PrintKeystone buys land for housing development
The developers behind Patterson Gardens and the Keystone Pacific Business Park hope to build a project that would create more than 2,000 new homes in Patterson.
From The Patterson Irrigator
Keystone buys land for housing development
Developer acquires 475 acres for housing, commercial .
The developers behind Patterson Gardens and the Keystone Pacific Business Park hope to build a project that would create more than 2,000 new homes in Patterson.
Keystone Corp. took control of about 475 acres at Zacharias and Baldwin roads, just north of the city limits, in May. The North Carolina-based company optioned much of the land there and bought about 100 acres from the Ielmini family. The Ielminis previously owned the local Patterson Frozen Foods processing plant, now run by Patterson Vegetable Co.
Keystone Corp. President Pat Gavaghan said his company hopes to build a housing development that would include some retail businesses.
“I think it is the next right site,” Gavaghan said.
His company has agreed to pay $85,000 an acre — almost $40.4 million in total.
Phone calls to the Ielmini family were not returned.
Gavaghan expects the project won’t materialize anytime soon. He estimated it could easily take five years.
“First of all, you’ve got market problems,” he said. “Nothing is going to be built in Patterson for quite a while.”
Also, the land is outside the city’s general plan, so the city has not determined if it should be used for industrial, housing, commercial or some other use.
City officials will likely designate a use for the land as they revise the general plan, which they hope to complete by November 2008. Gavaghan said that process would affect many details of his project, and, unsurprisingly, his company is paying close attention to the revisions.
Several people discussing the general plan at recent city meetings have mentioned creating an Interstate 5 interchange at Zacharias Road, which would put Keystone’s potential housing development along a major corridor.
The project stands where Ontario-based Empire Land once hoped to build a mixed-use development. Another project, called Zacharias Hills, was later slated for the area. Keystone’s plan is not affiliated with those projects.
So far, the committee tasked with revising the general plan has set a guideline of 5 percent annual growth in Patterson for the next 40 years, which would take the population to more than 150,000 by 2050. At the General Plan Advisory Committee’s next meeting, the group intends to determine how much residential land the city will need in the coming decades.
An important factor in those calculations is how many homes can fit in a given area. The city’s planning consultant estimated about eight homes per acre, but Gavaghan said that figure is “extraordinarily dense” and would be a disaster.
“It would be thousands of apartments,” he said. “I don’t think Patterson wants to be Oakland.” Gavaghan wants about five homes per acre for his prospective project, he said. That would mean 2,375 homes in total. At eight homes an acre, that figure would jump to 3,800.
At this time, Keystone Corp. has no plans for any other land around the town, Gavaghan said.