FOWLER – Continuing the trend of west side expansion, the city council has taken early steps on a new housing development.
On Feb. 3, the Fowler City Council decided to move forward with a medium-low density housing development. The parcel for the project site is currently under a Williamson Act contract, meaning that the land is restricted to agricultural use, but the council voted to get ahead by introducing the prezoning ordinance and initiating the annexation process.
“It allows the city to streamline the process a little bit for the applicant,” said Assistant City Planner Wyatt Czeshinski to the council. “We can get ahead of the prezone and annexation, and once the Williamson Act contract is cancelled, then you can take action on the map and everything’s ready for them to move forward.”
The proposed project aims to subdivide an approximately 40-acre parcel in the city’s sphere of influence into 180 single-family units, located at the southwest corner of East Sumner Avenue and South Sunnyside Avenue. The project would also include approximately 1.9 acres of parkland and around 1.1 acres of trail alignment along the street frontages of East Sumner and South Sunnyside avenues.
Proposed lot sizes range from 5,000 square feet to 12,881 square feet.
The main obstacle with this development, as Czeshinski explained, is that the parcel is currently contracted for agricultural use. Before the council can move forward with the tentative map in any way, the developer will have to pay fees to the county to cancel the contract.
Czeshinski said that based on similar projects awaiting Williamson Act contract cancellations, he can’t give an exact timeline, but estimates that this process could take anywhere from six months to a year.
Once the council discussion opened up, Councilmember Karnig Kazarian asked where this project would put the city in terms of its regional housing allocation requirements. City Planner Dawn Marple estimated that this project would place the city at the moderate level in terms of medium-high density housing requirements, but the city will likely won’t meet its low-income housing numbers unless the city introduces a really high-density project.
Marple said that an annual progress report will be presented at the April 7 city council meeting, which will provide more exact numbers.
During the public comment, Joseph Crown from Crown Homes, the project applicant, took to the podium to give some background on the company and to assure the counsel that he has homeowners’ best interests in mind.
Crown said that some homes come with full solar and are net-zero buildings, doing away with PG&E bills. He said that Crown developments also focus on maintaining a good presentation, with many having mandatory weed barriers and drought tolerant plants.
Crown also urged the council to support local builders, and not “land flippers” who drive up home prices by buying lots and making profit off of national builders.
“They take all the money and they leave, and you have a national builder come in who’s overpaying for his lots, and who does that get passed onto? Your homeowners,” Crown said to the council. “I bought the land myself, I’m developing it myself, so that’s where you’ll see the cost savings. It’s with your local builders, not national.”
According to Crown, the homes in this development would start at around $380,000.
Zaida España, who owns España and Associates Insurance Services in Fowler, also spoke during public comment to ask if any study has been done to see how the project will affect the city’s water capacity. City Engineer Soo Ho Park assured that according to a previous study, the city still had the ability to facilitate around 1,100 more homes as of the Marshal Estates II development, not counting industrial or commercial properties.
He added that well No. 9, which is currently under construction, is meant to provide redundancy and prevent a bottle neck if well No. 8 were to ever go down. Once completed, the well will further improve the city’s ability to support more homes.
With all of this information in mind, the council unanimously voted to introduce the prezoning ordinance and initiate the annexation. The council will be able to discuss the tentative project map at a future meeting once the William Act contract has been addressed.
