They intend to put the slides onto the City's website, so look for those. Simply, it designates potential commercial, business park, multi-family with different densities, single family with different densities, parks adjacent to school sites (including one private), civic buildings, cultural centers, approx. 18 miles of bike trails, and 30% open space (including the main oak grove and the river routes). There are two main east/west traffic routes; Easton Parkway which is planned to go from the county line all the way to Mather Blvd. and Whiterock Road. There are 4 highway crossings at Empire Ranch Drive, Bidwell, Oak, and Prairie City. It designates sites for 5 elementary schools, and one middle school/high school shared complex.
The plan calls for 12,000 - 12,500 residential units over 5 square miles or 3600 acres (less the 30% set aside as open space).
Some questions that came to mind for me:
1) If the current city is 5 x larger in acreage than the SOI, and has about 22,000 residences, how will they really be able to fit 12,000 there? Councilmember King questions this and was pointed to other areas that have developed around "town centers" like Walnut Creek.
2) With that level of density, how in the heck will traffic be manageable? Corollaries: Will the two east/west routes end up with stoplights every 1/4 mile like on Folsom's current main thoroughfares? Will they keep out the right turn lanes like in existing downtown and commercial areas?
3) No plans exist for light rail or other mass transit, other than a proposed bus line. The presenter stated that this type of plan wouldn't include that. Why not? Wouldn't it be essential to save the rights of way for such things and plan to move masses of people now instead of trying to infill later? Wouldn't it be necessary to mitigate the apparently highly dense residential traffic impacts?
4) Rumors have flown from time to time that developers want the city to relieve them of the Oak Ave. interchange requirement. This would be a disaster and would help to give the Northerners vs. Southerners feel and lack of connectivity.
5) What will they do to address the clash between new residential in the flight path to Mather airport? Schools are not sited in a manner that would require extra approvals from the state or airport authorities.
6) While working on annexation, does it make sense to also address potential new SOI areas surrounding the land to be annexed? There is the unincorporated Gencorp land between the SOI and Rancho Cordova, and the southern land toward Rancho Murietta.
There is a followup meeting they're calling an Open House on June 28, from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. You can ask the "experts" questions at that meeting. I won't be able to attend because of conflicting meeting. The rest of you should (unless you're coming to my meeting
).Any thoughts from others? Cal, I assume you were there although I didn't see you.
