Redding riverfront plan faces blowback from rodeo association, tribal communities

Redding Rodeo Association members are looking for assurance the future of Redding’s riverfront includes them.

The North State’s Native American community wants to continue to be included in discussions about the riverfront, but they are wary of future development there.

Those were two big takeaways from Tuesday’s Redding City Council meeting, where councilors unanimously accepted the “Visions and Guiding Principles Framework” for the update to the Redding Riverfront Specific Plan.

The framework came after months of community meetings, interviews with stakeholders and open houses where residents gave feedback on what their vision is for the city’s riverfront.

The city and its consultant, MIG/Populous, also worked with a 20-member Community Coalition team that included representatives from the McConnell Foundation; Turtle Bay Exploration Park; Advance Redding, which leases the Civic Auditorium from the city; Redding Chamber of Commerce; Fly Shop; California Department of Transportation; Redding Rodeo Association; Wintu Tribe; Shasta Economic Development Corp.; and Redding residents.

Redding Development Services Director Jeremy Pagan and Dan Amsden of MIG emphasized Tuesday that it's still early in the process. The finish product and accompanying environmental impact report are not expected to come before the Redding Planning Commission and City Council for another year and half. There will be plenty more public feedback taken.

It didn’t seem to assuage the concerns of the rodeo or indigenous communities.

While Baron Browning of the Rodeo Association at Tuesday's meeting thanked the city and its consultant for their time, the group's president, Bennett Gooch, was more blunt when reached by the Record Searchlight a day later.

“I would have liked it to be a little more apparent that the Redding Rodeo is not going anywhere. But we will play along with their games. I wish the process was over so we can move along with our future plans,” Gooch said on Wednesday.

“What they are doing, they’re including us, but they are not listening to what we are saying,” Pit River and Wintu tribal member Jessie Rouse said after Tuesday’s meeting.

What's in the updated Redding riverfront plan?

The updated riverfront specific plan will include public and private property along the Sacramento River, essentially bounded by Redding Memorial Park and Park Marina Drive on the west, the north and east side of the river and Cypress Avenue to the south.

The vision and guiding principles for the riverfront are:

• A healthy and resilient natural environment

• Respecting the indigenous community: past, present and future

• Economically viable and thriving arts, cultural and entertainment venues

• Appropriate scale and uses: among other things, new buildings would be required to reflect the city’s character; and river destinations would be safe, well-lit and easily accessible.

• World-class recreation and activities

• Connected spaces: among other things, transit, bicycle, pedestrian and vehicle routes from existing neighborhoods; and ways to reconnect the northern and southern portions of the riverfront.

• Memorable and vibrant places

Picture of Redding Rodeo, but actual event gets no mention

Councilman Mark Mezzano voiced his disappointment that while there was a picture of the Redding Rodeo to accompany the economically vibrant section of the framework, the annual event, which celebrated its 75th year in 2023, was not specifically mentioned.

What’s up with that, Mezzano asked.

Pagan said there was much discussion about that and Community Coalition members actually took a vote on the matter, unanimously deciding not to single out any event or specific use in that section.

Showing more concern, Mezzano said, “Are you looking at a new venue for the Rodeo Grounds?"

Pagan said it's too early in the process to talk specifics: "We’re not there yet.”

The Redding Rodeo Association recently signed a new three-year lease with the city. The rodeo wanted a 75-year extension.

Redding rodeo officials have said they want a long-term lease so they can do capital improvements and turn the site into a multi-use complex that could stage events year-round.

Redding resident Margaret Cantrell on Tuesday asked the council why the rodeo received a three-year lease and Advance Redding got a 10-year extension on its lease of the Civic Auditorium.

Gooch, the rodeo association president, on Wednesday also mentioned that.

“That is all they (the city) would allow and they give the Civic a 10-year lease,” Gooch said. “They keep jerking us along and not giving us what we deserve. I guess we will just keep playing the game.”

Indigenous community speaks out on salmon conservation, burial site desecration

Pagan and Amsden told councilors that the Jan. 11 “listening session” with about 50 members of the Native American community at Old City Hall in downtown Redding was constructive.

Among the themes during the meeting were recognizing the past wrongs done to the local indigenous community, protecting culturally sensitive and sacred sites and the indigenous community’s need to have a greater voice in guiding future uses along the riverfront.

But tribal members who spoke Tuesday made it clear that they fear future development along the river.

“I’m here to talk about the salmon and our obligations. More development to the river does not do the salmon justice,” Winnemem Wintu Chief Caleen Sisk told the council.

Another tribal member said it would be wrong to develop the river on top of tribal burial sites, likening it to her going to a veterans’ cemetery with a shovel: “I would be arrested on the spot.” She added that there is so much other land in Redding that can be developed instead.

“As much as we appreciate (being included in the discussion), we don’t want any of it,” Wintu member Rouse told the council.

Will housing be part of Redding riverfront plan update?

Currently, the south portion of the riverfront is private property, with the Kutras family owning much of the land along Park Marina Drive.

Chris Kutras of Kutras Properties was part of the Community Coalition. Kutras has said he welcomes the opportunity to add his voice to the riverfront’s future.

The current riverfront specific plan dates back to 1992 and the hope was the plan would spark development along Park Marina and make Redding’s waterfront a tourist-attracting magnet.

But the area remains a nondescript stretch of private offices, businesses — including a driving range where golfers launch balls into the river — and vacant buildings.

However, it was the public land on the north portion of the riverfront, where the Civic Auditorium, Turtle Bay, the Sundial Bridge and the Rodeo Ground sit, that sparked work on a riverfront specific update.

In the fall of 2021, the McConnell Foundation, Missouri-based Populous Inc., Redding-based K-2 Development and Turtle Bay made an unsolicited offer to the city to purchase and transform riverfront land around the Civic.

Spurred by pushback from the community, the City Council instead voted to update the city’s riverfront specific plan, and the four organizations subsequently withdrew the offer.

On Tuesday, Councilman Michael Dacquisto reiterated his concern that income-eligible housing will be developed along the north portion of the riverfront.

The framework mentions opportunities to "support local housing needs” for the private property along the southern riverfront. For the northern riverfront, housing is not mentioned.

City Manager Barry Tippin reminded Dacquisto that it’s hard enough in California to make affordable housing projects economically pencil out on less desirable land. Doing it on riverfront property seemed unlikely.

Pagan and Amsden said the vision and guidelines for the specific plan update don't lock the city into any specific use and that more specific discussions about housing could come up later in the process.

David Benda covers business, development and anything else that comes up for the USA TODAY Network in Redding. He also writes the weekly "Buzz on the Street" column. He’s part of a team of dedicated reporters that investigate wrongdoing, cover breaking news and tell other stories about your community. Reach him on X, formerly Twitter, @DavidBenda_RS or by phone at 1-530-338=8323. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Redding riverfront plan draws concerns from rodeo, tribal leaders