5,600 homes, a Sac State campus: Major Placer County development in final planning stages

A plan to transform more than 13 square miles of farmland sandwiched between Lincoln, Rocklin and Roseville into a vast development has inched closer to reality.

The final planning and environmental review reports for the Sunset Area Plan and Placer Ranch Specific Plan were released Oct. 31, designating new uses for the land west of Highway 65, including major hubs of entertainment, business, retail, industry and housing. The anchor for the proposed community: A planned Sacramento State satellite campus that could eventually serve thousand of residents in a new community called Placer Ranch.

The roughly 2,200-acre property nested within the Sunset area could ultimately see more than 5,600 new housing units, and accommodate 13,200 residents. Development in the Sunset area has been in the works for almost two decades, and would mark a major change to the landscape of unincorporated south Placer County, a region that has seen steady employment and population growth in the last decade.

The new plans represent a kind of “rebranding” for the area, said county spokesman Chris Gray-Garcia.

“Previously, as we looked at the purpose of that land, the thought was it’s fairly remote,” Gray-Garcia said. “But times have changed. There’s just more potential there than was thought in the past.”

For years, the land was more geared towards agricultural and heavy industrial use — Western Placer Waste Management Authority and Rio Bravo Rocklin power station are already based in the planning area, for example. Existing businesses would receive small grandfathered zones for industrial use.

But since 2014, the county has been defining its land-use designations for the area to one focused on a “live-work” community, Gray-Garcia said.

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An entertainment and mixed-used designation could compliment the existing Thunder Valley Casino Resort to create “more of a destination area,” said Michele Kingsbury-Perez, the county’s principal management analyst.

“Innovation” districts could attract hundreds of jobs, many of which could support the academic research at nearby Placer Ranch, said Crystal Jacobsen, the county’s principal planner.

“We have some of the fastest growing areas in the state, especially after 2000, in Rocklin and Lincoln,” Kingsbury-Perez said. Reimagining what the community could look like decades from now just made sense.

When plans were first floated to develop Placer Ranch in 2003, environmentalist groups including the Sierra Club opposed the projects for threatening existing natural ecosystems but major organized opposition is absent this time around. Some residents have voiced concerns, however, about the developments impact on traffic and possible overcrowding.

When will construction start in the Sunset area?

Jacobsen said there has been “investment interest from folks that are eagerly awaiting the completion of the Sunset area.”

Still, concrete plans for the broader Sunset area are still many years off — the final planning documents simply establish a “regulatory framework for properties to come in and develop,” she said.

As for Placer Ranch, while the land has been purchased, a developer for the area has not been selected. “We think it’s such a valuable thing to do, to take care of the planning in advance,” Gray-Garcia said.

The county planning commission is scheduled to review the document Nov. 21, while the Placer County Board of Supervisors is expected to review the project Dec. 10.

Sacramento State satellite campus at Placer Ranch

As part of the plan, roughly 300 acres will be set aside for the development of a planned satellite campus for Sacramento State. When completed, the site could serve up to 25,000 Sac State students, as well as 5,000 from Sierra College.

This campus is meant to be a “catalyst project to bring that backbone infrastructure to support the overall Sunset area,” such as water and roadways, Kingsbury-Perez said.

In Placer Ranch, housing options might range from high-density apartments in the town center to single-family homes in more suburban areas to 10,000-plus residents.

If approved by the Board of Supervisors, it would still be “at the minimum several years” before shovels are in the ground for the Placer Ranch development, Kingsbury-Perez said.