What's at stake:
A simultaneous lawsuit and ongoing negotiations between Fresno city and county underscore the region's transition as both entities vie for control over the type and location of housing development in the coming decades.
A court date has been set for a lawsuit filed by the city of Fresno and the Central Valley Partnership against Fresno County’s 2024 general plan update, adding tension to an already delicate relationship between the two jurisdictions.
The county’s new general plan, which was unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors in February after years of work, has faced criticism for reversing a decades-old policy and considering rural lands around northeast and southeast Fresno as potential sites for distant suburban housing developments.
“With all the new areas opened up, this plan hit the turbo on sprawl,” said Garry Lasky, a leader of the Sierra Club’s Fresno chapter, which has joined forces with the Central Valley Partnership in the lawsuit against the county.
“In growing anywhere they want,” Lasky said in an interview with Fresnoland, “the county tore down environmental guardrails along the way.”
The general plan lawsuit’s first court date on July 12 sets the stage for a new chapter in the city-county relationship. The legal battle casts a shadow over ongoing negotiations between the city and county regarding a tax-sharing agreement critical to the city’s own sprawl ambitions. According to individuals from both sides, these talks have been progressing well, after having stalled for the last three years.
It’s unclear what’s rejuvenated the bargaining table: The threat of the city’s general plan lawsuit, the time constraints on the county Board of Supervisors’ current bargaining position, which may shift to favor the city’s interests after the November election, or the fresh spring air.
Regardless of the reasons, the coming months are likely to see a significant shift in the city-county relationship, one that could have far-reaching implications for major land use plans in both jurisdictions.
County Supervisor Buddy Mendes, who represents the county alongside his colleague Brian Pacheco in the negotiations with Fresno City Councilmembers Tyler Maxwell and Analissa Perea, declined to comment on the specifics of the ongoing talks. Maxwell also could not be reached for comment.
“I’m not going to talk about negotiations,” Mendes said. “We’re right in the middle of it.”
The city’s general plan lawsuit alleges that the county’s groundwater protection plan contains loopholes. To meet state-mandated housing needs, the county must build 2,500 homes under the state’s housing requirements. Supervisor Nathan Magsig suggested that luxury homes planned on parched land near Friant could help the county achieve these targets.
“I was surprised when the city decided to file a lawsuit against our environmental review. The city’s going to have their day in court,” Magsig said in an interview with Fresnoland.
As negotiations unfold, both the city and county are maneuvering to secure their interests in what promises to be a high-stakes battle over land use and revenue distribution.
North or southeast: Where to sprawl next?
Out in the gentle hills above Fresno, where the land isn’t prime for agriculture but great for planting sprawl, Fresno County is looking to get back into the development game – a move not seen since the days when the Soviet Union was still in existence.
A decades-old tax sharing agreement between Fresno County and the City of Fresno, which had largely curtailed the county’s involvement in commercial and residential development near the city, expired in 2020, setting the stage for a renewed debate over growth and revenue sharing in the region.
The original agreement, struck in 1991, established a 62/38 split of tax revenue between the county and the city, respectively, and saw the county pledge to step back from developing areas close to Fresno’s borders. The terms were largely renewed in 2003, but the expiration of the agreement four years ago has left both parties reassessing their positions.
In the intervening years, the city has discovered that the terms of the ‘91 agreement made sprawl development less financially viable without increasing fees on developers—a move that city officials are reluctant to make. This realization prompted the city to seek a larger share of property tax revenue in any future agreement.
The county, meanwhile, is eyeing the newly opened-up hillands as an opportunity to boost its own coffers and spur growth in the region. This has led to a standoff between the two entities, with each side jockeying for a more favorable revenue split and control over development in the contested areas.
This February, the county confirmed its intention to party at Fresno’s fringe like its 1982 with its new general plan. It was a shot across the bow of Fresno’s own sprawl dreams, a 9,000-acre project in southeast Fresno.
The county unveiled a double-barrel surprise – plans to build north of Fresno and to the southeast, as part of a huge 7,000-acre development on a Kings River ranch.
The county cut ties with the environmental protections leftover from its old plan – canning its master plan for the San Joaquin River as a public recreation corridor, with supervisors hoping for a new town boom like across the river in Madera.
It’s a risky task – a tough needle to thread with modern environmental regulations, the state’s green dreams, and a jealous neighbor. The City of Fresno, sitting on its own water jackpot courtesy of the Fresno Irrigation District, is crying foul.
The city’s lawyers say the general plan, stitched together from a small team of planners at the county, doesn’t meet the new era of regulations.
“The General Plan has the ability to cause environmental harm by way of contributing to and increasing land subsidence in and around the City, as well as sources of the City’s water,” the city wrote. “The mitigation measures identified by the County are aspirational and not enforceable.”
The county’s policies for improving air quality were “impermissibly vague,” the city added.
It’s a fight over land, water, and air. The county wanting to sprawl and the city craving expansion too. Two sides, same aim, just different dirt.
With all the political wires being crossed, Lasky remains optimistic that the Sierra Club’s concerns will be given due consideration in court.
“We believe state law requires the county to do a lot more to protect the environment,” he said. “You can’t eat farmland and pollute the air like this plan does, and expect to get away with it.”
Have you had much success digging into the corrupt relationship between developers who complain about regulatory costs as leverage to get fees waived by government entities who are then lobbied hard by those same developers using the handouts given to them by those government entities?
Like, who cares whether it’s the City or the County fucking over constituents to put dollars in their cronies’ hands? The bigger question is why are the City and County so insistent on this idiotic sprawl in the first place? Why is Fresno so anti-density at the same time it wants to claim to be a farm town? Why are we eating up farmland with water-intensive, luxury, single-story sprawl like morons, despite access to modern technology like multi-story buildings and public transit?
Why is Fresno looking at the intense sprawl development around Livermore, Tracy, and the north valley, and not planning to prevent that kind of bullshit once HSR is up and running? Do we really want to be a massive bedroom community with houses from the Sierra Nevada all the way to the Coast Range?
And these are the same fuckers who won’t rename a street because “saving our history.” They’ll terraform one of the largest valleys in the world for money but goddamn it, we can’t name a street after a Black activist, or replace a racist place name.