Save Historic DryCreek School

12/24/2025

On December 16th, there was a Board of Supervisors meeting where they were considering an appeal by USA Properties to the denial by the Planning Commission last month of part of their proposed development at Hope Way in Penryn. USA Properties is a privately owned development firm based in Roseville which is one of the largest builders of affordable apartment community builder-manager-owners in the West.

Sadly, the Board of Supervisors overturned the Planning Commission ruling and approved that proposal which plans t bring 4 3 story apartment buildings (240 apartments) to Hope Way in Penryn-doubling the size of Penryn. This will have 463 parking spaces and dump traffic onto Penryn Road--which feeds directly onto I-80.

Just a few of the important stupid facts of this one are (not enough time here to go into everything):

1. It is going to build a single lane round about on Penryn Road which does not have the ability to facilitate a ladder truck to respond to any fire at the 3 story apartment complex.

2. This round about will impede any horse or stock trailers attempting to bring their animals to or from Loomis Basin Large Animal Vet which is just up the road.

3. This will impede residents in the area coming from Taylor Road to have quick access to the freeway in the vent of an emergency. (The builder said that they would make sure that Penryn residents got first access to the road in an emergency).

4. The local businesses have said that their delivery trucks will have trouble navigating the one lane round about--creating a nightmare for their businesses.

5. There will be a 16 foot wall around 3 sides of the property and only one egress on property leading to the Hope Lutheran Church pre-school which is what currently uses Hope Way (which is actually an easement--not county owned property). So the residents of this apartment complex will have to go down a single lane road onto a one lane roundabout which is supposed to be used first by the Penryn residents in order to exit during an emergency.

I could go on and on about the stupidity of this proposal, but you can also look a the feed for it on Board of Supervisors reel for December 16. As stated,

I did not get to see the final vote or hear the reasoning on the various Supervisors for how they voted as I did not get to stay until the end of the meeting. But it is important for people to know how they voted as it would appear that we need a change in our supervisors so that we can get some intelligent decisions on development. Bonnie Gore and Shanti Landon are the only two who are up for re election in this next cycle.

A REALLY IMPORTANT THING TO KNOW IS THAT DAVE COOK, THE DEVELOPER WHO DID NOT BUILD THE REQUIRED 10% OF LOW INCOME HOUSING IN HIS LARGE DEVELOPMENTS OVER THE PAST FEW DECADES WAS SITITNG IN THE AUDIENCE AT THIS MEETING. He did not speak during the time that I was there (which was until 2 pm), but it is curious that he was there at all as this is not his direct project. Dave Cook is, of course, the developer who just got a ton of "entitlements" (breaking of Community Plan and County regulations) for the Mill Creek development on PFE. He is also the developer on the SS Ranch which was supposed to be 1 acre lots and now are just 1/2 acre. Interesting stuff.

10/14/2025

Unfortunately, Dave Cook won the day at the Board of Supervisors last week and got approved to put in an astronomical amount of houses on the old Pruett-Haight property (and one other that stretches over to Antelope Road). There will now be 322 houses and 33 ADU's--which is far greater than our Community Plan allowed. Some of these houses will be just 8 feet from the neighboring house as Mr Cook also asked that the normal 6 foot from the property line be changed to just 4 feet.

These kids will all be shipped over to Sacramento schools (in the Dry Creek District) and their parents will either drive through a neighborhood on the Sacramento County side which has about 15 speed bumps or go down PFE--down the two lane part. But Dave Cook is going to put a round about at the corner of Cook-Riolo and PFE to slow everyone down. That is so nice of him. He is also going to put in one at the corner of Cook-Riolo and Vineyard to slow everyone down there. He said that he was doing that as a favor to the neighborhood. Of course, he didn't mention that he is the one who developed the SS Ranch (Osella property) at that corner. And that one has just 1/2 acre lots--despite the fact that he had posted that he was asking for 1 acre lots.

By the way, the county Planner, Kara Conklin, did not even know what schools these kids were going to be sent to. (I had raised that concern at the meeting).

This rezone madness needs to stop!!!!!!! The Board of Supervisors need to stop giving these "entitlements" (exceptions) to these developers. It's time to get supervisors who stand up for us-the people who live here--not the developers!

07/29/2025

There have been a lot of views on this site recently which indicates that some people are very interested in what is going on in this area.

Sadly, the church that took this site over have painted over our beautiful murals that were on the front walls showing the history of the area. Shame on them.

Also important to the area (which may be the reason there has been so much interest here) is that the developer Dave Cook has presented a plan to the county to develop the Haight-Pruett property next door. That plan asks for the increase in the density from what was in our Community Plan. The land use portion of the Community Plan is supposed to be the law of the land, but the Placer County Board of Supervisors keeps choosing to ignore what had been PLANNED in our area and instead just keeps giving in to the developers and increasing the density--hench the traffic-in our area. So sad.

