The City of Sacramento is planning to hold another round of community meetings on what to do with vacant land it bought in Meadowview two years ago.
City officials have floated a variety of ideas for the 102-acre site, including building a youth sports complex and opening a designated parking area for people living in vehicles, but they have yet to make concrete plans since buying it for $12.3 million.
The City Council on Tuesday discussed a new feasibility study, which shows it could take seven years for a sports complex to open on the property located south of Meadowview Road and north of Cosumnes River Boulevard. The study also examined other possibilities, including planning for affordable housing, wetland preservation, a storm drainage facility and a park on the lot.
Officials plan to make decisions on how to proceed after the city gets more input from the public on the findings. Council member Mai Vang, who represents the area, held seven public meetings about the property in spring 2022.
She said that while attendees shared the need for more permanent supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness, they also discussed a vision for a community-centered property with amenities.
“We also gotta move upstream,” Vang said. “There’s the temporary shelter, but we gotta figure out economic opportunity to uplift our families from poverty. Because many of our families right now in South Sacramento are one paycheck away from being homeless.”
Mayor Darrell Steinberg acknowledged that when the city bought the property from the federal government in January 2022, officials discussed using it for a safe parking area and homeless services. But he said that it would cost $10 to $11 million to grade the vacant land to set up a safe parking area, so the city determined other locations were better suited. He added that the city can still designate the property for multiple uses.
In his 2022 State of the City Address, Steinberg announced a proposal for a $50 million youth sports complex with 24 multi-use fields to take up half of the 102 acres. At the time, he said the city could break ground in 2024 if the planning process moved quickly. But on Tuesday, Steinberg said he regrets that he won’t see the idea come to fruition before leaving office this December.
“It’s going to be up to the future council to say OK, this is the vision, here are the resources, here’s the private sector partner we have,” Steinberg said. “And it has to be available for the kids and the young people of South Sacramento, but it also has to be an economic driver.”
Officials have proposed spending the city’s transit occupancy tax, also known as the hotel tax, to help build a youth sports complex. Voters in 2022 passed a measure that allows the city to spend the tax on tourism-related economic development projects throughout the city instead of only in Downtown.
Vang said she plans to consult the land’s advisory committee about planning community meetings on the feasibility study. City staff recommend the council hold another meeting to make decisions in the summer or fall.
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