A temporary homeless shelter location in North Natomas may not meet a requirement listed in a city of Sacramento ordinance authorizing the sites.
The parcel, which the city is calling a micro-community, would hold 40 tiny homes for seniors at 3511 Arena Blvd., which borders the Stadium Club Estates Mobile Home park. The location was chosen under a 2021 ordinance that allows the city to quickly approve shelters, which often face fierce opposition from what former Mayor Darrell Steinberg called “not in my backyard” advocates.
The ordinance says a temporary shelter will be granted an administrative permit if it “is more than 500 feet, measured from property line to property line, from any of the following: temporary shelter facility; childcare center; childcare, in-home (family day care home); school, K-12; park; or museum.”
The Bee’s analysis, measuring from property line to property line, found the city-owned parcel is less than 500 feet from Sundance Park, which is in a residential neighborhood and borders glittering Sundance Lake.
A city spokesperson wrote that the ordinance only applies to private developers and offered a different way to measure than from “property line to property line.” The distance from the park to the first tiny home would be more than 500 feet, wrote city spokesperson Julie Hall.
Some North Natomas residents have criticized the project, which is getting underway during a heated re-election campaign for Councilmember Lisa Kaplan, who represents the area. Kaplan has questioned building micro-communities amid a $66 million city budget deficit and said she will “stand beside” any lawsuit filed against the site.
“Ignoring the 500-foot buffer is unacceptable and erodes community trust — especially when the rule was intentionally created to protect and safeguard neighborhoods,” Kaplan wrote in a statement. “Why would the Mayor not want to protect this neighborhood?”
Mayor Kevin McCarty included building three micro-communities in his plan to add 625 new housing units for unsheltered residents. He stood behind the North Natomas project — the first micro-community scheduled to be built — in a statement, writing that the city is complying with all applicable housing and homeless siting laws.
“Locating homeless sites is rarely easy and often politically charged, but it is necessary work,” he wrote. “Sacramento is moving forward with real, practical solutions that help transition people off the streets and into stability.”
Why have a micro-community in North Natomas?
Each council member was charged with selecting city-owned land in their district for a homeless shelter under the 2021 ordinance. Kaplan said the sliver of land is the only available parcel in her district, and knew city staff was contemplating the location.
But, Kaplan has said, she did not know the area at the corner of Arena Boulevard and El Centro Road had been officially selected until a person was spotted last summer collecting soil samples for an environmental analysis.
Kaplan’s district does not have any homelessness facilities, Hall wrote. For the city, she added, the lack of an established shelter made selecting the North Natomas location an appealing option.
“The city has worked to create geographical diversity and parity with the siting of its homelessness facilities,” Hall wrote in an email. “We would like to have facilities in every district because there are people experiencing homelessness in every district.”
About 90% of the parcel is more than 500 feet away from the park, according to The Bee’s analysis.
The 2021 ordinance is also “immaterial” because the “proximity restrictions in the ordinance govern private development and do not apply to the city itself,” Hall wrote. However, the law does not explicitly address private developers.
Kaplan called for equal standards.
“The standards required for privately developed emergency shelters should also apply to the city,” Kaplan wrote in a statement.
The city has not released a site plan showing the locations of the 120-square-foot tiny homes. Residents will have heating and air conditioning and shared bathrooms, showers and other services. The site is scheduled to be completed in January.
The opposition
The North Natomas site has drawn scorn from dozens of area residents who arrived at City Hall to voice opposition, plead for the city to reconsider the location and threaten a lawsuit at a recent council meeting. They suggested that the new shelter could cause public safety problems, strain resources and change the neighborhood’s character.
The city also has a $66 million budget deficit. In Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Kaplan questioned creating the North Natomas micro-community and other temporary shelters as officials plan to slash vacant staff positions and cut programs.
“All new sites should be paused until the city’s financial situation stabilizes,” Kaplan wrote in a statement.
North Natomas residents on Tuesday hold signs opposing the micro-community at the corner of Arena Boulevard and El Centro Road during a Tuesday Sacramento Council meeting. ISHANI DESAI idesai@sacbee.com
Two additional other micro-communities for homeless seniors are planned at 6360 25th St., near Sacramento Executive Airport, and 2461 Gardendale Road in Meadowview. Another homeless site is expected to be designated in Councilmember Rick Jennings’ district, which stretches from Land Park to the Pocket.
Seniors will pay 30% of their income to reside in each site if their stay lasts more than 90 days.
Each location will cost about $3.5 million to create and about $500,000 per year to maintain, said Brian Pedro, the director of the Department of Community Response, at a meeting in September.
He said the model is the most cost-effective solution to homeless housing — the city saves the money it would have spent on a lease and instead pays a one-time cost to build.
Both Kaplan and Councilmember Karina Talamantes, who represents South Natomas and parts of North Natomas, have opposed creating the Arena Boulevard micro-community, though they favor the micro-community concept itself. They have proposed establishing a temporary shelter at the North Area Corporation Yard on Del Paso Road in North Natomas.
For Talamantes, moving the shelter to another city-owned parcel is cost-effective because it already has a paved lot, security and gates.
“I hear questions and concerns from my constituents about this location, and they are demanding better answers from city staff,” Talamantes wrote in an email.
What’s next?
The requirements outlined in the 2021 ordinance for temporary homeless shelters complicate the city’s efforts to address unsheltered homelessness, wrote Ron Hochbaum, an associate clinical professor of law at the McGeorge School of Law.
For decades, the city primarily responded to homelessness by “hiding” the problem through passing criminal laws that banned unhoused people from parks and other public spaces, Hochbaum said. The 2021 ordinance’s restrictions are an extension of those policies, he said.
“The irony, however, is that shelter and housing are the only effective solutions, and now the city is struggling to find viable locations that comport with the restrictions it adopted,” he added.
In addition to the 500-foot radius from parks, day cares, K-12 schools, museums and other facilities, micro-communities cannot be within a half-mile of another “temporary residential shelter” and must be within certain land use zones. Residents have cited those conditions as grounds for a future lawsuit.
“Push comes to shove, we will file it ourselves,” said North Natomas resident Rick Loek.
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Ishani Desai is a government watchdog reporter for The Sacramento Bee. She previously covered crime and courts for The Bakersfield Californian.