If you want more information on what is happening, please go to the page Stoptherezonemadness! as there is lots of information to keep you informed there. It is so sad that the Board of Supervisors seems to have no interest in working with the PLAN that was laid out that would allow our area to increase but in a way that would preserve the nature of our area, make us a buffer between Sacramento County and Roseville and keep our traffic at a good level. What they are allowing not only increases the traffic but also will result in greater cost to the county tax payers to maintain the main roads. (They keep making these new developments HOA's--thus making those living within the new developments have to pay to maintain their internal roads but it does nothing to maintain the roads outside those developments which will now see traffic levels 4-5 times that level that was in the Community Plan. )

IT IS TIME TO STOP THE REZONE MADNESS!!!!!!!!

05/04/2025

Still important work to be done to save the history of this great school. Even more important is for everyone to stay tuned to page Stoptherezonemadness! to keep track on the other violations of the Community Plan that the Placer County Supervisors and Planning have going. The added densities (4-5 times what the Community Plan had) on all of these projects in our area are creating a traffic nightmare. It is ruining our area.

There is public comment on the a plan right now called Estia which is at the area of Crowder and Vineyard and Walerga and Baseline. They are again proposing densities way beyond what was to be allowed under the Community Plan. Comments on that one end tomorrow (Monday, May 6).

The Community Plan's land use can only be changed by the Board of Supervisors. So, all of this rests firmly on the backs of the current supervisors. If they won't stop the madness, then they need to be removed!!!!!!!!!!

10/12/2024

Just so everyone knows, this Wednesday, October 16, there will be a MAC meeting at the district office for Dry Creek. This meeting is going to cover both the MAC recommendations on "The Ranch" proposal (Wintun Ranch off of Vineyard).

I thought this was also going to be the meeting in which the Dry Creek admin was coming to talk about how all these new houses in our area are going to be accommodated as far as elementary schools. But that is apparently going to happen at a future MAC meeting. This will include how boundaries for the various areas will be redrawn if all of this development is allowed to happen.

The truly interesting piece of all of this is that with the proposals out there is what will happen to all of the traffic in the area forced from these new develops for the old Schellhous property off of PFE (called Creekside, I believe) and the Haight-Pruett property (called Mill Creek). Had the historic school been not sold off, it would have kept that traffic on PFE and not shoved it down Cook-Riolo.

And the cost to have saved the historic campus would have been minimal versus having to relocate the district office to property that had to be purchased on Cook-Riolo (the land it sits on had to be purchased as an additional piece not connected to the original purchase for Creekview School which was already built as a middle school). And the renovation for the campus would have been minimal--including just a $30,000 cost to hook up to the regional septic. (The problem of the old septic was given as one of the major reasons that the campus was unusable but in a conversation with the local sewage system, we discovered that they could have hooked into the regional system for less than $30,000 versus). And the school district already knew that there were proposals out there at the time to do major housing construction right next to the historic school.

So anyone interested in knowing how all these new kids will be accommodated and the possible increase in traffic flows (I'm sure they won't mention that one), be sure to be at the MAC this Wednesday at 6:30.

By the way, Bonnie Gore's office only invited the Dry Creek admin and not all of the other school districts which are being affected by local development such as the Roseville Joint Union High School District and also the Center School District. Obviously where the high school students will be sent will also greatly affect the local traffic.

08/17/2024

Haven't had time to post anything new on this site as we are busy trying to preserve the Dry Creek Area. The county has been allowing tons of development that goes against our community plan (which was developed in cooperation with the county general plan to guide the development in our area). As the county said, each area is better able to determine the best development practices for their individual area. Why the county is violating that is a mystery (or maybe not a mystery but just them allowing pure greed to rule the day).

An interesting note in regards to this new development is that it will impact our local schools. And the developers are thinking that they will be sending all the kids from their developments to Creekview, but there is not enough capacity there so the district is planning to ship those children to other schools--in the Antelope area and Roseville. So people buying houses in these new developments may be a little surprised when they find out the truth.

07/05/2024

There will be some additions to this site soon that will give more of the history about what happened when it was sold off to a church (all in violation of the original agreement with the family that donated the land over 125 years ago). (The family that originally donated the land for a school had a clause which stated that if it ever was not used as a school, it would revert back to the family or be sold to the county for 1/4 of the value at the time of the transfer). But for now, wanted to catch people who are not familiar with the area about some of the reasons that this school should never have been sold.

