Upper Westside Project<\/a> aims to create a new neighborhood with up to 25,000 new residents within sight of Downtown Sacramento.<\/p>\n“This is the right project at the right time when solutions are needed to address our region’s critical housing shortage,” said Nick Avdis, an attorney for the Upper Westside Project.<\/p>\n
But the development proposal comes with a lot of controversy.<\/p>\n
“You need to know the community opposed this project,” said Heather Fargo, president of the Environmental Council of Sacramento and former mayor.<\/p>\n
The project will be a mix of homes and businesses, along with new neighborhood parks and schools.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Located west of Interstate 80 and four miles from downtown, the project will be on land that was supposed to be spared from urban development as part of a compromise between developers and environmental groups in effect for 30 years.<\/p>\n
Many residents who live near the project are concerned over a big increase in traffic, especially along the Garden Highway, which is a narrow, two-lane levee road.<\/p>\n
The land is just outside the Sacramento city limits and city leaders previously voted to oppose the project.<\/p>\n
“We still don’t have answers to a lot of these questions surrounding schools, water supply, continuity in services,” Sacramento Vice Mayor Karina Talamantes said.<\/p>\n
The city has refused to provide municipal water to the property, forcing the developers to seek other sources.<\/p>\n
“Relative to water, we have provided what is legally required at this point,” Avdis said.<\/p>\n
After more than four hours of discussion and debate, Sacramento County supervisors unanimously voted to approve the project.<\/p>\n
“That will probably be one of the most desirable micro neighborhoods in Sacramento County,” county Supervisor Pat Hume said.<\/p>\n
“I think this is the kind of project that really will be a game changer for the Sacramento region,” county Supervisor Rosario Rogriguez said.<\/p>\n
The project must still get permission from the state to use water that’s currently reserved for agriculture, and they must deal with any potential legal challenges before they can proceed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n
In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Developers have been given the green light to turn 2,000 acres of farmland and wildlife habitat into thousands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-363905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}