One of California’s biggest current proposed residential developments is getting massive pushback from a local coalition that is accusing town leaders of attempting to force through yet more sprawl for a city that has been ruined by it.
In Fresno, a 45,000-unit housing project that’s slated to be built on 9,000 acres of prized agricultural land is pitched by proponents as a solution to not only the city’s but also the state’s housing crisis. Opponents argue the development, called the Southeast Development Area, is a money, land and power grab that will do nothing but waste taxpayer money and add to the blight and poorly planned growth that have defined the fifth-largest city in California for generations.
And while Fresno officials call the development the “final frontier” for the city in a 124-page proposal for SEDA, residents who oppose it, like Dillon Savory, the executive director of the Fresno-Madera-Tulare-Kings Central Labor Council, question the project wholesale: “It’s really not viable, and for 45-plus years, it hasn’t been, and there’s a reason for that,” Savory told SFGATE on Monday. “It doesn’t pay for itself, and sprawl development in Fresno is why Fresno is one of the worst-planned cities in America. Nobody wants to be here.”…