Fresno County Board Approves Contract Cancellation for Fowler Housing Development

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted on Aug. 24 to cancel a Williamson Act contract on nearly 40 acres of farmland near Fowler, clearing the way for the city to annex the property and move forward with a Crown Homes housing development.

The board offered no comment on the item and swiftly approved the motion. The Williamson Act contract had restricted the parcel to exclusively agricultural use.

The Fowler City Council had already been working on the project. On Aug. 18, the council rejected a general plan land use amendment and directed staff to rework the proposal to be more consistent with the city’s general plan. Under the initial proposal, the parcel would have been designated medium-low density residential with around 180 units. After the council’s decision to keep it low density residential, the final number could be reduced by around 39 units — bringing it down to roughly 141 units.

Advertisement

While the Williamson Act contract previously prevented the council from taking action on the tentative subdivision map, the contract’s cancellation now allows the council to do so when the proposal returns.

The Breakdown

• Canceling the contract removes the restriction to agricultural use but requires specific findings.
• According to the county staff report, staff had to make five findings: that cancellation is consistent with the county’s general plan, that cancellation is in the public interest, that cancellation won’t have a substantial adverse environmental impact, that there’s no other parcel available to achieve the project’s purpose, and that the land is surrounded by parcels not in agricultural use or not subject to similar contracts.
• County staff determined all five findings could be made because the surrounding parcels are already not in agricultural use or not subject to a Williamson Act contract, and no suitable alternative parcels were available for sale.

What This Means for You

This vote determines whether nearly 40 acres of farmland near Fowler becomes housing. The Fresno County Board of Supervisors — elected by you to make exactly these kinds of land-use decisions — chose to allow the conversion from agricultural use to residential development. That’s a choice about what kind of growth the county supports, and whether preserving agricultural land or enabling new housing takes priority in areas like Fowler. When you vote for county supervisors, you’re voting for the people who decide these questions.

What to Watch

The most immediate question is what the Fowler City Council does when this project comes back in its revised form. The council already rejected the denser version once — will they approve the lower-density version, or push back again?

But the bigger question is this: Why is public action needed to enable a private developer to build market-rate housing on farmland in the first place? Canceling the contract removes the restriction, but it doesn’t answer whether converting nearly 40 acres of farmland to housing is the best use of public authority — or whether it primarily serves the developer’s interest rather than the community’s.

A 141-unit development (if that’s the final count) isn’t automatically a benefit to existing Fowler residents. It could bring new families, new students to the schools, and new demand on city services — but it also removes nearly 40 acres from agricultural use in an area that has historically been farmland. The county staff report says the surrounding parcels are already not in agricultural use or not under Williamson Act contracts, which raises its own question: Is this development filling in an area that’s already transitioning away from agriculture, or is it the leading edge of more conversions to come?

The other piece worth watching is whether the final project actually addresses a housing need in Fowler, or whether it’s market-rate housing that serves people moving into the area rather than people already priced out of it. The material doesn’t state what kind of housing Crown Homes is building or what the price point will be — but that’s exactly what voters should be asking when the project comes back to the Fowler City Council.