California
Is suburban sprawl still California’s big answer to housing shortage?
Urban sprawl has been anathema to California housing planners for the last 10 years or so. As they passed law after law eliminating zoning for single-family residences and emphasizing high rise buildings and other infill housing near mass transit, the old California pattern of building outward became passe.
Maybe not anymore.
Two prospective massive new developments emerged from obscurity into the realm of distinct possibility over the last few months.
One would be in mostly rural portions of Solano County, an often-overlooked area covering much of the ground between Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay area and stretching south toward Stockton. The other would extend Fresno to the southeast.
Together, the two proposed developments (neither as yet has won even a single government agency’s approval) could account for as many as 85,000 new housing units, mostly single family. That would provide a sizable chunk of the 1.8 million new dwelling units in one estimate of current housing need from the state Department of Housing and Community Development.
But some words of caution are advised here: Tejon Ranch. Housing advocates rejoiced in 2021, when the big land company with huge amounts of vacant property atop the Grapevine area between Los Angeles and Bakersfield, got an OK from Kern County. But less than two years later, a Los Angeles County judge sent the project back to the drawing board, and its approval process may now drag on for many years.
Still, in this era when every new law seems to seek a knockdown for existing housing and commercial buildings in exchange for large new apartment buildings with stores, gyms and other commerce on the lowest floors, there may be broad appeal to brand new homes on what has been agricultural land.
In Solano County, a group of Silicon Valley billionaires including Lorraine Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple Corp. co-founder Steve Jobs, and other venture capitalists, quietly bought up more than 55,000 acres (78 square miles) of pastureland wind farms and other low-density development. They appear willing to pay whatever penalties are needed for taking the land out of agricultural use, where the state’s Williamson Act has long given much of it preferred tax status in exchange for remaining rural.
This projected new city, which would have more than 10,000 acres of parks, could eventually become the largest town in Solano County, where Fairfield is the county seat and other significant locales include Rio Vista, Vacaville, Dixon and Suisun City.
To change the use of so much land would require first a vote of the entire county and then a slew of other permits from state and regional agencies. So this is years away, but promises lots of affordable housing, plus European-style homes for wealthier buyers. And plenty of profit for the billionaire investors.
Then there’s the Southeast Development Area on the edge of Fresno, a mostly-rural area of about 9,000 acres whose prospective developers promise a series of “walkable” neighborhoods in what would be one of Fresno’s most sprawling suburbs. Plans tentatively call for each neighborhood to have its own elementary school, community garden, shops and parks. Plenty of public transit is also proposed.
This one also would need public votes and myriad government permits before going forward.
In both places, local opposition has already formed. Solano County Supervisor Monica Brown, a former schoolteacher, told one reporter that “We’re growing food and helping people (now). Why would you stop economic growth like that? Why would they spend $800 million and not be transparent about it?”
Brown referred to the five years of secrecy investors maintained while becoming Solano County’s largest landowners. Their spokesman responded that secrecy was needed to prevent speculative land price increases.
At the same time, school officials and others worry about “gaping holes” in infrastructure if the southeast area plan goes forward.
But prospective developers of both areas say they will take care of all those concerns.
So it will initially be up to local voters to decide: Do they want new, but traditionally California-style developments near them, or do they want to leave things alone and thus have the state continue stressing urban infill? Or could these possible new suburbs be harbingers of other new developments in California deserts and the Central Valley?
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com.
California
Northern California’s House of Clocks has stood the test of time for 55 years
While we may lose an hour of sleep this coming weekend, one clock store in California is gearing up for one of its busiest times of the year: daylight savings.
It’s the House of Clocks, the largest clock company in Northern California, which was recently celebrating 55 years of business.
It’s a place frozen in time. Just visit the store’s 240-year-old grandfather clock. It’s got plenty of stories to tell, dating back to 1780.
“This is the oldest piece we have right now,” clocksmith Joey Hohn said.
The House of Clocks is on the outskirts of Downtown Lodi in San Joaquin County.
“We have new, we have vintage, we have antique,” co-owner Sandy Hohn shared. “Honestly, it feels like not a day goes by that we don’t get a phone call or an email of somebody wanting to sell something for 100 different reasons.”
The clock store has been with the Hohn family for three generations. It’s all thanks to one family heirloom.
“When the first war started, [my grandparents] left everything and had to move,” Joey Hohn explained. “After the Second World War, my grandpa was stationed in Germany. They went back to the house that had been abandoned and the neighbor who they left the property to said, ‘As far as I’m concerned, everything in the house is still yours.’ They went back and got this, so this is my great-great-grandparents’ clock.”
