New General Plan Seeks to Banish Stockton's Demons
- Josh Stephens
- Nov 26, 2018
- 6 min read
Not long ago, the City of Stockton could hardly have paid for the paper to print a new general plan, much less actually craft the plan. Since the city declared bankruptcy in 2012 after a long slide, its finances have changed for the better. A new general plan update seeks to do the same for the city’s built environment. Over the last two years, the update has sailed along with relatively little opposition or rancor. The update gained approval from the city planning commission, 6-1, Nov. 15 and will be voted on by the city council as early as Dec. 4. While most provisions have been endorsed by stakeholders of all stripes, a recently added proposal to annex and rezone 3,800 acres on the city’s north side remains a point of controversy. Whether the plan will reverse decades of sprawl development is another question. By many accounts, Stockton’s last general plan update could not have come at a worse time. Drafted in 2007, the plan predates a statewide drive towards more compact, sustainable development. The embrace of sprawl was especially strong in the Central Valley, where city leaders had visions of vast master-planned developments funded by the very same real estate boom that led, in part, to the financial crisis of 2008. (See prior CP&DR here and here.) “When they started it, it was a strong economy when it ended it was a different environment,” said Stockton Community Development Director David Kwong. At the time, Stockton’s quality of life ranked 230th out of 231 U.S. cities, according to one study. Added to that, city leaders were notoriously corrupt. “We’ve been fairly pleased that the process for coming up with this draft general plan was day and night compared to the process we had to go through 12 or 13 years ago,” said Eric Parfrey, a retired Yolo County planner and member of the executive committee of the Sierra Club California, which commented on the plan. “Many (former council members) were outright crooks. Our current council is eager to keep this resurgence of hope and optimism for the city.” The new plan seeks to undo much of that damage. It promotes downtown development and, if not necessarily compact development, at least it seeks intensification along the city’s major corridors rather than the low-density greenfield development of its predecessor. In particular, it envisions relatively dense residential and mixed used developments along four boulevards surrounding downtown Stockton and along Pacific Avenue, which extends north from downtown. It calls for “neighborhood mixed use” along West Lane, which runs parallel to Pacific Ave., and it locates industrial clusters in the city’s southeast quadrant. The downtown core is envisioned as a “live, work, play” zone, extending westward along the San Joaquin River. In total, the plan calls for 40,900 new dwelling units, 13.8 million square feet of new commercial and office space, and 35.6 million square feet of new industrial space. “This new plan says all the right things,” said Parfrey. “We’re concentrating specifically on infill development. We’re de-emphasizing sprawl at the fringes of the city.” The plan intones that “the city’s lifeblood flows from downtown” and includes several provisions promoting downtown development. The plan seeks to capitalize on existing redevelopment projects, such as a marina, a minor league sports complex, and several hotels. It also acknowledges the 2015 “Open Window Project,” a 15-acre parcel in which developer Ten Space has exclusive rights to purchase city-owned properties for development of up to 1,000 residential units. In short, the general plan update abides by progressive planning principles. The notable difference between its planning process and that of cities in coastal California is that almost no one is raising objections to growth, density, or any other change. “It’s been very smooth but very intensive from both a strategic and geographic point,” said Kwong. Early drafts of the plan had the city relinquishing roughly 9,000 acres from its sphere of influence, presumably to keep the land as open space or agricultural land. The current draft on which the city council will vote would keep 3,800 of those acres on the city’s northern boundary and designate it for a “economic and enterprise education.” Essentially, this designation would apply to a major commercial or educational development, such as a university or industrial campus. At various times, the city had hoped to attract a California State University campus or Tesla’s “Gigafactory,” neither of which ever materialized. Much of the 3,800 acres is owned by the Spanos Company, a major Central Valley developer. The company has not announced any plans fro the property. Company representatives declined to comment for this story. To some activists, the annexation is an unwelcome invitation to sprawl, or, at the very least, an odd addition when the city already has buildable land within its current limits. “They're saying that north of 8 Mile Road is beyond 2040 and could take hundreds of years to develop,” said Kathy Casaneve, president of the San Joaquin County League of Women Voters. “It’s sort of odd to have a general plan that would go that far.” In fact, it may be a moot point. Even the most ambitious uses that could adhere to the economic and enterprise education land use designation would be likely to use only a fraction of the 3,800 acres. Casaneve noted that Cal State campuses, for instance, typically cover only a few hundred acres – and that the Cal State system intends to expand its current campuses rather than add any new ones. Though Spanos is a wealthy, influential company, Casaneve does not suspect any back-room deals influencing city planners. “They (Spanos) don't need the money,” said Casanave. “It would be more like a legacy to them.” Parfrey is less charitable, noting that the company paid around $150 million for the land: “They are interested in doing something other than growing tomatoes and corn out there.” Kwong contends, though, that the new designation for the parcel is actually more restrictive than the status quo. Currently, the land can be developed as an urban “village” – i.e. a master planned community. “What's being changed is called an enterprise and education economic zone,” said Kwong. “It changes that village designation to the EEE designation. In our GP as well as in the environmental documents, there’s actually now an identified a list of criteria that’s a lot more restrictive than what the village did.” A similar sticking point, especially for the Sierra Club, is a request to investigate a green belt to create permanent open space between Stockton and Lodi, its neighbor a few miles to the north. “That’s been a sticking point for everybody here because we would like to have a buffer between Stockton and Lodi,” said Casanave. City officials say the greenbelt would be bureaucratically complex and likely unnecessary. It would require participation of not only Stockton but also the City of Lodi and the County of San Joaquin. “We feel that between their land use policies and the city’s land use policies that serves as the equivalent to an actual agricultural belt,” said Kwong. Whatever happens on the north side, the biggest threats to the new general plan come not from the urban fringes but rather from the city’s past. An estimated 25,000 housing units were approved since the passage of the last general plan update. The vast majority of them have yet to be built but are still in the development pipeline. That means that Stockton’s early 2000s hangover may last for decades, no matter how well received the new plan is. “Major project…that are already have development agreements in effect, the effect would be disastrous for the city,” said Parfery. “The city can’t afford to provide police and fire services to those locations without major subsidies from these projects.” Supporters of the new plan fear that many of the intended infill developments – including those that would be located downtown – are will not be viable so long as they are competing with the suburban-style housing that has been approved. The city estimates that there are 4,000 vacant acres within the city where large development projects have been approved but not yet constructed. That means that the type of demand that would bring the plan to fruition may not arise for years – if ever. “We don’t believe the market for anything downtown is so strong that it can survive direct competition from these outlying areas,” said Parfery. Contacts & ResourcesStockton General Plan UpdateKathy Casenave, President, League of Women Voters, sjc.ca.lwvnet.org/contact.html David Kwong, Community Development Director, City of Stockton, David.Kwong@stocktonca.gov
