Fresno County Planning Commission to vote Thursday on $1.1 billion Friant Ranch development

The Fresno County Planning Commission votes Thursday on whether to recommend a $1.1 billion development plan that would build 2,500 homes — a town the size of Fowler — along Friant Road just south of the town of Friant. The Board of Supervisors is tentatively set to make a final vote Oct. 20.

The project, called Friant Ranch, is owned by former Madera County Assemblymember Frank Bigelow and his family. The plan calls for most homes to be designated for residents 55 and older, on about 1,000 acres. County planning staff have recommended approval.

The county’s environmental review concludes that “with exception of the loss of farmland and traffic, potentially significant impacts could be reduced to a less than significant level.”

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This is the project’s second attempt at county approval. The Board of Supervisors approved Friant Ranch in 2011, but the Sierra Club and Fresno’s League of Women Voters challenged that approval in court.

In a 2018 ruling, the state Supreme Court found the county’s environmental review failed to “make a reasonable effort to substantively connect” the project’s air pollution to likely health consequences. The county was forced to rescind its approvals in 2021.

The county rewrote only the air quality chapter, released in February 2023. Everything else — traffic, water, wildlife — carries over from the 2011 approval, with only a checklist and appendices updating it. The county argues those sections were upheld in court and cannot be challenged again.

No new wildlife surveys were conducted for the latest review, the county acknowledges. Its consultants relied on site surveys from 1998, 2006, and 2007, plus a 2022 database search. The site holds about 14 acres of vernal pools that are potential breeding habitat for California tiger salamanders and western spadefoot toads. A golden eagle was spotted on the site in 1995, and badger dens have been found north and south of the ranch.

Five nearby families submitted a letter to the county stating that bald eagles have been found nesting nearby, and American badgers and bobcats have been run over at a high frequency along Friant Road in the last two-and-a-half years. The state Department of Fish and Wildlife said in 2023 that it “concurs” with the county’s analysis and finds wildlife mitigation “sufficient.”

The City of Fresno questioned whether the county could meet state laws requiring full disclosure of environmental impacts using “a document that contains data from 2011 and prior.” The Sierra Club’s lawyers pointed out that since then, a major blast mine has been proposed, a new state groundwater law written, new rules measuring traffic by miles driven, and Table Mountain’s casino has ballooned “8 times larger” than once contemplated.

The county replied that “changes over time…do not require a constant updating” of an EIR.

Environmental attorney Doug Carstens told Fresnoland in 2023 that the key assumption underlying Friant Ranch’s new environmental review — that 80% of the car trips caused by the development will be less than three miles — is unfounded. “This is a sprawl project. This assumption just doesn’t make sense,” Carstens said. “It’s not a legally adequate environmental review. It needs an overhaul. Right now, it’s woefully deficient.”

In 2014, the county promised it would update its water supply analysis for Friant Ranch after the project’s future water supply went dry during the 2012-2016 drought. The county chose to drop that goal in 2021, according to Fresno resident Radley Reep, who wrote to the county: “The County’s change of heart was nutty.”

The Breakdown

• The Planning Commission meets Thursday at 8:45 a.m., Hall of Records, Room 301, to vote on recommending approval of Friant Ranch.
• The Board of Supervisors is tentatively set to make a final vote Oct. 20.
• The project would build 2,500 homes, most for residents 55 and older, on about 1,000 acres along Friant Road.
• The county rewrote only the air quality chapter of its environmental review after a 2018 state Supreme Court ruling; all other sections carry over from 2011.
• No new wildlife surveys were conducted; the county relied on surveys from 1998, 2006, and 2007.

What This Means for You

The Board of Supervisors’ vote next month will determine whether a $1.1 billion development moves forward on the county’s northern edge — a decision shaped by elected supervisors’ judgment on whether an environmental review built largely on 2011 data meets current legal standards.

What You Can Do

The Planning Commission meets at 8:45 a.m. Thursday, Hall of Records, Room 301. Public comment is typically allowed at planning commission meetings.

What to Watch

The material states a $1.1 billion total project cost but does not state what portion, if any, is public money.

A substantive general question is whether a project this large, built on an environmental review the county itself acknowledges relies on wildlife surveys from 1998–2007, actually meets the state’s requirement for full disclosure of impacts. The Sierra Club and environmental attorneys have stated directly that they believe the review is deficient; the county’s position is that changes over time do not require constant updating.

A second question: the county promised in 2014 to update its water supply analysis after the project’s original water source went dry during the 2012–2016 drought, then dropped that promise in 2021.