Tag: assemi

What developer Darius Assemi forgot in his editorial on how to fund road construction

Darius Assemi is the president of Granville Homes, one of the most prolific residential developers in the Fresno area (one which oddly doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry). According to his LinkedIn profile, he has been president for 6 years, and served as vice president for 25 years before that. The guy knows the Fresno market well, especially when it comes to selling single-family homes.

But how much does he know about funding our infrastructure? Let’s take a look at his Fresno Bee editorial on the subject. Here are his main points:

  • Deteriorating roads cost Californians $44 billion a year in repairs, accidents, time and fuel
  • Deferred repair costs exceeding $57 billion
  • Caused by diminishing purchasing power of gas tax
    • Not tied to inflation
    • More fuel efficient cars mean less gas taxes
    Funding solutions include:
    • Raising gas tax
    • Indexing gas tax to inflation
    • Increasing fees 
    • New usage based fee
    Cost solutions include:
    • Caltrans performance should be equal to or exceed private performance  
      • More efficient staffing 
      • Increased transparency 
      Only use gas tax for construction and maintenance of highways  CEQA exemption for roads using existing right-of-way Design-build projects  Multi-modal future

      Generally, it’s a pretty standard set of recommendations. The only big controversy is the “highway only” line for funding, although it appears he’s more concerned with the previous raid of the transportation fund to plug other budgets rather than eliminating all subsidies of mass transit. It is unclear if he also wants to eliminate that. As a suburban developer, I wouldn’t be surprised if transit didn’t even cross his mind when he penned his piece. Click to read more!

The Westlake sprawl project, with artificial lake, is dead!

Yesterday’s election news keeping you down? Maybe this surprising development will brighten your day.

This week, the Fresno Bee reported that the massive Westlake sprawl project has been put on hold – for at least a decade. The news came as a great surprise because last December the developer, Granville, began mobilizing bulldozers to flatten the land.

Developer Darius Assemi, president of Granville Homes, said the timing isn’t right for his Westlake development, which lies beyond Fresno’s city limits. The cost to build is too high and he’s waiting to see the city of Fresno’s growth plan for the area before moving ahead with the project. Click to read more!

A look at the GV Urban Broadway property

I’ve been pretty busy lately, not posting nearly as much as I’d like. I’ve been sitting on some pictures I took of the next big GV Urban project for over a month now, and I figured I’d sort of dump them now before they get too old.

Here’s my article about this specific project.Of course, this is the project that will benefit from the Broadway streetscape, eh, parking, project.

It’s in the red rectangle.

   

There was some preliminary activity. Again, these pictures are over a month old, so I assume there’s been some dirt moving.

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The house will be preserved and restored. Click to read more!

Who do the city councilors represent?

Last week, the Fresno City Council voted to support a proposal for a new medical college. The problem is, the proposed campus isn’t actually in Fresno, or even really near it – it’s 20 miles away from downtown, in an area currently used for farming and recreation.

Granville, the housing development company behind the medical college, owns large tracts of land by the lake, and wants to use it to build thousands and thousands of new suburban homes. They plan on using the medical university as an anchor, and what I see as bait to get public opinion to support the plan.

Many in the community have naturally been outraged. The area is home to beautiful natural scenery, and thousands of new cookie-cutter homes will destroy that. Worse, the area will be 100% auto-dependent. There are no services, stores, or jobs there. Meaning every time a home is built, multiple car trips will be added as people drive 10-25 miles to get to jobs in Fresno. Of course, the area already has some of the worst air pollution in the country, and this will just make things much worse. Click to read more!

Next GV Urban project revealed

Earlier this year, GV Urban proposed their newest residential project downtown, around the site of the former Met museum. This week they go before the planning commission with their next project, this time on Broadway.

The company has focused almost exclusively on Fulton, so it’s nice to see them branch out a block over to Broadway, which has been neglected. For those not familiar with the area, Fulton is the main street, and has Broadway on one side and Van Ness on the other as other major streets in the area. Today, Broadway is mostly auto-focused businesses, and most of them are closed. Click to read more!