First ‘Blueprint’ Workshop Draws Over 150 in Citrus Heights
Over 150 citizens jammed Citrus Heights’ City Council Chambers March 18 for the first Sacramento Region Blueprint: Transportation/Land Use Study workshop. At tables of 10 participants, old and young, residents and business owners, environmentalists and developers, pored over land use maps to learn how their community’s development choices affect their city and the region. Mounted in collaboration with civic partner Valley Vision, the workshop was preceded by a reception for elected officials attended by representatives of city councils and boards of supervisors from throughout the region, including Placer County, Live Oak, Folsom, Sacramento County, the new City of Rancho Cordova, Elk Grove and others.
In the workshops, citizens sit around tables and plan how a neighborhood or series of neighborhoods should grow and change, aided by a high-tech computer program called PLACE3S operated by a facilitator on a laptop at each table.
Two neighborhoods were the focus of development: Auburn Boulevard and Antelope Road. The Antelope Road neighborhood was a nine-acre parcel with a house, wooded lot surrounded by single-family homes. Participants suggested this parcel include:
- Single-family, townhouse and live/work style residential housing
- Small park areas and walking paths
- Small commercial uses at the front of the parcel.
The Auburn Boulevard site is 100 acres of mostly developed parcels at the north end of the boulevard near the I-80 freeway. Options suggested by participants included:
- A hotel and conference center
- A light-rail stop, with surrounding transit-supportive mixed-use development pattern.
“These workshops are incredibly empowering for residents,” said SACOG Executive Director Martin Tuttle. “They show people how their choices and using smart growth principals can really make a difference in the quality of life in their communities.”
Blueprint workshops are planned for all the local jurisdictions in the six-county SACOG region. An up-to-date list of workshop days, dates, times and locations can be found at www.sacregionblueprint.org or at www.sacog.org. Or, contact Katie Hoffman at Valley Vision at (916) 925-0130.