Supervisors would create a nightmare by approving Serna’s Natomas project | Opinion
Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Serna is a lame duck who will be out of office by early January.
Despite this, Serna is championing a proposed 25,000‑resident housing development for Natomas known as Upper Westside, a project opposed by the city of Sacramento as well as Flojaune Cofer and Eric Guerra, the two candidates vying to succeed Serna when his 16 unremarkable years on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors mercifully end.
For the four other county supervisors on the board with Serna the future should matter more than the past. Serna is the past.
Yet Upper Westside is up for approval before county supervisors on Tuesday.
It would take a supermajority of them — four — to ignore the county’s long-standing urban limit line and approve the Upper Westside project.
Serna should be leading the charge to delay a vote on this project, to honor the overwhelming opposition in his own district and to let his successor plan for the future of this land near the Sacramento River adjacent to Garden Highway. But so far he has not.
Let’s set aside all the urban planning reasons why this county project makes no sense. Forget that it is surrounded on three sides by the city that is on record opposing the land. Or that there are no comprehensive funding plans to deal with what this project will do to roads and schools. Or that the county has failed to analyze whether there is a reliable water supply for this land based on the worst droughts that have already happened. Upper Westside also risks undermining a 50-year plan by the city and Sutter County to responsibly grow in the Natomas Basin by leaving alone sensitive parcels like this.
Tuesday’s vote should be about honoring the future leader of Sacramento County’s 1st supervisors district.
Public health advocate Cofer and Sacramento City Councilmember Guerra will face each other in a November runoff. Cofer, who came close to gaining 50% in this primary and winning outright, strongly opposes this project. Guerra voted against it as well when Upper Westside was considered earlier this year by the full council.
If the board were to approve this project, the real debate over Upper Westside would only be beginning. It’s quite likely that the city will challenge this project in court, and likely be joined by numerous other stakeholders.
Upper Westside isn’t some cutting-edge smart growth project. It is a political albatross. Most of the Upper Westside site is within a mile of the Sacramento River. More than 20 years ago, the city of Sacramento, Sutter County, the state and federal wildlife agencies agreed to a no-growth mile buffer along the Sacramento River as a corridor for wildlife.
This is land the county should never have contemplated urbanizing.
Do the other four board members want to be reminded, again and again in the coming years, how approving this project was a huge and historic mistake?
This board has no tradition of saying no to big development projects. But on occasion it does listen to the wishes of the district supervisor.
The real leader of the 1st District isn’t Serna. The other four supervisors should table consideration of Upper Westside indefinitely, honoring the concerns voiced by the city, 1st District stakeholders and its future office holder.
Approving a project of more than 2,000 acres is a big decision that lasts forever. It shouldn’t be approved in deference to politician who will be gone soon.