40,000-Acre MPC – Kings County, CA
As one of California’s most prominent landowners began to plan for what would eventually become one of the state’s largest new towns on 40,000 acres near the City of Visalia, our team was retained to provide analysis of when, how and why Central California will develop over the next 50 years once the real estate market rebounds.
Dividing the state into four regions comprised of the main Bay Area counties, the primary Central California counties, the secondary counties connecting the Bay Area with the Central Valley and Southern California, we found that in the long run, economic growth in Central California will far outpace that of the Bay Area and much of Southern California.
Due to its central location in between two huge population centers, adequate and low-cost land and a transportation network linked by highways, rail and airports, the firm concluded that the area stretching from Bakersfield through Stockton will provide a viable alternative to companies now seeking to move out of state to cheaper locales. Indeed, this trend has already started, with Central California’s manufacturing base holding into jobs while continuing to disappear elsewhere, while its transportation and distribution sector’s growth far outpaces those much larger cities to the north and south.
Instead of traditional cities, much of the new development will occur in huge, next-generation master-planned communities focusing on technology for telecommuters and wide expanses of open space featuring trails, lakes, rivers and nature preserves. Looking to finally reaching the true goal of ‘live, work and play’, local governments are starting to require developers to bring jobs with them before issuing building permits, and in one case demanding a set fee for each home sold dedicated for an economic development fund.