Pushing the Boundary

June 22, 2003
By Tim Bragg, staff writer
Bakersfield Californian

Lines of palm trees cross near the center of Rosedale Ranch, marking where the area's original settlers established their ranches in the late 1800s. But the current owners of the farmland, which produces almonds and cotton, want to grow something different: houses, businesses, industry and the public services needed to support them.

Over the next 10 to 15 years, ranch owners Keith Gardiner and Jeff Townsend want to develop houses with shopping, medical facilities and other necessities built among the homes. And intertwined through it all, they want walking and bike trails.

The two have asked the city of Bakersfield to add 1,600 acres of the ranch surrounding the palms, roughly bordered by Highway 43, 7th Standard, Allen and Kratzmeyer roads, to its sphere of influence.

Lands within the sphere are areas the city will annex in the next few years.

If the addition is approved by the city and the Local Agency Formation Commission, Bakersfield's borders would eventually bump up against the city limits of Shafter along 7th Standard Road.

This is different from the zone change granted to Gardiner at Thursday night's Bakersfield Planning Commission meeting. That zone change regards an 80-acre plot of farmland near the main Rosedale Ranch property.

The commission approved that zone change, allowing commercial and housing development, despite one commissioner's concerns that the land was being prematurely taken out of production.

Even the 1,600-acre Rosedale Ranch project is not the largest chunk of ground slated for development in the Bakersfield area; Castle & Cooke recently purchased two parcels in the southwest that total about 2,700 acres.

But with serious traffic problems and land use issues facing the northwest, any large development proposed there is cause for concern about the area's overall quality of life.

A development of bland suburban homes catering to cars more than pedestrians is not what Gardiner has in mind for Rosedale Ranch, he said.

"We don't want to build houses surrounded by long block walls," said Gardiner, who along with Townsend, purchased more than 2,700 acres in the area in September from the Prudential Insurance Co..

"We want a community where people can walk to a shopping center, or to their job," he said.

While the idea of a more pedestrian-friendly development is intriguing, those fighting urban sprawl say the project could encourage more growth further away from the city's core.

"The core of the city ends up subsidizing the far-flung reaches of the city," said Pauline Larwood, executive director of the Smart Growth Coalition of Kern County.

Rosedale history

As he drives around the ranch in his pickup, Gardiner said he feels like he's home again.

Gardiner said the Kern County Land Co. granted leases to his father and others to turn the Rosedale Ranch back into successful farms in the 1950s.

"It was just sagebrush and desert before that," Gardiner said.

"It was my job to pick up the palm fronds," Gardiner said, as he drove down the ranch's palm-lined driveway.

But his father was not able to continue farming in the late 1960s after the Kern County Land Co. became Tenneco West and the lease terms changed.

In 1996, a group of land owners in the area presented an environmental impact report to the county Planning Department examining the effects of building a much larger master-planned community on the property than what is envisioned now.

The previous proposal would have included more than 25,000 residential units, plus parks, schools, public facilities and land set aside for commercial and industrial development on more than 6,000 acres.

The proposed community in its original form would have have stretched from Allen Road west over Highway 43 to Superior Road when completed.

More than 67,000 people were projected to live in the community by 2020.

But planning officials say the original Rosedale Ranch project was a bit ahead of its time from a planning and economics standpoint.

County planning director Ted James said county officials did not hear much from the original land owners about the previous Rosedale Ranch project after the late 1990s.

"The project seemed to slow down," James said. "We really haven't heard much about it in the last few years."

Prudential Insurance became a large part of the original ranch property. When it put its portion of the property up for sale, Gardiner and his brother-in-law Townsend, a local businessman, went for it.

"It's great to be back here farming again," he said.

They decided to move toward development because of population growth and economics, he said.

Growth is pushing subdivisions closer to the ranch and a poor economy for farmers makes development a better financial investment, he said.

"The western boundary of the city's sphere of influence already bumps up against our property," Gardiner said, as he looked at construction for future homes near his ranch.

Looking at the future

Gardiner said he has a vision for the Rosedale Ranch property, but it's not complete.

The final land use designations, housing densities and other required decisions have not been made.

Gardiner said master planning firms are being interviewed to see which one is best to guide the development.

But Gardiner does know what he doesn't want.

"We could divide the property into 40-acre pieces and develop it that way, but that's not what we want to do," Gardiner said. "There's already too much of that out here now."

Gardiner said creating industrial and commercial developments with nearby housing would give people a chance to live close to their work, cutting down on car trips into the central city.

The original environmental report for the old Rosedale Ranch project said a large, master-planned community would have serious impacts on traffic and air quality, many of which could not be mitigated by other measures.

But Gardiner said the smaller size of his development, plus its location near the planned route of the Westside Parkway and a soon-to-be widened 7th Standard Road, means it should have fewer negative impacts than if the land was developed in a piecemeal manner.

"This is about the only piece of land close to Bakersfield where you could do something like we're proposing," Gardiner said. "All the land between us and the neighborhoods being built now are all committed."

Larwood said it's great the Rosedale Ranch owners are planning with an eye toward reducing traffic and air pollution by being creative with the development mix and design.

She also acknowledged that growth is headed for that area in some form.

But Larwood said when a large new development goes in at the fringe of a city, it encourages even more growth to head that way.

"There are some things you are not going to get away from," Larwood said. "If it's too far out, it will not be able to be served by public transit."

The project would also put some good farmland out of commission, said Peter Belluomini, first vice president of the Kern County Farm Bureau.

He said farmland needs to be preserved, but he opposes any kind of controls on what farmers can do.

"They should stop leapfrog development, and do infill," Belluomini said. "But everything between the leapfrog development and the core becomes infill, so what can you do?"

The Rosedale Ranch project, if approved, may also have some effect on the city's psyche as it would push Bakersfield's boundaries right up next to Shafter's city limit.

But the project has a long way to go before that happens.

Stanley Grady, the city's planning director, said any application to expand the city's sphere of influence to take in Rosedale Ranch would have to be presented to the Local

Agency Formation Commission for its approval.

Before that happens, the city must complete a municipal services report explaining what services the area needs and how they would be provided.

Grady said the Rosedale Ranch land is included in a services study the city is conducting.

If the Local Agency Formation Commission does approve the sphere increase, Grady said a zone change and general plan amendment would also be required.

But if the city or commission do not approve expanding the sphere, that doesn't mean the project will be dead.

Gardiner said the county or the city of Shafter could be approached if Bakersfield can't, or chooses not to, include the land in its sphere.

Shafter City Manager John Guinn said his city and Bakersfield have a "gentlemen's agreement" about development around 7th Standard -- Shafter stays north and Bakersfield stays south.

Guinn said he has not talked to Gardiner about the Rosedale Ranch project, but he said Shafter has been approached by others south of 7th Standard.

So far, Shafter has declined the offers, he said. Any sphere of influence additions for Shafter in the near future would be north of 7th Standard Road.

"The property owners would have to want us to do it, and it would have to make sense for us," Guinn said.

Regardless of whether the ranch ends up in a city or in the county, Gardiner pledged one thing won't change.

"These trees won't be going anywhere," he said, of the crossing palms "We want to preserve them."