You can find just about anything in the House of Clocks, from old grandfather clocks to clocks that can fit in the palm of your hand.
What you can’t find anywhere else is the Hohns’ love for Lodi.
“We’ve made so many friends over the years out of customers,” Sandy Hohn said. “Friends that are just wonderful, that love collecting, and we keep them repaired for their families, which is awesome. They have sentimental value that’s passed down.”
That same love for the city and their community runs in the family.
“We had a customer that wanted to repaint their dial,” Joey Hohn explained. “We told them no because it was her father’s who had passed away. Every time he went to wind the clock, he placed his thumb in the same spot. When we told her that smudge there on the dial was her father, she said, ‘Back away, don’t you dare.’ It was just a good memory we have.”
While you can’t turn back time, what we can do is keep memories alive and treasure the present moment.
“There’s so many personalities,” Sandy Hohn said. “We just try to find a good home for them.”
California
Signs of spring blooming at Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve after wet, warm winter
It’s beginning to look a lot like spring!
The warm and wet weather this winter has led to the start of a dazzling super bloom at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.
“We had an unseasonably warm winter as well, so there’s actually a lot of growth,” said Callista Turney with California State Parks. “We’re having early wildflowers that are already at the park. So if you look at the poppy live cam, it shows a lot of orange already.”
The rain has helped the early blooms, but it’s actually the heat that accelerated the growth of the flowers.
“It will actually speed up the growth of the plants, so some of them were already blooming and that’s going to cause those blossoms to accelerate faster towards seed production. And the blossoms that are in the process of being formed, those are going to open up soon as well.”
We also sometimes see great super blooms in Death Valley National Park, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Joshua Tree and the Mojave National Preserve.
“It’s definitely a rare occurrence because we don’t always have the right conditions. It’s gotta be the weather, the wind, the rain, all coming together,” said Katie Tilford, Director of Development and Communications with the Theodore Payne Foundation.
If it continues to stay unseasonably warm, we’ll see a shorter bloom. The key to a longer season is milder weather.
Copyright © 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.
California
Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco says he’s the ‘antithesis to California state government’
We are counting down to the California governor’s race. Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, is one of the two biggest names running on the Republican ticket.
In a one-on-one interview with Eyewitness News political reporter Josh Haskell, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said, “I am the antithesis to California state government because I am going to take a nuclear bomb into that building and absolutely destroy everything that they do to us behind closed doors.”
Although he’s been elected by the voters twice, Bianco says he’s not a politician — which is why he believes his campaign for California governor is resonating, as reflected in the polls.
“President Trump, in one year, from 2025 when he took over, until now, did absolutely nothing to harm California. What’s harming California is 30 years of Democrat one-party rule that have created an environment here that no one can live in anymore. They’ve only been successful here in California because we vote D no matter what. You vote D or die. I mean, that’s it. Charles Manson would be elected in California if he was the only Democrat on the ballot,” Bianco said.
Bianco isn’t the only conservative Republican running for governor, and according to polling, he’s neck-and-neck with former Fox News host Steve Hilton.
SEE ALSO: CA governor candidate Steve Hilton says ‘everybody supports’ Trump’s immigration policies
Leading in some polls in the wide-open California Governor’s race as the June primary creeps closer is Republican and former Fox News host Steve Hilton.
“Steve has no chance of winning in November. The Democrats know that I’m going to win in November, and so they have to do everything they can to keep me out of that,” Bianco said.
When asked about the affordability crisis in the state, Bianco said, “Almost the entire issue of affordability in California is because of regulation, excessive regulation imposed by government. Every single regulation can be signed away with the governor’s signature.”
“It is a drug and alcohol addiction problem that, and a mental health problem,” he said about the homelessness crisis. “Every single bit of money that is going to these nonprofits that say ‘homeless,’ zero money. You’re getting absolutely nothing. I can’t tell you that we would end what we see in the homeless situation within a year, but I guarantee you we would never see it again after two years.”
When challenged on that prediction, pointing to how the state doesn’t have the facilities to treat the number of people living on our streets, Bianco responded, “We have been conditioned to believe that buildings take five years to build. It takes 90 days or less to build a house, but in California, it takes three to five years because the government won’t allow it. The regulations that are destroying this state are going to be removed with me as the governor.”
Bianco also said California jails shouldn’t have to play the role of treatment facilities.
Although he says he supports the Trump administration and wants the president’s endorsement, Bianco has been traveling the state — meeting not just with Republicans, but Democrats and independents as well. He says all of our state government officials have failed.
The primary election is June 2.
No clear front-runner in race for California governor, new poll shows
A new poll shows there’s still no clear front-runner in the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Copyright © 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.
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