The 2,500-home project south of Friant Dam tied up in court for more than a decade got the OK on Tuesday from the Fresno County Board of Supervisors despite concerns about water in the region expressed by area residents and at least one supervisor.
Friant Ranch was first approved in 2011, but the developers who envisioned a 9,000-resident community of homes and 250,000 square feet of commercial space lost a legal challenge of its potential to create air pollution. The supervisors unanimously agreed on Tuesday that the backers had mitigated those issues.
The community aimed mostly at residents older than 55 also got the majority of the board’s approval to move forward, but drew a dissenting vote from Supervisor Brian Pacheco.
The supervisor of a dozen years who will leave his seat at the end of the year said he could not support a project with what he saw as open questions that would have to be answered by a later generation of elected officials. Supervisors Nathan Magsig and Buddy Mendes will also move on at the end of 2026.
“It looks like a nice place, but I’m going to leave with my other two colleagues here, and then a year from now, four years from now, five years from now, we’re faced with the same issues that this board is facing: What were these guys thinking when they let this happen, and the water’s not addressed, the roads?” Pacheco said. “That weighs pretty heavy.”
The board also heard from residents concerned about water in a region that has seen its share of issues. Critics of Friant Ranch pointed to water issues in foothill communities such as Shaver Springs, Mirabella and Millerton Lake where water quality has been unreliable, leading to emergency fixes or warnings to avoid drinking from the tap.
Those fixes usually come when residents can’t find relief and go to the supervisors for help before the developments are bailed out by the state.
Friant Ranch Development attorney Bryan Wagner told the board on Tuesday the project would improve the water infrastructure in the area. He also said the development would indemnify the county, meaning the developer was promising to pay for damages or lawsuits incurred by Friant Ranch.
“We have a water supply agreement that we feel provides a very good water supply to the waterworks district,” Wagner said. “It’ll be good for Friant Ranch residents and for the community of Friant.”
He said the community of Friant is allowed 150 acre-feet of water, but Friant Ranch will increase that to 2,000 for the area. An acre foot is enough water to cover an acre of land with one foot of water.
Area residents and advocates weren’t convinced. Several pointed to the amount of time that passed since the project was approved in 2011, including Daniel O’Connell, the executive director of the Central Valley Partnership.
“More diligence is needed for the project of this scale that has not been organized and that has not been analyzed, and that has changed in that time period,” he said. “It would benefit us all if (Fresno County) did do that analysis.”
Others, like Kay Bertken with the League of Women Voters of Fresno, pointed to the added traffic to Friant Road as well as the potential problems the region is likely to see during a drought.
“Who’s going to be responsible when there’s another multi-year drought and the residents of Friant Ranch have no water?” she said.
Developers with the project noted they came out on top in past court battles over the Environmental Impact Report in most critiques. They only lost when it came to the air pollution question.
Litigation had tied up the once-approved project after the Fifth District Court of Appeal upheld the state Supreme Court’s ruling that the project would lead to too much air pollution. Fresno County supervisors in 2021 voted to rescind their approval from a decade earlier.
A new 2023 environmental impact report on the project, however, says new “analytical methodology,” as well as “improved pollution control technologies in vehicular and non-vehicular sources” show, “ultimately, the project would not result in a substantial adverse effect on human beings,” according to the county’s staff report.
The county’s Planning Commission unanimously voted in September to support the project.
Friant Ranch history
Shortly after the Fresno County Board of Supervisors approved the Friant Ranch project in 2011, several groups including the Sierra Club, League of Women Voters of Fresno and Revive the San Joaquin sued the county and the developer under the state’s environmental law. They argued the environmental analysis that the county used to justify its approval was flawed.
The report from the previously approved Friant Ranch development estimated from seven to 10 times the levels of nitrogen oxides and fine dust emissions than what are considered significant by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, according to The Fresno Bee archives.
Friant Ranch is being pursued by the Bigelow-Silkwood family about 10 miles north of Fresno. The plan has been compared to large retirement communities in Arizona and Southern California.
This story was originally published October 20, 2026 at 3:52 PM.
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Reporter Thaddeus Miller has covered cities in the central San Joaquin Valley since 2010, writing about everything from breaking news to government and police accountability. A native of Fresno, he joined The Fresno Bee in 2019 after time in Merced and Los Banos.