Additional Swanston Information

The Swanston Station Transit Village Plan will utilize and advance two previous sets of transit oriented development land use studies. Criterion Planners led several community design charettes in 1998 utilizing the INDEX modeling tool to arrive at a "transit village" concept for Swanston Station's future vision. A more comprehensive land use vision was completed as part of the Transit for Livable Communities (TLC) project that utilized the GIS based PLACE3s modeling tool and was led by Sacramento Regional Transit District in collaboration with the City of Sacramento and area stakeholders. The TLC study developed station area land use plans and recommendations including higher density housing, a mix use and support retail, and other civic and community uses.

Swanston Station is located in the North Sacramento Community Plan Area, south of Camino Boulevard, north of Arden Way and east of the Regional Transit and Union Pacific Rail Lines. The project area encompasses roughly ¼ to ½ mile radius around the existing RT Swanston Light Rail Station (See maps in Appendix A). The Railroad right-a-way area is 320 feet wide and serves commercial rail service as well as Amtrak and Sacramento Light Rail. The Swanston Light Rail Station has a landscaped 3.5-acre park and ride lot with capacity for approximately 310 automobiles.

The station area land uses are varied and include heavy industrial, commercial, single-family residential, multi-family residential and vacant parcels. Existing heavy and light rail lines divide the project area into two distinct areas. The area to the East contains two large office buildings (USAA Insurance, Hilton Hotel, and Cal Plaza I). The Northwest side of the area contains relatively low –density single story buildings in an assortment of land uses with vacant parcels interspersed.

Overall, in addition to vacant lots, many other sites in the area are underutilized. An estimated 21 percent of the parcels within approximately ½ mile radius around the station are either underutilized or vacant. General locations in the area are adequate to meet the definition of blight under California Redevelopment Law, and such; the area was included in the North Sacramento Redevelopment Project Area. Adopted by SHRA in 1992. Currently, the project area contains approximately 364 dwelling units and 4,017 employees.

Contact Information

Brian Abbanat, Associate Planner
City of Sacramento Planning Division
915 I Street, 2nd Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 808-7584, Fax: (916) 808-2023

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