Uneasy Rhetoric

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while – last Tuesday, January 31st, I attended the standing-room only public meeting on “The Village,” the new development proposed for the spot of land between the Capital City Freeway (Business 80) and the rail levee behind East Sacramento (see my previous post for a map).

My observations:

Almost nothing has been decided except that the developers want to build something on the land. Kudos to Cambridge Homes for bringing their barely-born concept to an incredibly NIMBY-infected neighborhood that is already up-in-arms about a proposed expansion of Mercy Hospital. However, given that nothing has really been planned, it felt early to have a meeting. Of course, from a rhetorical standpoint it gives Cambridge Homes the upper hand – everytime someone asks a question they can answer, truthfully, “nothing is planned yet; we want to take all input into consideration.” Good strategy, but will it inoculate you from NIMBITIS?

Naturally, everyone there was concerned about traffic. One person complained about the traffic on Elvas, about how unsafe it was. There’s no question that Elvas would experience a significant increase in traffic, but that street is so damned wide that there are all sorts of mitigation/pedestrian friendly possiblities for it. Furthermore, councilman Steve Cohn was there briefly and pointed out that part of the problem on Elvas is the neighbors themselves. Where have I heard that before?

Someone else suggested that maybe they should build fewer, larger homes on the land. You know, homes for rich people. After all, that would reduce traffic! Just what the region needs, more mcmansions. Oh, and Hummers.

Perhaps the most valid point came from the person who was concerned about flooding. Punching through the railroad levee would expose East Sacramento to additional potential flooding if the river levee broke somewhere between the western end of River Park and the freeway.

East Sacramento is a very lucky neighborhood – it has two-levee protection. I wonder how the residents of River Park felt about the flooding arguments? After all, they’re on the other side of that levee.

No doubt the city would require flood gates at the punch-through location, continuing to provide East Sacramento with an additional, and largely illusory, comfort zone. Face it, if a levee breaks anywhere in Sacramento, we’re all in a heap o’ trouble.

And the flood danger for residents in “The Villages” would be no higher than for those in River Park, Natomas, or the Pocket.

Finally, at the very end, one brave soul spoke up about the need for more density – about how we need to consider traffic from not just a local, but a regional perspective – and that higher density could help the region’s traffic woes. He didn’t get booed, but he didn’t get a standing ovation either.

Margaret (or was it Chris – which one of you said it first?) made a good point. East Sacramento residents seem to want to turn back the clock (it should be worth noting that about half of this crowd of over 100 people raised their hands when asked if they were around for the first proposal something like 15 years ago). They see all this change around them and they don’t want it. They want Sacramento to be the way it was.

Yeah, I want Sacramento to be the way it was too. And I want to be eight years old, playing among the trees in Capitol park and begging my parents to buy me an ice cream cone. Guess what? You can’t have it that way. This region is growing, we’re going to add more people whether you like it or not, and they have to live somewhere. If they all live in Cameron Park and Dixon and Galt and Placerville, then they’ll have to commute for work. If you oppose infill developments like this one, then you are implicitly supporting sprawl. Sorry, but that’s how it goes.

I applaud Cabridge homes for trying to involve the community in their efforts to develop this site, and I’m glad to hear that they’re looking to develop it in a smarter way than some of their other suburban developments around the region. Let’s hope the neighbors choose to participate and not just pontificate.