August 04, 2008
McKinley Village
Tags: development, infill, sacramentoThe Bee reports that Phil Angelides wants to build 400 houses next to Business 80–in that little eye-shaped parcel of land where goats once roamed–and call it “McKinley Village.” I’m all in favor of infill, and while I wouldn’t be hot on living next to a freeway, this seems like a logical place to put additional, close-in housing.
The thing that I find interesting is that this seems ominously similar to another proposal floated a few years ago by Cambridge Homes — they even went so far as to have a neighborhood meeting on the topic, wherein about two dozen people stood up and whined about all the usual NIMBY problems — flood protection and traffic — and one person stood up and said we needed more infill if we were going to improve the region (and no, it wasn’t me). The Cambrige Homes page for that development says the project is “on hold” while the owner explores other uses for the property. It looks like that other use has been found, and even the Greek Church stays.
Has Angelides taken into account all of the potential push-back he will get from East Sacramento when he tries to develop a way into and out of that neighborhood? I hope so.
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What’s directly across the freeway from that parcel? Is it a landfill or former landfill? I haven’t lived here long enough to know what the heck is over there.
August 04, 2008 @ 11:12 pm
It’s a former landfill, now “Sutters Landing” park.
August 05, 2008 @ 8:19 am
It sounds like the single-family/gated-community model is intended to minimize East Sacramento pushback, but it will make for a pretty darn generic cookie-cutter community, even with a couple of one-acre neighborhood parks and a church. No retail means no mixed use and no walkability. Two entry/exit points means minimal public transit connection (maybe they’ll route Bus 34 through it, probably not) so it will be more car-centric than any central city neighborhood. 400 units on 40 acres is fairly dense for single-family homes compared to the outer suburbs, but compared to midtown it’s kinda paltry, and even kind of sparse for East Sacramento. We just got done making this sort of mistake in Natomas, now do we want exactly the same sort of mistake on the edge of the central city?
My main concern is flooding. Building something on the Centrage lot means we lose flood capacity, and we simultaneously weaken the levees with punch-throughs. Sacramento’s worst recorded flood came in through a levee break in roughly that spot in the 1860s: levee weakening and reduced floodwater capacity increase the chance of the disaster that pushed downtown Sacramento 15 feet off the ground…
August 05, 2008 @ 12:10 pm
I think the flood danger is probably the closest thing to a legitimate gripe the East Sac. neighbors have, but…River Park is in a much more precarious position than the Centrage site — it is also on the wrong side of the rail levee and, if I recall correctly, there’s a levee on the other side of Business 80 that would provide a second level of flood protection beyond the main river levee, for the Centrage site. East Sac actually has it pretty good, in terms of flood protection.
The Centrage site isn’t a floodwater bypass now is it?
August 05, 2008 @ 12:59 pm
No, but it is a water sink. Drive by sometime this time of year and you’ll notice that there is still green grass in the middle of the site. Nobody waters it; it’s green because that land soaks up water like a sponge. Build on it, and we lose a little regional sponginess.
It would be a great place for a park, maybe even for a new Sacramento Zoo, if one could figure out how to get people in and out. But it’s a terrible place for a gated suburb.
August 05, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
There’s really no retail in the plan at all? That seems insane. I don’t have a problem with the high-density single family homes (hey, I live in the suburbs). But there absolutely should be a central, walkable, main-street-style mixed-use area of neighborhood retail (small market, dry cleaner, coffee shop, neighborhood restaurants, etc.) with condos/apartments on top. Not including any retail will make traffic much worse for McKinley Park/East Sac.
Who said this is a gated community? Is it really gated, or are you just calling it that?
Also, I see no reason a bus route couldn’t be added to cut through this neighborhood to Midtown and Downtown. Presumably, that’s where most people who would buy here work.
August 06, 2008 @ 9:57 am
The lack of retail is lame, and thank you Carl for *not* including “gallery” in your list of retail establishments. The value of galleries is overblown — they’re great for gentrification but virtually unnecessary for livability (a topic for a future post).
I don’t think this is supposed to be a gated community in the sense of an actual gate, but wberg has a point — the community would have one or maybe two entry and exit points that would likely be “punch-throughs” through the levee, which would require flood gates. A road over the levees is possible, I suppose.
In that sense River Park is kinda gated as well, as there are only two roads in/out.
August 06, 2008 @ 10:14 am
leaving aside the obvious aesthetic, technical and environmental concerns,
1. Tsakopolous is an EXTREMELY questionable character, if he in fact has any, that buys his way to publicity and acceptability through contributions to the Democratic Party
2. Angelides merely is a frontman for Tsakopolous
3. Tsakopolous obviously wants to do something with some questionable property, and since he can not sell it to Natomas for more worthless school property, he calls in his stooge Angelides to front on this deal
4. At Laguna West, Angelides/Tsakopolous used the “New Urbanism” lingo to sell a very squalid land deal…the initial design had ZERO to do with New Urbanism, featured no on site jobs, virtually no public transportation and very squalid house and sort or public/commercial design….Apple came in later and did their splashy number on their building across the LA style boulevard…
5. Things went south before total buildout and Laguna West was traded back and forth between Tsakopolous to Angelides to Tsakoplous like a hot potato…all seeming very legal in a slimy land developer manner…
6. Now one gets an environmental disaster in Laguna West as Angelides proclaims himself a green guru…
Sacramento got Saca, Nassi and now Angelides…and thrown into the mix you get some of the worst design imagninable at Tapestri Square and elsewhere…
just wunnerful
o to do
August 06, 2008 @ 10:47 am
Surrounded on all sides by physical barriers, except two openings, which, as mentioned, would HAVE to have gates (although the folks in this new neighborhood would be on the floody side of said gates in case of flood.) Sounds “gated” to me even if it isn’t officially so. Basically, a replay of River Park, a similarly insulated neighborhood near Sac State, which also has only two entrances and exits. It is served by a single bus line. It’s not impossible to serve this new neighborhood with transit, just not very efficiently or easily, and it’s far from any present or future rail-borne transit.
