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Despite significant public opposition,
on January 3rd, 2023, Chico City Council approved Valley’s Edge, the largest proposed housing development in Chico's history.
We pushed back, and collected 8,000 signatures from Chico voters in 30 days, forcing the City Council to either rescind their approval or let the people vote.
Chico needs housing, affordable housing, but Valley's Edge dedicates less than 1% of the housing-designated land to affordable units. Chico needs smart growth, not more foothill sprawl into high wildfire risk areas.
We cannot ignore the deficiencies
of the Valley's Edge Specific Plan.
Valley's Edge Specific Plan
The Valley’s Edge Specific Plan covers nearly 1,500 acres in southeast Chico and is poised to become a sprawling, unsustainable and luxury development designed with 2,700 dwelling units, the size and approximate population of Gridley.
The development will have many detrimental impacts, including increasing traffic, a fiscal burden, environmental destruction, obstructing Chico’s climate goals.
We cannot stand by as this development moves forward with little public input. For these reasons, we're asking the voters of Chico to Vote No on March 5, 2024!
What is a Referendum?
A referendum is a political challenge by voters to an enactment already made by the legislative body.
In early 2023, Stop Valley's Edge challenged the Chico City Council's approval of the Valley's Edge Specific Plan. We successfully gathered 8,000 signatures from Chico voters to secure a public vote on the proposed development.
Sprawl Development
Sprawl describes the result of unrestricted and rapid expansion of development into the periphery of metropolitan areas, and has been around since the 1950’s. It is most categorized by low density single-family residential housing, the separation of neighborhoods from homes, shops and work land uses (in general more distinct and separate land uses), lack of activity or community, and the increased reliance on the private automobile for transportation due to an unsafe and inaccessible street network for anything other than automobiles.
This type of development impacts people’s lives negatively. It increases driving due to inaccessibility of the street network for alternative modes of transportation, destroys open spaces and natural lands, increases water, land and air pollution, increases housing and transportation costs, increases energy use, and due to the lack of community and activity centers coupled with neighborhoods more sprawled out, leads to a lack of community and social cohesion.
