Dyer warns Fresno could lose southeast growth to Clovis or Sanger

Fresno risks watching Clovis or Sanger capture the southeast growth zone if the city cannot move the Southeast Development Area forward, Mayor Jerry Dyer warned, turning a land-use plan into a fight over jobs, tax base and who controls the Valley’s next big expansion.

The project covers about 9,000 acres, or 13.75 square miles, outside Fresno city limits but inside the city’s sphere of influence. City materials say the idea dates to planning work that began in 2006, was tabled after the 2010 recession, and then resurfaced in the 2014 General Plan, which called for about 14,900 dwelling units by 2035 and roughly 30,000 more later. Fresno’s planning staff also says earlier general plans in 1958, 1964 and 1984 all anticipated southeast expansion, with the 1984 plan identifying a southeast growth area that could hold about 30,654 dwelling units.

The money behind the map is daunting. A 2025 city financial study put the first phase of SEDA at $2.2 billion and the full buildout at $4.3 billion. Even with developer fees, tax tools and a special assessment expected to raise about $1.8 billion, the first phase still showed a $93 million shortfall. That makes roads, utilities and other public infrastructure the central obstacle, even as city leaders argue the plan is needed to create more housing supply and room for future jobs.

Dyer has pushed a smaller opening phase focused on the southern portion of the project, which he said would be about 66% commercial and 33% residential. City materials say that approach is meant to start small, but critics see a different risk: more sprawl, more pressure on farmland and another wave of leapfrog development that could pull growth away from Fresno’s interior neighborhoods.

The politics around SEDA are already dividing the region. Clovis Unified School District has treated the plan as important to the success of its newest school complex, while Fresno Unified leaders have warned it could accelerate student loss and weaken the district’s finances. Fresno Unified trustees split 4-3 in February 2026 and tabled a resolution that would have formally opposed the project, after Board President Veva Islas said SEDA would benefit Clovis Unified and Sanger Unified.

Opposition has also come from the Central Labor Council, Southeast Property Owners, Greenfield Coalition and Southwest Fresno Development Corp., with protesters gathering at City Hall and labor leaders threatening legal action. For Fresno, the stakes are no longer just about a future subdivision map. They are about whether the city keeps control of southeast growth, or hands that leverage to its neighbors.