Next meeting:
Thursday, March 15th, 7:00 p.m.
Our speaker will be Elaine Whitehurst,
tribal leader of the Shingle Springs band of Miwok Indians
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Few of us have a good understanding of the Miwok heritage in our area and most of us have only remotely watched bits of the current public policy debate. The Shingle Springs band acknowledges that their plans will affect our region, and we've heard bits of speculation about whether it's for better, for worse, or perhaps both. We welcome this opportunity to learn directly from tribal leadership what this will mean to El Dorado Hills and to the County.
AKT proposes 3,400 acres (at least) of urban development adjacent to EDH
Last Saturday the Sacramento Bee reported that the Sacramento County
Board of Supervisors is considering a plan to develop an additional
20,000 acres of land in eastern Sacramento County. For El Dorado Hills
the most important part of the Bee's report is this:
"Supervisors
also are entertaining a request from developer Angelo K. Tsakopoulos to
shift the line that now defines the permanently rural portion in the
eastern county to include 3,400 acres of pasture that Tsakopoulos and
his partners own along the El Dorado County border.
"The
pro-expansion direction of the county's general plan update has alarmed
the environmental community. It also runs contrary to the
recommendations of county planners, who have focused on redeveloping
existing communities while limiting growth on farmland."
The Bee's map shows the Tsakopoulos holdings in question as a
line of parcels running from Folsom's Sphere Of Influence south along
the county line, past the EDH Business Park and Carson Creek
areas. If approved by Sacramento County, this would cluster
the new urban development together geographically with El Dorado Hills
but governmentally with Sacramento
It's getting easy to connect the dots to form a coherent picture.
The image is of El Dorado Hills as the core of a growing city, an
urban area likely to become truly massive.within a few decades.
The pattern starts with AKT development
of the Valley View Specific Plan area, which will add nearly 10,000 to
our population immediately east of Latrobe Road and the EDH Business
Park. Next are AKT's 3,400 acres along the county line, with AKT now
seeking approval for urban development. Finally is about 1,000 acres
south of the Business Park, bridging a gap between the southern ends of
the first two sections -- this is the Dunlap Ranch, purchased by AKT
less than 2 months after EDH incorporation as a city failed in the
November, 2005 election. This could complete a U-shaped ring of urban
development surrounding the Business Park.
It looks a lot like planned development (planned by AKT) of a place that could easily be the core area for a new city of
very substantial size.
We in the Citizens Alliance think that a large majority of our
population has a different vision for our future, trying to preserve as
much as possible of a small town environment bordered by rural
lands. Some don't mind high growth but generally are concerned about
timely infrastructure development to match growth in population
and business.
We'd like to have some EDH survey or poll results to back this, but at
this time we've only seen a few citations for other places in our
region. A
Sacramento Bee article posted on the web site of the Sacramento Transportation and Air Quality Collaborative (
www.sactaqc.org)
refers to a poll of Folsom residents showing that "89 percent consider
managing growth and development as a top city priority and two-thirds
are
dissatisfied with the way the city is handling it." The same article
cites another poll in Davis with 83% saying growth is the community's
biggest or second-biggest problem. Another poll done in Elk Grove
showed 85% of voters saying that managing growth and development is a
top priority, and almost as many calling for environmental
protection including preserving farmland and open space.
Is our sense of EDH citizens' sensitivity to urbanization accurate?
You can help us to know how close we are to being on track or off
base by emailing your own views to us at
alliance@edhca.net.