Tom Pace Oversaw Sacramento's Housing Renaissance

In 1997, the suburban dream was strong in the Sacramento areas. The capital city drew various measures of pity and indifference from coastal urbanities while places such as Elk Grove, Folsom, and Roseville grew as quickly as tract-home developers could build them. That's the year that Tom Pace joined the City of Sacramento's Planning Division. In the years since then, Sacramento and Pace -- who took over long-range planning in 2006 and became planning director in 2017 (after a brief stint in Stockton) and community development director in 2020 -- embraced an enthusiastically pro-housing ethos, with policies to match. Pace either oversaw or contributed to policies that drove the rise of high-density housing in neighborhoods like Midtown and the planing of the redevelopment of the Sacramento Railyards. Perhaps most notably, he led one of the most dramatic upzoning efforts in state history when the city effectively made development of small multifamily dwellings in all residential areas. Having retired in May (succeeded by assistant Community Development Director Matt Hertel), Pace spoke with CP&DR's Josh Stephens about his service to the state's capital city--which is, arguably, much more of a city than it was 29 years ago.

So a little over 26 years in total. I started in 1997 as an assistant planner and was promoted to an associate planner and then a senior planner, where I supervised current development application project review for the south area of the city. I was promoted to principal planner in 2006 and oversaw long-range planning there. That was probably my longest stint in one position. I served in that role until 2015, and then I took a position with the City of Stockton as deputy community development director and worked there for two years. Then I came back to the City of Sacramento and was hired as planning director.

I was in charge of the planning division. Then the community development director took a position with another city and that position became available, so I was made interim community development director in 2019 and permanent community development director in 2020, when I retired.

Let’s start with the most important question: What do you think of the baseball stadium proposal for West Sacramento?

I'm no sports buff, but it appears — at least from our experience with the Kings — that sports-related investments can have positive dividends for economic development for a community. They can bring investment and interest to an area, and done right, the physical venues can bring people to an area, which can enliven it and really help promote urban revitalization if it's done in an urban area, which I think is the intention here.

As you think about your career, what are one or two projects that were particularly challenging or that you're particularly proud of?

Rather than any specific development project, I would point to the general plan update — the 2030 General Plan, adopted in 2009 — which changed the course of planning policy for the City of Sacramento. 

It took us from a city that had emphasized outward suburban development and had effectively neglected existing older neighborhoods and depressed development opportunity in infill areas, to a city focused on bringing vitality back to the central city and to the older neighborhoods surrounding it. It encouraged mixed-use, transit-supportive, and walkable development patterns. Because of that work, and subsequent work to update the city's zoning regulations, hundreds — maybe thousands — of projects became possible that have been built since then. 

There's a consensus that Sacramento is very pro-housing these days, both in its policies and among stakeholders. Did the 2009 plan capture the desire of stakeholders, or did it mold attitudes?

That's one of the fundamental questions of planning: does a plan lead people in a new direction, or does it follow the preferences that have been expressed in its formation? I think it's always probably a bit of both.

There were changing winds in the Sacramento region in the late 1990s and early 2000s as people saw sprawl taking over much of the beautiful landscape around our communities, leading to increased traffic congestion and air quality problems. The Sacramento Area Council of Governments articulated a vision called the Blueprint — which became a model for similar efforts in other regional planning areas of the state — that attempted to, and I think had some success in, change direction. 

That work within the regional sphere had been happening before we started on that general plan update. People were beginning to think differently about infill development and the idea that environmentalism wasn't truly about opposing development, especially in existing neighborhoods — maybe out in pristine wild areas or fertile farmland, but certainly not in existing urban neighborhoods.

I think it was a realization that gradually spread throughout the community: if we want our existing investments and planned investments in transit to be fruitful, and if we want a community where people aren't forced to drive everywhere, then we need to change the pattern of growth and development. That means welcoming more people into our existing neighborhoods.

Sacramento famously upzoned most of the city a few years ago. What's happened to the naysayers? What has actually been built, and how do you feel about those results?

One of the big shifts we made in the way we approach planning is to engage people at the policy level and not at the construction project level. I think this is one of the big mistakes of many communities — they neglect their general plans, specific plans, and zoning ordinances, and all planning activity becomes focused on project-by-project review. San Francisco springs to mind, where every single room addition and remodel can be appealed to the planning commission.

We said: let's get consensus on the policy we want to have in our community and then reward projects that fit within that vision with a predictable and reasonably speedy approval process. If someone wants to deviate from that, that's a different question. We changed our approval and review process — we don't hold public hearings for projects that meet all the required standards and guidelines. We do post applications publicly, so it's not a secret, but we don't invite people to come to a meeting and express all of their concerns about such projects. That was a somewhat scary change to make — can we really do this? But we did it, and I think it's been successful.

