Fresno’s future housing is threatened by city’s inaction on key growth area | Opinion

The publication Fresnoland recently reported that the city of Fresno will be postponing further consideration and approval of the specific plan for the Southeast Development Area.

Work on the SEDA specific plan has been ongoing for more than 10 years. A draft plan has been completed. An environmental impact report is almost complete, but consideration of the document by the Planning Commission and the City Council has been delayed.

The city would be well served scheduling, as soon as practical, the specific plan and the EIR for consideration by the Planning Commission and the City Council at noticed public hearings.

To be sure, there are public infrastructure and related financing challenges that will require solutions, but those could be addressed after the EIR is certified and the specific plan is adopted.

Public infrastructure plans must be completed, but that can’t happen until the city, with public input, decides upon the land uses and development patterns envisioned by the specific plan. Once public infrastructure cost estimates are known for the preferred land uses and development patterns, a public infrastructure financing plan can then be developed.

The Building Industry Association of Fresno and Madera counties believes that failure to adopt a specific plan for SEDA will eventually bring development in the city to a standstill, limit housing opportunities, and thereby drive up the cost of housing, making it less affordable.

There are two other issues likely to restrict or limit growth in Fresno in the future. Those are the lack of a tax-sharing agreement between the City and Fresno County, and definitive plans to provide water, sewer, transportation and other public services for SEDA.

The lack of a tax-sharing agreement forces developers to engage in a lengthy process with the city and the county to process annexation requests before they may be considered by the Local Agency Formation Commission. In the absence of such an agreement, a proposed annexation cannot be considered by LAFCO without a project-specific, stand-alone tax sharing agreement. However, it is our understanding that stand-alone tax-sharing agreements are not preferred by either the city or the county and are, therefore, problematic and unpredictable.

The current stalemate between the city and county over provisions of tax sharing effectively stops development in any area outside city limits, even areas within the city’s pre-SEDA sphere of influence. It is time the city and the county reach an agreement on tax sharing.

The lack of SEDA public infrastructure plans for water, sewer, transportation and other public services is a glaring deficiency. It is our understanding that preliminary public infrastructure plans are complete. If so, the plans should be released for review and comment by interested parties.

By addressing issues — such as the specific plan, the tax sharing, public infrastructure plans, and related financing alternatives — concurrently, rather than in a serial fashion, substantive progress toward the desired goals of expanding the Fresno’s inventory of land for development, and thereby expanding housing opportunities for residents, could be realized more quickly than might otherwise be the case.

The BIA urges the administration and City Council to expeditiously consider all the issues. Failure to do so will ultimately work to Fresno’s detriment by stymying growth in the city and encouraging development in other San Joaquin Valley communities.

This story was originally published January 30, 2024 at 12:46 PM.