There are already streets that go over the tracks, at 28th & B and at Lanatt off of Elvas (at least over one end to allow UP crews access to the center of the wye), but the FRA strongly discourages grade crossings on busy streets, and would probably not permit it. Plus the residents probably wouldn’t appreciate having to sit there while trains are stacked up waiting for a clear signal: there is much more traffic at the Elvas wye than on the old WP mainline through downtown Sacramento, and most of it has to stop there.
Apparently 10% of the spaces are intended as “live-work” spaces, but no commercial zone.
August 06, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
Far better this site gets homes than something further out that requires more car time and bigger freeways. Its sad that it will most likely end up a suburban looking tract.. We need urban walkable homes with retail in the middle. Put them homes there and give them enough retail to stay in there for most of their trips.
August 10, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
You guys are crankier than the goats who comment at sacbee.com. This is a good project. It is NOT gated, there WILL be retail, it will not hurt flood control and it will look great. It’s infill = less sprawl. “We lose flood capacity” that’s a joke. This project is not within the floodplain thanks to the train levee that practically surrounds it. The neighborhood mixed use zone means reatil and apartments. There isn’t enough traffic to support a lot of retail here. And aethetics, “suburban looking tract” !? It’s high density detached homes, how is that suburban? Look at the elevations and plans. These are attractive and very compact homes withn a walkable street network.
Please stop with all of the NIMBY crap. This site could not have a better proposal for it.
September 15, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
What would all that construction do to the McKinley Park area ? Are they going to open up the B St Alhambra ? Any ideas ?
January 16, 2009 @ 10:05 pm
No idea. Although the prior version of this proposal indicated they wouldn’t be opening B Street to Alhambra.
January 17, 2009 @ 8:05 am
Who in their right mind would consider living in McKinley Village after knowing that a closed and capped municipal dump is across the highway? Most closed dumps contain carcinogenic chemicals and highly explosive, highly flammable methane gas. Government agencies and greedy developers may say that there is little danger in building on or next to old dumpsites. It’s up to people to protect themselves and their families by looking elsewhere for cleaner, healthier neighborhoods and leave developers holding the bag.
March 24, 2009 @ 3:50 pm
The homes in midtown just across the tracks from the old old landfill are quite valuable, relatively speaking. McKinley would be further from the landfill than C street.
So to answer the question, I’m sure many people would be happy to live there across the freeway from the landfill. Close to jobs, entertainment and retail of midtown/downtown and close to future ballparks of Sutter’s landing.
March 24, 2009 @ 9:55 pm
Corky’s right, the presence of a capped landfill hasn’t dissuaded people from living just over the levee in Midtown. And let’s not forget what else is close to that landfill: the river. Granted, our water intakes are upstream…of…the…landfill…but, wait, isn’t there an intake on the Sacramento after it meets the American? Yes, yes there is.
And there’s something poetic about people living close to their own filth.
March 25, 2009 @ 10:41 am
Midtown isn’t directly across from old landfill; the area north of Midtown was (and is, for the most part) railroad land and industrial areas. The old landfill was fairly far from town back in the days when Sacramento’s city limits were the current central-city grid, specifically because they didn’t want to be right next to it. And Midtown homes are not just valuable for their location, but for their history, style and setting. There is a lot of demand for historic homes, and a dwindling supply.
Methane from the landfill is actually tapped and used to generate electricity: Blue Diamond powers their electric lights with a co-generation plant fueled by the landfill’s off-gassing.
It’s actually kind of timely that this thread returns from its grave: the plan is being re-presented to various neighborhood groups. There will be one cut through the levee, near the Elvas wye rather than at Alhambra, although they are considering a possible pedestrian/bike tunnel at Alhambra. There is also a plan to put a small amount of mixed-use retail near the Elvas end of the project.
March 26, 2009 @ 10:11 am
In modern times though, that landfill is pretty close. Still, I’ve got no problems with it.
If the purpose is to accommodate bike/ped, why bother with a tunnel? Why not just do sloping road up and over and preserve the integrity of the levee?
March 26, 2009 @ 12:22 pm
The railroad tracks on top of the levee are the main problem. A sloping road would require a grade crossing, something that UP and the FRA try to avoid whenever possible. Because the Elvas wye is not just a place where trains pass, but a place where they stop and sit while waiting for clearance (think of it as a big traffic light for trains) trains can remain parked in place for an hour or more. The grade crossing would also require crossing arms/lights/bell, which means whenever trains block the crossing the lights and bell would be going off–which adds to the noise of the train itself.
A sloping road on the Alhambra Boulevard side would almost certainly block access to B Street, the road just south of the levee, and to the storage facility on the west side of Alhambra. So even if one could get UP and the FRA to go along with a grade crossing, you’d end up severely messing things up on the Alhambra side.
March 27, 2009 @ 10:12 am