The Fresno Planning Commission voted Wednesday to recommend approval of the Southeast Development Area (SEDA) plan to the Fresno City Council in a meeting that lasted nearly four hours.
With that approval in hand, the city council will likely consider the plan on Sep. 3.
The backstory: SEDA has been in the works for decades and spans roughly 9,000 acres along the southeast edge of Fresno.
The first phase at stake and under consideration by the council is South SEDA, which covers around 2,000 acres. The majority of South SEDA is planned for high-skilled job development, with a small portion set aside for housing development.
Dozens oppose: Dozens of people spoke out against the major development plan, claiming it will harm Fresno’s core and ignore the poorer areas of the city, such as southwest Fresno.
The commenters who addressed the Planning Commission included various public figures: Fresno City Councilman Miguel Arias, Fresno Unified School District Board President Veva Islas, Fresno Teachers Association Manuel Bonilla and Central Unified School District Superintendent Mark Marshall.
Arias, who will have his own chance to shoot the development down, urged the commission to go against Mayor Jerry Dyer, adding that there is more than one million square feet of vacant industrial land in his council district available for development.
Islas and Bonilla said SEDA would harm Fresno Unified and lead to continued and precipitious enrollment declines.
Marshall said the city needs to invest in its established neighborhoods and support west Fresno.
Vote to recommend: The Planning Commission voted 6-1 to recommend approval to the city council.
Commissioner Gurdeep Shergill cast the lone vote against.
What they’re saying: Answering a question from Shergill about how SEDA would affect existing parts of the city, Planning Director Jennifer Clark said the city expects demand for development to continue in all areas.
Clark said the city has invested over $300 million in downtown infrastructure, over $100 million in southwest Fresno infrastructure and is continuing to identify infrastructure funding for existing neighborhoods.
“We also have to plan for future growth and not assume that we live in a walled city where nothing happens around us and we can force everyone to live here, right? So we have to assume that there will continue to be a demand and growth for multiple areas in Fresno,” Clark said.
Commissioner Joseph Giles pushed back people claiming west Fresno is neglected by the city.
“West Fresno is getting a lot of road work done,” Giles said. “They got the new college out there. There’s a lot of upgrades going around everywhere. So to hear that everybody’s being left out, I have a different thought on that, right? But that’s why we’re here, to discuss. There’s a lot of money going in other areas. I see it. It gives me some more thought.”
Commissioner Jaime Holt said she believes the city needs to control its own destiny, and that if the city does not act on SEDA, another jurisdiction will come in and develop that land.
“If we lose it, it is quite possible that someone else takes it,” Holt said.
She pointed to other developments in the area that were developed during her previous tenure on the commission, namely Tesoro Viejo, Riverstone and Millerton New Town.