Will the county respond?
Buchalter and the city are asking precisely the right questions. Yet they won’t be easy to answer. It took years, for example, for Sacramento and its partner in the northern part of Natomas, Sutter County, to come up with that 2003 growth/preservation plan. It would also take time and money to analyze another water solution.
What’s the county’s next move?
“We have not received any response from the county,” said Susana Alcala Wood, Sacramento’s soon-to-depart city attorney (she has taken the same job in San Jose). “And honestly at this point, we are thinking we won’t.”
More to come.
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This story was originally published September 10, 2025 at 5:00 AM.