The students at this school were "temporarily" moved to Creekview (which is actually a middle school) with the promise that it would be reopened when it was needed. The district then formed a committee (undenounced to those of us in the area) to see if it should be sold off. That committee came up with the recommendation that it be sold as there was a declining population in the district and a new school would never be needed as there was no room for more housing in the area as everything was basically built out at the level allowed under our community plan (which calls for 2-acre minimum lots).

In walk several developers who have now entered into agreements with families who own the last remaining ranches in the area and suddenly there will be an influx of 1400 new houses in the area (if they all go through county planning). And apparently one of the developers has promised that if they get their proposal to go through, they will give Dry Creek District 2 acres of land to add onto Creekview school with 11 new classrooms (they are giving the land but not the classrooms--so the district will be responsible for coming up with that money). The funny thing is that had they kept the historic Dry Creek, there were 11 classrooms already available).

A myth that is out there was that there would massive changes that had to happen to that school to keep it functioning. That is a myth. It would have required a $30,000 connection to the local sewer system as the old drywells had run into problems. Instead, the district had to pay the family who owned the parcel next to Creekview over $150,000 in order to have place to build the district office (which had been located on the Dry Creek campus). If you drive by that or go in, you will see that they have a beautiful building that cost the taxpayers a lot of money).

That's the update for now. More information to follow.

05/14/2024

I know that we have recently had lots of views on this site. We will be gearing up to help preserve not just the school but the entire Dry Creek area which is being overrun due to the lack of oversite by the Board of Supervisors and their willingness to let developers swoop in and destroy our area. It is time to UNITE!

In this whole process of rezoning for low-income housing, however, I am glad that the county did not have control of the historic school at this time as they would now be allowing a developer to come in and put in 3 story apartments.

02/14/2024

And two of the properties that owners have said they would agree to have rezoned are right across from Creekview School.

02/14/2024

Just found out today at the Board of Supervisor's meeting on this that apparently a person can put their land on the list to be rezoned for the purpose of meeting the state-mandated amount of low and very low housing needed for the county, but then turn around and decide to just build more houses on their land which don't meet the criteria. Then the county is left scrambling to find new land to fill the state-mandated quota. Interesting stuff.

02/12/2024

Here is the info about who to contact about the idea of rezoning part of our area to high density housing and putting 800 apartments on East Drive (the strawberry patch area)

115 signatures collected from our small neighborhood!! Huge THANK YOU to everyone who helped hit the pavement this weekend!
Petition signatures will arrive at the County tomorrow, 2/13/24 by 8:30am, in time for the 9am meeting (fedex tracking # 7751 5078 2574. Encourage attendance (in person or virtually) to Tuesdays meeting. There's an agenda available online. Board of Supervisors Agenda - PLACER COUNTY (ca.gov)

On Sat, Feb 10, 2024 at 9:29 PM Rosecrest Mutual wrote:
Are you aware of the rezoning program affecting our small neighborhood? Placer County has identified properties that are "underutilized" and are actively making them high density parcels. Imagine up to 881 units off East Drive!

Housing needs rezone program | Placer County, CA

A petition has started, we have 22 signatures so far and would like to get louder! If you'd like to participate, please contact me to sign petition tomorrow (Sunday). I encourage everyone to email your concerns regarding traffic, safety, decreased property values, wildlife preservation, emergency support and not consistent with the area.

Board of Supervisors [email protected]

Project Planner, Kally Kedinger- Cecil [email protected]

Supervisor, Bonnie Gore [email protected]

Draft Environmental Impact Report [email protected]

Tuesdays meeting can be attended in-person or virtually. Let's show them our presence!

Tuesday, February 13, 2024 @ 9am

https://www.placer.ca.gov/boslive 877-853-5247 using webinar ID 929 4803 4210, dial 9 to "raise hand" and que for public comment

Meeting on February 22nd, time has not been confirmed.

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02/11/2024

Are you aware of the rezoning program affecting our small neighborhood? Placer County has identified properties that are "underutilized" and are actively making them high density parcels. Imagine up to 881 units off East Drive!

Housing needs rezone program | Placer County, CA

A petition has started, we have 22 signatures so far and would like to get louder! If you'd like to participate, please contact me to sign petition tomorrow (Sunday). I encourage everyone to email your concerns regarding traffic, safety, decreased property values, wildlife preservation, emergency support and not consistent with the area.

Board of Supervisors [email protected]

Project Planner, Kally Kedinger- Cecil [email protected]

Supervisor, Bonnie Gore [email protected]

Draft Environmental Impact Report [email protected]

Tuesdays meeting can be attended in-person or virtually. Let's show them our presence!

Tuesday, February 13, 2024 @ 9am

https://www.placer.ca.gov/boslive 877-853-5247 using webinar ID 929 4803 4210, dial 9 to "raise hand" and que for public comment

Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, confer...