It has resulted in hundreds of projects being approved with nary a peep from anyone. Not to say there probably aren't people out there unhappy with those projects, but it hasn't resulted in a big outcry. And we do see that when a project involves the full public hearing process at the planning commission, we still sometimes get community opposition — such as a recent large apartment complex in Sacramento that went to the planning commission and was very contentious. But the commission recommended approval, it was appealed to council, and council approved it. 

The political consensus is pretty firm, even when there are those who argue that new buildings bigger than the existing ones in the neighborhood are inconsistent, or that more people bring more traffic or make parking less convenient. Those arguments just don't win the day anymore the way they used to.

At the same time Sacramento has implemented these progressive policies, the state legislature has enacted many pro-housing laws. What do you feel like you understand about the legislature, just by virtue of proximity, that other planners might not?

The proximity kept us on our toes. Even apart from what the legislature is doing, the people who are also our constituents — our neighbors, the people who read public notices and go to council meetings — they're there. We have to be up on all the latest policy and legislative changes and follow the correct procedures. There are a lot of eyes on planning in Sacramento, and I think that has actually been good for us. It's forced us to really be on top of our game.

Are there particular laws you'd like to highlight as being especially effective, or laws that need to be reconsidered?

I don't think there's any argument that the laws that have opened up accessory dwelling units throughout the state have been remarkably successful. The numbers show that — the number of ADUs built since those laws were passed is phenomenal compared to the numbers prior to enactment.

One of the challenges in our political environment is creating laws that make it easier to build all kinds of housing — maybe not everywhere, but at least in all urban areas of the state — without adding extra strings attached that make them of limited interest, particularly outside the big cities. I'm thinking specifically of inclusionary housing mandates that may work well economically in a place like San Francisco or Los Angeles, but have been challenging to make work in Sacramento or other Central Valley communities. Similarly, union labor requirements for projects that don't naturally lend themselves to union labor. Many of those laws with those strings attached simply aren't attractive to developers in places like Sacramento and other Central Valley and non-Bay Area, non-core Southern California urban areas.

Is there any assistance you feel California cities need — from the state, the federal government, or other sources — that they're not getting? If you had one wish for California cities, what would it be?

I may express two wishes. 

Given the huge volume of planning-related legislation and the need for planners throughout the 550-plus city and county jurisdictions in the state to keep track of, implement, and understand the implications of new state laws, resources for planning itself would be really helpful. There have been some — REAP and LEAP planning grant programs — but of limited duration and scope. A more dependable source of funding for planning would be really valuable.

But, bigger picture, beyond that somewhat self-interested ask as a professional planner: infrastructure improvement funding for urban areas. We're seeing more urban development in our existing core cities and older neighborhoods, and infrastructure has to be upgraded. Passing those costs on to developers in the form of impact fees or other exactions makes it infeasible in many cases for projects to get built.

What changes have you seen in the planning profession over the years? How do the young planners coming out of school today differ from a previous generation?

In some ways the nature of the problem we're trying to solve for has evolved over the decades. Many people look at sprawling communities and say, "This is a failure of planning — there's no planning here." But in actuality, they were very well planned, very intentionally. Keeping housing away from anything and everything other than housing, making cities extremely friendly for driving as fast and conveniently as possible, having plentiful free parking at the end of every trip — those are objectives we set out to create and have very effectively achieved. But they need to be revised. 

We need to think about how we can change our communities to be more vital, more vibrant, more resilient — both economically and environmentally — and more equitable. Segregation was also very intentional; a whole set of policy objectives were set up to segregate our residential communities. Now we have to think about policy objectives to reverse that course.

Now that you have more time on your hands, are there certain cities you're looking forward to visiting and enjoying?

I love the coast — the climate and the scenery. I like to spend time all up and down the coast. I love Mendocino and San Diego and everywhere in between. Globally, I was just in London and Porto this year, and Lisbon last year. I'm planning to go to Spain next year and spend some time in Madrid and Seville. I like to learn from these other places — particularly European cities that have had such a great head start on solving many of the problems we're trying to solve now.

Do you intend to stay involved in planning in any official capacity?

Yes. I am a technical advisor to the vice president for policy and legislation with the California Chapter of the American Planning Association. I work as part of a team on legislative advocacy, providing advice to state legislators and legislative staffers, and working with other legislative advocates to help shape planning policy in California.

Image Credit: APA California