Lagoon Valley is the Northern California’s first “conservation community” in Vacaville, developers say
By Ashley Sharp
Roughly halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento sits a new housing community that developers call the first “conservation community” in Northern California.
The Lagoon Valley development in Vacaville is opening in phases, with homes up for sale now in multiple neighborhoods, promising a host of new amenities along the way.
About 150 homes have been built, but the development is approved for just over 1,000. Construction will continue over the next five years.
Curt Johansen, director of development in California for Seattle-based Triad Development, says his vision was to build a first-of-its-kind community in Solano County. The project is about 20 years in the making.
“Over 30 years ago, the city of Vacaville approved a project here that was, I would call it, unsustainable. It didn’t actually take into consideration the sensitivities of this beautiful valley and all of the nature that’s going on here,” Johansen said.
The land was once slated for office space and a massive strip mall. That proposal was met with pushback and even petitions from the community to shut it down.
“It was going to be a 7-million-square-foot office complex, basically. We were contacted by the city and they requested we take a look at it, see if we could do something better,” Johansen said.
Johansen said their mission is to protect the environmental treasure that many Solano County neighbors have fought to preserve for decades.
“We decided to take 85% of the land and forever protect it in open space and recreation, and then that means the built environment is very small. People know that all this open space that surrounds them is going to be there forever,” Johansen said.
The idea of a conservation community is that you prioritize first where you will not build, putting the integrity of the land and the surrounding natural environment first.
Lagoon Valley has preserved more than 1,300 acres of wild open land and also created a new wildlife wetland preserve.
Johansen called it a different and unconventional approach.
“Conventional development says, let’s put houses wherever we can because that’s going to make the most money. This is much more of a triple-bottom-line concept, where we have to balance the environmental sensitivities, the social needs, as well as the housing needs. The idea is to start with areas that just should never be built up. That’s what we did. Then eventually, the 15% left became where the neighborhoods would go,” Johansen said.
Johansen says there are only about 40 conservation communities nationwide. He traveled to study what made them special, and also went to Northern Europe for influence on sustainable, walkable living.
A huge focus for ‘conservation living’ starts with climate resiliency, protecting against fire and flood.
“The community is designed to have buffers designed for flood protection in that we have 156 acre-feet of storage included throughout the Valley for water that comes out of all the watersheds around us. And what that does is it helps hold the water, slowly let it out, because historically, the city has had a lot of flooding problems downstream from here. It’s a huge watershed area, and so we’re managing all of that storm drainage on site and slowly letting it out to protect downstream owners. On wildfires, we’ve set this up so that the perimeter is very defensible. It’s not your usual 100-foot type perimeter. We do 600-700 feet of irrigated areas to protect against wildfires,” Johansen said.
Another part of the model is resource conservation. Every home is equipped with solar panels.
“The homes are built to exceed California standards for energy conservation. That’s really important,” said Johansen. “We went the extra step, and we actually required them to dual pipe all the homes to reclaim greywater. So all of the homes have the ability to actually irrigate their entire yards with greywater reclaimed from their own showers the day before.”
So, where does the water come from?
“We have our own water system here. We actually get the potable supply from the city, but we built our own 2.7 million-gallon storage reservoir just for Lagoon Valley,” Johansen said.
With homes for sale and new neighbors already moving in, on tap next are the places to play and recreate in what is designed to be a walkable, bike-friendly community.
“We didn’t want this to be just a sort of a bedroom community, even with all its beauty and the wildlife habitat. We wanted it to actually be a place where people had things they needed here,” Johansen said.
Next to be built are new public and private parks and an 18-hole championship golf course.
They are also constructing a town center that will be home to local shops and restaurants, along with an organic farm for neighbors to grow their own produce.
In the event center, which broke ground last month, developers are building sports courts, pools, a fitness center and meeting spaces.
Johansen, when asked if a large development like this slaps Bay Area urban sprawl on a small town, says he does not want to make Solano County something it is not.
“There’s no doubt about it. Solano is a Bay Area county. It may be the farthest out, but what I like about it is the north end of the Bay Area, Solano, Napa and Sonoma, they all still have a lot of agriculture, and that’s hard to find,” Johansen said. “Preserving open space and agriculture is so important. There’s a mindset in the north end of the Bay Area about that and so we felt like our conservation mentality fits nicely,” Johansen said.
Their priority is to preserve the region’s agricultural integrity while solving a big problem.
“We need more housing. We have a housing crisis. We know that right, there’s no reason why more and more communities can’t be done to scale so that they’re big enough to provide some housing, but at the same time, they’re preserving that whole ethic of what the region is about,” Johansen said.
In the new community, the price points range from affordable housing to a higher-end gated community.
