Butterfield Station Apartments
By Jim Morgan
A large single-family parcel (approximately 14.65 acres) is located across the street from the Butterfield Light Rail Station. A pre-application for development of this parcel was submitted to Sacramento County on June 30, 2023. The proposal would be for 420 apartment units, with a clubhouse and 735 parking spaces. This number of apartments would roughly triple the number of apartment units in the BRECA area. There would be NO public park space. The apartment units would be three stories tall, and the entire project would be fenced and gated. It would be called Butterfield Station Apartments. See layout below.
A “pre-application” means that it is not a complete application, but a conceptual design for purposes of having a meeting with several County departments to receive feedback. The pre-application meeting was held on August 24, 2023. BRECA has no information on what occurred at this meeting. It is possible that, if a complete application is submitted, it would differ significantly from the pre-application.
BRECA has enunciated principals for development of this parcel. They are:
- Full parkland dedication on site.
- Connectivity with the surrounding neighborhood.
- Blending and melding with the surrounding neighborhood.
Based on these principals, BRECA would object to the plan in the pre-application. First, there is no public parkland dedication. For the number of units in the application, Sacramento County codes would require 4.37 acres of public parkland or payment of in-lieu fees. BRECA strongly believes that full dedication on site is a feature that the future residents of the development will benefit from. It would also benefit the surrounding neighborhood, for which there are no parks within walking distance for younger or older people.
Second, the plans show the apartments to be surrounded by a fence, with only one gated main entrance/exit on Folsom Blvd. There would be an emergency entrance on Linda Rio Dr., but this does not appear to be useful for normal traffic. One can infer that around 5:30 pm hundreds of cars would be lined up on Folsom Blvd. waiting to get in the gate.
Third, all the buildings in the plan are three story buildings. They would be up against mainly one story houses on the north and west sides. Reduction in height of buildings adjacent to these houses would be called for to achieve blending.
Stay tuned as this proposed development may move through the approval process.
