About the Gold Rush Development
The Gold Rush Ranch development consists of over 1300 residences, plus timeshare condos, a hotel and golf course
on 945 acres west of Ridge Road between Highways 49 and 88.
The project will be constructed in phases, but the City has no protection against Gold Rush Ranch LLC selling the project in chunks to multiple developers for homebuiling. This means the phases could be constructed simultaneously, allowing all grading and tree cutting to be done up front. In this struggling economy, that's a huge risk as developers are going bankrupt and housing tracts are left half-finished. Read more about lessons to be learned from neighboring cities that grew too quickly.
Sutter Creek currently has nearly 600 buildable lots in town; that's enough for 20 years of growth at our regular rate of growth. In addition Amador real estate sales were down almost 42% in the last month 2009, whereas other neighboring counties are down only 5-14%. Sacramento County, on the other hand, which has lots of jobs, is down only 0.6%. This is an indication that Smart Growth -- putting homes near jobs and infrastructure -- is good for a local economy, especially when times are tough. The homes-to-jobs ratio, which is out of balance for Amador (per information from the County's General Plan consultant and presented to GPAC), indicates that Amador needs more jobs (and not minimum wage jobs) before it gets any more houses. Who will buy all these new homes?
Do we want Sutter Creek to become the next Elk Grove? Vote NO on Gold Rush's sprawl and STOP VALLEY CREEP!