West Area Neighborhood Specific Plan advances to commission workshop; community members press for clarity on outreach, housing and contamination concerns

City planning staff presented a workshop on the West Area Neighborhood Specific Plan, an update intended to refine land-use policy, infrastructure priorities and community-led investments for the area west of Highway 99 roughly bounded by Clinton Avenue and Garfield Avenue.

Casey Lauderdale, planner with the long-range planning team, described the plan as a product of a multi-year process that began in 2018 and said the current draft incorporates extensive community engagement. "This project has been in process since 2018 and I've been its liaison since 2020," Lauderdale said, and outlined the plan’s goals to preserve agricultural heritage, improve connectivity, and identify catalytic corridors and a potential regional park.

Lauderdale described an updated land-use map prepared to comply with a 2020 state requirement that prevents reductions in housing capacity without an offsetting gain; the revised map yields a slight net gain in housing capacity compared with the plan’s original conceptual map. The plan retains a transect model of development, centers mixed-use corridors — including a proposed town center along Shaw Avenue — and shifts the proposed regional park eastward to align with future Herndon Canal and power-line trails. The plan includes recommended park features raised by residents, such as a learning farm, farmer’s market, visitor center and sports fields, but staff emphasized the park is not guaranteed and would require future funding and approvals.

Lauderdale summarized outreach and environmental review: the process included 17 steering-committee meetings, 20 community meetings, tabling events and surveys; the original draft received more than 30 comment letters and 150 discrete comments from the public. Staff said they recirculated the revised environmental impact report (EIR) after land-use changes and received eight new comment letters; the final EIR with responses will be posted to the project website. Lauderdale noted the EIR analyzed 15 impact areas and concluded there are "significant and unavoidable impacts in 5 areas," and that mitigation measures are proposed elsewhere in the document.

Lauderdale announced recent funding the plan has already helped unlock: a $400,000 Measure C/TOD planning grant to study Shaw Avenue for transit-oriented mixed-use development, and a $5,000,000 state grant for pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure (staff said the latter will target school-area improvements and includes a bicycle rack-design contest). Staff also announced the planning commission hearing will be Wednesday, Oct. 1 at 6 p.m., and the City Council hearing will be Thursday, Oct. 16 at 10 a.m., both in council chambers.

Several residents used the public-comment period to raise concerns about outreach and about perceived inequities in how grant funds were awarded. Yvonne Gordon and other speakers said they believed funds secured through other specific-plan processes had not been invested in West Fresno and expressed worries about housing built near known dumps and potential contamination. Diane Smith asked for clarity on how the West Area geography is defined. Sophia Pagalatis of long-range planning clarified that the West Area Neighborhood Specific Plan covers the area north of Clinton Avenue up to Bullard, west of Highway 99 to Garfield, and that the Southwest Fresno specific plan covers the area south of Highway 180 — both are west of 99 but are distinct geographies.

Commissioners praised the intensive community involvement and urged residents to attend the Oct. 1 commission hearing and the Oct. 16 council hearing. Staff and commissioners also cautioned that while specific plans help position neighborhoods to receive funding, they do not guarantee immediate private development and outcomes depend on market conditions and implementation funding.

No formal action was taken; the item was an informational workshop and will return for formal hearings at the dates announced by staff.