Fresno neighborhood groups threaten ultimatum to stop SEDA

What’s at stake?

Residents announced on Thursday that with a $3 billion hole in infrastructure funding, they’ll rewrite the city’s power structure to stop SEDA.

A coalition spanning Fresno’s political spectrum delivered an ultimatum to Mayor Jerry Dyer on Thursday: Kill the massive Southeast Development Area (SEDA) or face a voter referendum that could permanently halt suburban sprawl in California’s fifth-largest city.

At a press conference scheduled Thursday just before the Fresno City Council’s workshop on the controversial 45,000-home SEDA specific plan, the coalition demanded that Dyer launch a comprehensive process to write a new general plan, charting a new economic future for Fresno. 

If he refuses, organizers say they’re prepared to gather signatures for a ballot measure establishing an urban growth boundary for Fresno – a legal line that developers cannot cross without voter approval.

“If this goes completely wrong and they approve a plan that really threatens the future of the city, probably the nuclear option is growth boundaries,” said Dan O’Connell, executive director of the Central Valley Partnership, who helped organize Thursday’s press conference.

The coalition represents a rare alliance in Fresno politics, from State Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, who started to press conference, to representatives from former Mayor Ashley Swearengin’s multi-billion-dollar DRIVE Initiative of the Central Valley Community Foundation, the Central Labor Council representing 105,000 workers across four counties, and neighborhood groups from West and Southwest Fresno and Southeast Fresno.

Such a growth boundary would effectively strip the mayor and city council of their power to approve fringe development, handing those decisions directly to voters – a tool that has reshaped growth patterns from Portland to Ventura County but has never been implemented in Fresno. 

The confrontation comes after a city analysis revealed that developer fees for SEDA would cover at most 20% of the project’s $4.3 billion infrastructure costs, leaving a $3 billion funding gap that could burden Fresno taxpayers for generations.

“Where is the city getting the money to do this expansion, to pay for the infrastructure, the streets, the curbs, the sidewalks, the gutters, while in our core, these older neighborhoods are just falling apart?” asked Sabrina Kelley, a fourth-generation Southwest Fresno resident.

The Dyer administration attempted to fast-track the project in May, only to see the effort collapse when Planning Director Jennifer Clark tried to push commissioners to approve environmental documents that hadn’t been completed. The city’s own consultants concluded that Phase 1 of SEDA “may not be financially feasible.”

And yet, Dyer has continued to push SEDA forward. He plans on presenting Phase 1 to the city council again this Thursday, according to slides on the city’s website.

Dyer’s position on SEDA has shifted in tone but his overall support has never wavered. In May, he declared opposition to developing East SEDA, citing $1.5 billion in immediate infrastructure costs. 

But now he wants to develop suburban homes there, according to his latest proposal to the council. Now rebranded by him as “South SEDA,” on portions of that same area east of Temperance Avenue he opposed in May, are large tracts of land zoned for residential.

It is unclear when the change of plans to include east of Temperance in SEDA’s first phase were made. Dyer’s most recent public statements at the San Joaquin Valley Manufacturing Summit on Oct. 29 suggested that South SEDA would be a hub for industrial development and manufacturing.

Dyer declined to comment ahead of his presentation to the council.

“It feels like it’s become a bit of Mayor Dyer’s pet project he wants to see happen,” said Rhonda Dueck, executive director of the Jackson Community Development Corporation.

State population projections compound the coalition’s concerns: Fresno’s population will begin declining in 2045, before SEDA reaches even half of its planned buildout. At the administration’s projected pace of building 900 homes annually, the development wouldn’t be complete until 2082 – a very long time to pay off any infrastructure debts. 

At the most recent SEDA planning workshop, planning staff made inaccurate and misleading statements to the city council about these population projections.

“Urban sprawl is a Ponzi scheme,” said Dillon Savory, the executive director of the Central Labor Council. “It never pays for itself, and you always have to build more just to pay for the crap that you’re already indebted in.”

For O’Connell, the growth boundary represents residents reclaiming control from a political system long dominated by developer interests.

“I don’t think people realize how unbelievably strong that is, how powerful it is for residents to take back power from politicians,” he said.

For Dueck, the choice facing Fresno is fundamental: continue letting developers drive the city’s growth regardless of cost, or finally draw the line.

“I’m not sure our job is to make developers rich,” she said. “Our job is to take good care of the city. And there needs to be some boundaries on how that happens.”

Disclosure: Fresnoland receives support from the Central Valley Community Foundation. Our funders do not have any control over our editorial decisions. For more information, read Fresnoland’s editorial independence policy here.

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