Citizen-Initiated Smart Growth Plan Phase 2

The remedy for Placer County’s affordable and achievable housing crisis.

CISGP 2 is the second in a series of reports establishing a new vision for Southwest Placer County. It focuses on the market feasibility, and necessity, of multifamily dwellings and mixed use buildings. This report takes a systematic look at the demographics of county residents, immigrants, and population movement throughout California to establish Placer County’s growth levels, housing price points, and target demographic markets for a 2050 time horizon.

As with all AEL projects, we took our research and directly applied it to a case study- Phase 1’s muse, the Sunset Area Plan. Since that mega development includes lots of new houses and new jobs, we set out to investigate if people who worked there could afford to live there.

Explained through a series of colorful graphs, it becomes clear that the Sunset Area Plan creates lots of low wage jobs and an over abundance of housing for our richest community members. To address this inequity, we redesigned the housing component. Peruse our method and results by following the CISGP counter example throughout the report.

We encourage you to test if your perception of Placer’s demographics reflects the data!