Future growth in Sutter County debated

Where to build — and how much — dominated the discussion Monday as Sutter County leaders entered the homestretch of crafting a new game plan for development.

Supervisors, planners and residents debated the crafting of an updated general plan during the forum in Yuba City, seeking a guide to the county's growth amid recession and flood safety concerns.

Three options for the general plan include keeping the current zoning, a slower-growth alternative, and a third plan for more aggressive expansion. The last two options would allow varying amounts of residential, industrial and commercial growth around Yuba City and Live Oak, as well as the rural communities of Sutter and Nicolaus.

All the choices include zoning for Sutter Pointe, a mixed-use project voters approved in 2004 for a site just north of the Sacramento County line.

With a major mortgage crisis slowing home co struction, planners at the forum were cautious about zoning for growth beyond the needs of a shrunken real estate market — and especially beyond existing town cores.

Live Oak's city planner, Dennis Cook, asked the county not to meld its new general plan with the city's own, to avoid encouraging developers to push into surrounding farmland — areas the city has not annexed since the early 1990s.

"The best-case scenario is you frustrate landowners," he said. "In the worst case you ring the city with developments, and we don't want that."

The size as well as location of home lots was another point of debate, with many calling for the end of ranchettes — attacked by foes as too small to farm profitably and too far from town centers — in place of smaller lots closer to Yuba City suitable for more marketable single-family houses.

"Somewhere in this county, we have to cater to professionals, to businesspeople," said Supervisor Jim Whiteaker. "Real estate people call me saying, 'Where can we find a one-acre lot in this county?'"

Proposals to zone Sutter to absorb more homes met the strongest resistance among town residents at the meeting. Joan Joaquin Wood declared local water supplies could not serve both extra homes and existing farms like her family's, while Cory Wilkins, executive director of the Middle Mountain Foundation, said the planned boundaries likely would intrude into the nearby Sutter Buttes.

Flood risks also may dictate where the next general plan allows large-scale construction in Sutter County, as higher insurance rates — the result of new federal maps removing safety certification from local levees — take effect.

Supervisor James Gallagher pointed to land southeast of Yuba City and an area between Nicolaus and Trowbridge as possible growth zones, because of their elevation from surrounding lands now classified as high-risk floodplains.

No further forum or vote is planned until early November, board members said.

Contact Appeal reporter Howard Yune at 749-4708 or hyune@appealdemocrat.com