Farm Beat: Infill projects a big boon to agriculture

At times, the Farm Beat wanders into town, in this case to an underdeveloped site in Merced.

I read this week about the city’s seeking proposals to build ground-floor retail topped by two stories of apartments at N and West 18th streets.

This matters to agriculture. Putting stores and homes on such a small site, in this case 1.4 acres, means less sprawl onto farmland. It’s a return to the way cities were built before the 1950s, when widespread car ownership unleashed low-density growth.

The farmland around Merced, Modesto and other cities remains the primary source of jobs and income in the region. Yes, we have retail and health care and other sectors, but they mainly recirculate money already here. They can’t begin to match the income from people around the world who buy our dairy products, canned tomatoes, nuts, poultry, wine and other goods.

High-density housing on infill sites not only saves farmland, it meets the needs of the sizable number of people who like some urban ambiance (and maybe are tired of mowing lawns). All the better if it’s within walking distance of stores, workplaces and other destinations.

The urban-seekers are still a minority of the whole housing market, according to building industry surveys I’ve seen, but it’s much more than a tiny niche.

Modesto has been slow to join the downtown housing trend. Ralston Towers rose in the 1970s, and it wasn’t until this year that another multistory project was completed. That’s the handsome complex at 17th and G streets.

The Merced project would redevelop a site that now is occupied by three city-owned parking lots and the Fluetsch and Busby Building. It is part of a downtown revival that also includes some of the offices for UC Merced.

Unfortunately, only a small part of this institution is downtown. The main campus is way the heck out there in the grazing land near Lake Yosemite.

Plans call for the young university eventually to have plenty of housing and services within walking distance, but I think a downtown location from the start would have been better. Planning for the current site started a quarter-century ago, when the leapfrog model of development still held sway.

Redeveloping in an old district can be trickier than building on rangeland, what with the land purchases, utilities and everything else. But it would be worth it if it results in apartments just a staircase or two away from a coffeehouse.

This story was originally published July 22, 2016 at 6:30 PM with the headline "Farm Beat: Infill projects a big boon to agriculture."