Demas Enterprises is planning to build a six-story apartment complex in Sacramento near McKinley Park. The controversial project went up for a vote in front of the city’s Planning and Design Commission
Thursday.
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An East Sacramento apartment complex that has divided neighbors was approved Thursday evening by the city’s Planning and Design Commission.
That decision, though, could be appealed to the City Council.
The six-story development put forward by Demas Enterprises is planned for Alhambra Boulevard near McKinley Park. It would bring 332 apartments to a property currently occupied by vacant brick warehouses.
Many neighborhood residents have spent months pushing back against the plan with concerns, including that it is too dense, too big and will create traffic nightmares. They recently distributed a mailer urging opposition and repeated an array of worries Thursday evening.
“This is completely out of scale with the rhythm and character of the neighborhood,” Carl Seymour, president of the Casa Loma Terrace-East Sacramento Neighborhood Association, told the commission. “This is not reasonable, please do not approve it.”
Dozens of people attended Thursday’s Sacramento Planning and Design Commission meeting to discuss a proposed apartment on Alhambra Boulevard. STEPHEN HOBBS shobbs@sacbee.com
Seymour is one of several members of the East Sacramento Community Association who urged the commission to deny it. But the association’s president, Tricia Stevens, gave the opposite view.
“The project adds needed housing in our community,” Stevens said, “and adds housing choices in an infill location for those desiring to live close to amenities like jobs and schools and all that East Sacramento has to offer. ”
Many of the roughly three dozen people who addressed the commission were also in favor of it. So were city staff, who said it would be an opportunity to revitalize an underused property and recommended that the commission approve it.
Demas Enterprises needed the commission to allow the development to reach nearly 63 feet, exceeding the area’s height limit. The building also would include commercial space.
It applied for approval using a new state law created by the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom last year that exempts certain housing projects in urban areas from requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA.
Newsom forced the change, known as Assembly Bill 130, into the state budget last summer. It was just one of several major wins for advocates who want the state to speed up its homebuilding.
“That was created for literally this exact situation,” Commissioner Dov Kadin said.
This story was originally published February 12, 2026 at 8:02 PM.
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Stephen Hobbs is an enterprise reporter for The Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Bureau. He has worked for newspapers in Colorado, Florida and South Carolina.