On Tuesday, November 17th, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors approved and enacted the Downtown Rio Linda Special Planning Area ordinance. This ordinance is an overlay of planning guidelines that intend to create a business center at Rio Linda Blvd and M Street, and return the M Street corridor to its place as our community “Main Street”.
Background
In 1989, Sacramento County created the Rio Linda Business District Special Planning Area (SPA) to serve as the new ordinance regulating development and land uses in the Downtown Rio Linda Business District. In 2008-2009, the Sacramento County Neighborhood Services Department and the Rio Linda-Elverta Visions Task Force began an outreach program to engage the Rio Linda community in developing a fresh vision plan for the M Street, Downtown business corridor. In 2010, with funding from the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, Sacramento County initiated the process of creating the new SPA Ordinance to replace the 1989 Rio Linda SPA and implement the Vision Plan.
Objectives
The plan’s principal objectives include:
- Creating a business center at Rio Linda Blvd & M St
- Re-vitalizing the Downtown historic core
- Re-purposing industrial and commercial structures
- Introducing neighborhood-serving mixed-use development
- Returning M Street to its function as a community main street, with pedestrian-friendly features and full streetscape improvements.
Benefits
- This ordinance sets out clear development guidelines for redevelopment and new projects in the SPA, simplifying the approval process and cutting the amount of time from proposal to vertical construction.
- It will protect our culturally and historically significant structures, by requiring a cultural resource study for any project subject to a use permit or other discretionary entitlement which proposes demolition of or major changes to a structure more than 50 years old.
- It eliminates design review requirements for many projects, as long as they are aligned with the intent of the SPA design guidelines.
- The mixed-use zones remove land use barriers that discourage the development of new commercial, retail, housing, and civic uses.
- Establishing Rio Linda as a destination and place in the County with a thriving Downtown and place to celebrate the community’s culture, heritage, the arts, and access to locally grown foods.
- Restricting or prohibiting businesses such as Adult Uses, Auto-Related Uses, including Auto Service Station, Auto Repair and Car Wash, Bars, Check Cashing Facilities, Drive-through Facilities, Gun Sales, Hotel, Motel, Indoor Recreational Facilities, Liquor Stores, Nightclubs, Dance Halls, Pawn Shops, Recycling Centers, Repair Services, Tattoo Shops.
For the full text of the ordinance, click here:
