West Fresno residents have strong vision for their area. City leaders need to support it

Over the last century, Fresno’s political leadership either hastened or ignored the plight of west Fresno as it fell behind economically and environmentally. Today it is one of the poorest and most unhealthy places to live in the state.

The business sector is small and struggling, unemployment and crime are high and home ownership is low. Many west Fresnans struggle with asthma and other maladies because of pollution engulfing the area, and will have an average lifespan that is 20 years shorter than someone from north Fresno.

“The planning for west Fresno has been reckless and deliberate for many decades,” says the Rev. B.T. Lewis of Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church.

Fortunately, the city has its own strong map for transforming west Fresno into a community with renewed vitality, health and opportunity. It is called the Southwest Specific Plan.

‘Change community forever’

The City Council on a 7-0 vote in October 2017 climaxed a two-year process of extensive community involvement in developing a growth and development vision for west Fresno. The steering committee met 17 times, and there were six community workshops and three major community presentations.

“There’s nothing that’s ever been adopted by the City Council on behalf of west Fresno like this in our history,” said Oliver Baines, then the council member representing the area. “What you all as members of the community did is change the community forever.”

The plan calls for west Fresno to be renovated into a series of neighborhoods each centered on small retail, a range of housing types, a school and a park. Building infrastructure would need to occur; for example, some streets still do not have sidewalks.

New housing is a critical part of the plan. Most of the existing homes were built primarily in the 1950s and ‘60s, prior to the phasing out of lead-based paint.

The idea is to get away from the current patchwork of land uses that abut each other, including subdivisions, industry, and farmland.

Improved land use is critical to bettering west Fresno. It must become more cohesive if it is to become a nicer place, and following the plan would bring that about.

One industrial area has become a major challenge to the plan, however. How the council acts will be telling about its commitment to west Fresno and its specific plan.

Industrial proposal

This spring an attempt was made to rezone 92 acres in southwest Fresno from Neighborhood Mixed Use to Light Industrial Use.

As reported by FresnoLand Editor Dympna Ugwu-Oju, the rezone applicants are Mid Valley Disposal, Madera developers Peter Stravinski and Tim Mitchell, and Sacramento developer Larry Allbaugh, operating under the business names Mid Valley Recycling; SDG Fresno 570, LLC; Span Development, LLC; and PW Fund B, LP, respectively.

They say the current zoning jeopardizes their ability to obtain financing for modernizing their operations. The city’s development code legally permits industrial uses to continue under “legal non-conforming” status, even if the current zoning does not permit them.

On the one hand are the businesses, which in good faith set up in southwest Fresno years ago at the city’s encouragement, and today employ about 1,000 people.

On the other hand are west Fresno activists like Venise Curry, a resident who helped lead the effort to get the specific plan adopted.

“Any rezone to accommodate business owners at the expense of a community-endorsed specific plan, particularly when all previous plans for this area of the city have been nullified by decades of inaction and disinvestment, is counter to the will and intent of west Fresno families,” she said.

A group of Black leaders from west Fresno have been meeting with the business owners to see if a compromise can be worked out. For now, the rezone request is on hold.

Uphold the plan

This dilemma is the city’s responsibility. Years ago it encouraged industrial businesses to operate in west and southwest Fresno. Now, with the residential, retail and office focus of the Southwest Specific Plan, those uses are incompatible. Existing operations can continue, but cannot expand, nor get loans under the current zoning.

The city should help the companies that want to modify operations move to a site that does not have compatibility problems.

That is easy to say, but hard to do. It would involve significant costs, for one thing. But the city’s goal should be to maintain both the planning vision for west Fresno as well as the jobs of the industries now there.

The Southwest Specific Plan was conceived by west Fresno residents, for west Fresno residents. It should not be unraveled piece by piece whenever a company, however well-meaning, seeks a zone change.

The real question behind such rezoning debates that will inevitably continue is this: Does the rest of Fresno truly care about their neighbors on the westside? The answer must be yes.

Imagine a renewed west Fresno, with grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants and shops; with much less pollution; with new and renovated housing stock; and with more neighborhood-based jobs. It means less crime and a healthier, wealthier, succeeding population.

That, in turn, is good for the city as a whole.

A revitalized west Fresno could be as livable as anywhere in the city.

To use Mayor Dyer’s term, it would be the realization of one Fresno.