Major housing tract west of Hwy. 99 gains planners' OK

Thursday, Nov. 06, 2008

Even with the local housing market at a standstill, one of the area's biggest builders is making plans for a big new tract west of Highway 99.

The McCaffrey Group won approval Wednesday night from the Fresno Planning Commission to build 648 homes on about 127 acres bounded by Hayes, Bryan, Ashlan and Gettysburg avenues.

The project won praise from commissioners for its design, which melds higher-than-usual density with amenities such as narrower streets and wider sidewalks to encourage walking and biking over driving.

Some of the tract's lots will have garages that open onto alleys. Front doors for those homes will open onto courtyards instead of streets.

Getting builders to put more houses on less land and discourage driving is a long-term goal of local and regional planners. Such steps are intended to stop farmland loss and restrain the growth of air pollution from motor vehicles.

"I love this project for the walkability, for the pedestrian access, for the way it creates open space in a unique way," Commissioner Lori Cherry said just before the panel's unanimous vote.

Commissioner Nat DiBuduo praised the tract's mix of large and small homes on lots ranging from 2,706 to 16,307 square feet: "I can start in as a young couple with a smaller home, move up, then move all the way back down." He said that will let growing families find more space without changing schools.

The site lies east of the Koligian Educational Center in the Central Unified School District, in an area where most roads are still narrow two-lane affairs intended to serve farms and rural home sites. As a result, the tract will be required to pay about $110,000 toward improvements at the Shaw and Ashlan Highway 99 interchanges.

It is also to contribute more than $773,000 toward a new Highway 99 interchange at Veterans Boulevard between Shaw and Herndon avenues. The cost of that interchange is estimated at $97 million, with $60 million to come from Measure C, Fresno County's half-cent transportation sales tax. Part of the remainder is expected to come from fees on new development.