The Alliance for Environmental Leadership funded and produced the Citizen-Initiated Smart Growth Plan (CISGP) for Southwest Placer County. The purpose of the CISGP is to put forward a climate-resilient, low-carbon, Smart Growth alternative to Placer County’s industrial/urban sprawl plan. The CISGP lays-out how a vast natural ecosystem and industrial area that for decades has been designated for development, can develop into a town with a flourishing innovation ecosystem of homes and jobs, linking education and entrepreneurship. The CISGP embodies the values of environmental and social stewardship- working with land’s natural systems and establishing a perfect-fit of the on site job incomes and housing price points. Environmental experts from over eleven AEL member organizations contributed expertise to the CISGP.
In 2019, during the Environmental Impact Review AEL submitted the CISGP Phase 1 as an environmentally superior alternative to the County of Placer’s proposed Sunset Area Plan. The meticulous process of creating the CISGP uncovered many unmet benchmarks and hollow promises in the County’s Sunset Area Plan. We were able to point out these weaknesses and also offer solutions. By providing parallel workshops for citizens on how to comment on EIRs, our community successfully delivered accurate and insightful comments to the County on over 2,000 pages of planning documents.
Phase 1 includes a Rezoning Plan founded on environmental research, and a quantitative comparison of the various plans for the area across 50+ metrics ranging from housing affordability, to emissions. We hope you enjoy reading it!