John Harris-proposed Kings River development fits Fresno County’s love affair with sprawl

From its headwaters in Kings Canyon National Park’s remote, treeless Upper Basin, the Kings River flows through a glacial valley surrounded by towering granite cliffs before forming one of North America’s deepest gorges and tumbling into Pine Flat Lake.

Below the dam, the river’s final descent to the San Joaquin Valley remains relatively unspoiled. Certainly by 2022 standards. Lands along and near the Kings River east of Fresno are dedicated to farming operations, riverside parks and aggregate mining while largely spared from residential and commercial development.

Those days are numbered. The plan being pitched by John Harris, the prominent Fresno County businessman and race horse breeder, and Ben Ewell, a water rights attorney and developer of high-end leapfrog communities, changes everything.

Unfortunately, it isn’t really a matter of whether the Fresno County Board of Supervisors will give its collective blessing to rezone the 7,000-acre Harris River Ranch from agriculture to designations that allow for housing, commercial centers straddling Trimmer Springs Road and even possibly a college campus.

The only question is how fast our sprawl-addicted county supes will jump at the chance. Their track record on these matters is clear enough.

Opinion

Local opposition? Sure, there will be some ― especially as more people get wind of what Harris and Ewell plan to do with Harris’ oak-studded, white picket-fenced pastures near the Kings River. Property that currently serves as a lay-up farm for Harris’ horse-breeding operation and where the weanlings and yearlings are raised. (For the record, I don’t like the idea one bit.) But if history is any guide, dissenting voices will scarcely be heard by those with the elected authority over land-use decisions. Who will be too busy counting up all the “economic opportunities.”

Or else there would be no such thing as Brighton Crest. Nor Millerton New Town. Nor the unabashed support of Friant Ranch despite its litany of problems.

Fresno County isn’t about to kick its sprawl habit, and rarely have the powers-that-be stumbled onto such a rich opportunity. At full build out, Harris River Ranch could become Fresno County’s answer to Riverstone and Tesoro Viejo, those giant “master-planned communities” located in Madera County along the Highway 41 corridor.

Only Harris’ property is located along a nicer, better preserved riparian corridor. One where water rights and critically overdrafted water basins shouldn’t be an issue.

Future development stretching to 180

Harris said he envisions 400 to 500 homes near where he and his wife, Carole, have lived for more than 30 years. (“Nice, but not so nice that people couldn’t afford them,” Harris told Bee freelancer Royal Calkins.) Riverstone (approved for 6,578 homes on 2,000 acres) and Tesoro Viejo (5,190 homes on 1,600 acres) are both significantly larger.

Still, who’s to say where construction would stop? Harris certainly owns enough land along Trimmer Springs Road to rival anything being built in Madera County. Plus, his neighbors could easily get the same idea once their property values start climbing.

Next thing you know, there’s a boom of housing developments and commercial centers stretching all the way to Highway 180. It was recently extended 4.5 miles and widened to four lanes thanks to taxpayer-funded dollars – $54.2 million to be exact – collected by Measure C.

How convenient is that? I won’t even pretend to act surprised.

In a May 2021 letter to the Board of Supervisors, Ewell attached a list of seven “Guiding Principles” the project would adhere to. Honoring the region’s heritage by setting aside agriculture zones in areas best suited for crop production. Preserving the riparian corridor for wildlife and native plants. Enhancing recreational opportunities and providing “a pedestrian-friendly village atmosphere.”

Harris has a deep affinity for the Kings River, and because this is his baby it will certainly be a first-class project. Any man who builds a sprawling pink hotel with columns of mature palm trees and an Olympic-sized pool at a stopover on Interstate 5 ― when a Best Western would have sufficed ― is not going to attach his name to a characterless, cookie-cutter housing and commercial cluster.

We can all rest assured of that.

But no matter how “nice” a development Harris and Ewell build, it won’t be an improvement over what’s there now: a river corridor that remains in a natural state, or at least as close to that as the demands of 21st century life will allow.

The Kings River below Pine Flat Lake is a place where people go to fish, picnic, launch a kayak, innertube or even ride their bikes from Fresno (usually along Belmont Avenue, which doesn’t have a ton of traffic.) It’s a place to get away from the city and a little closer to nature.

Those days are officially numbered. Development and the lower Kings are now on a collision course. Some will call it progress. But it will really just be more urban sprawl.