The Sacramento region on April 2 celebrates the first five years of its award-winning Blueprint, a voluntary framework for reducing congestion and sprawl. Eight hundred people have signed up for an event to take stock of progress.
The hard-won Blueprint culminated in a map that set an “urban services boundary” to accommodate projected growth out to 2050. Sacramento, West Sacramento, Rancho Cordova, Folsom, Roseville and Rocklin have aggressively implemented it.
But the Blueprint is threatened at its southern boundary.
Elk Grove, which became a city in 2000, is seeking to extend its “sphere of influence,” the precursor to annexation – from 27,000 acres to 37,500 acres. The city proposes to expand south from Kammerer Road and southeast from Grant Line Road, right up to the Cosumnes River and into the floodplain – well beyond the urban service boundary.
Oddly, the city is seeking expansion at a time when growth has dried up. Elk Grove’s residential building permits peaked in 2004 at 4,666 and have been dropping since – to 427 in 2008. Elk Grove was a poster child for a bubble economy over-reliant on housing and has suffered foreclosure rates much higher than the county or state.
This city is in no danger of outstripping Blueprint growth projections. The proposed expansion is unnecessary. A symbol of the folly of expansion is the half-finished, abandoned Elk Grove Promenade mall and the largely unpopulated Laguna Ridge housing area.
Unfortunately, the expansion effort already has gone too far. The Sacramento Local Agency Formation Commission hired a consultant to do an environmental impact report on March 3. And Sacramento County, which had rebuffed previous Elk Grove attempts to expand its sphere of influence, has drafted a memorandum of understanding that would accept Elk Grove’s proposed boundary. It goes to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors in May.
Elk Grove’s proposed expansion appears to be a developer-driven move that needlessly violates the Blueprint’s urban services boundary and encroaches on the Cosumnes River Basin, the jewel of the south area.
Those who support the Blueprint need to stand up to stop this misguided effort – and urge the Elk Grove City Council to withdraw its expansion application.