Contest Offers Chance to Reshape the Central Valley

The $100,000 in prize money sounds sweet. Yet something else is attracting architects and planners from Italy, India, Massachusetts and Oklahoma to a unique contest designing the future of California’s Central Valley.

Entrants say they are drawn by the challenge of steering a 21st century land rush that is expected to add as many as 10 million people in the next four decades to the largely agricultural region. And to do so without turning the nation’s greatest food factory into one immense suburban tract from Redding to Bakersfield.

So far, 200 people from 16 countries and 22 states have registered for the contest, which experts say is unprecedented in its geographic and demographic scope. It calls for rethinking housing, zoning, transportation and water use in the 450-mile-long Central Valley.

“What we learn in the Central Valley and the problems that valley faces in housing so many new people in so short a time is translatable to a lot of other places,” said Paul Welch Jr., executive vice president of the American Institute of Architects’ California chapter, which is co-sponsoring the contest with the Modesto-based Great Valley Center.

“Instead of waiting for this growth to happen and making decisions without opportunity for thought and planning, now’s the time to get on the leading edge of this issue,” he added.

Proposals are due in May for judging at a Sacramento exhibition. Organizers of “Housing the Next 10 Million: Envisioning California’s Great Central Valley” say they welcome radical concepts for the region, which includes more than 42,000 square miles in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys.

Proposals May Spark a Culture Clash

If recent interviews with some contestants are any clue, expect a culture clash between London designers and Stockton real estate brokers. Proposals for hydroponic farming, communal housing and Manhattanish high-rises built along hundreds of miles of California 99 and Interstate 5 may not suit conservative zoning chieftains in the valley’s 18 counties and 96 cities.

San Francisco architect John Field said that even his plan for Italian-like communities of four- to six-story buildings surrounded by farmland might frighten people. “Chemotherapy is very unpleasant, but it saves a lot of people’s lives,” he said. “We’ve got to look at some drastic things, or we are going to lose everything beautiful in this state.”

Carol Whiteside, the former Modesto mayor who is president of the Great Valley Center, jokingly predicted submissions for underground housing below the fields. “I’ll be disappointed if we don’t get at least one of those,” said Whiteside, whose organization was founded in 1997 to promote the valley’s economic, social and environmental health.

She will probably get a kick from a Canadian architect who is sketching houses that hold rooftop farms and windmills.

The contest will award $10,000 each to five winners. Categories include building in rural agricultural communities, so-called infill housing in older downtowns, and housing designs that match the climate and don’t gobble up so much land.

Then, winners may share in a total of $50,000 more to work directly with cities and counties interested in their ideas.

Welch said communities probably won’t swallow any proposals whole, but he suggested that they will adopt “pieces and parts” that will help the valley’s development.

Visitors driving past all those cotton fields and grapevines may wonder what the worry is about. That is until they see the framing of new subdivisions in the distance. The Central Valley’s population increased an estimated 25%--to more than 5 million--in the last decade. The growth will continue with natural birthrates and a continuing flow of refugees from Southern California and the Bay Area seeking cheaper houses and a quieter lifestyle.

According to state projections, valley population could triple to about 15 million by 2040; California’s population is expected to double in the same period.

A Huge Region to Deal With

Meanwhile, some local governments already feel the financial strain of having to build more sewers and schools. Environmentalists worry about lush orchards turning into Anaheim North. Water and transportation problems are important as well.

The scope is symbolized by Great Valley Center postcards and posters that display a NASA photo taken from outer space. The green swath, with mountain ranges to the west and east, looks like the world’s biggest oasis.

The prize money for the contest is not that unusual. Yet the huge amount of potential territory involved “is probably unique,” said G. Stanley Collyer, editor of Competitions magazine, the Louisville, Ky.-based quarterly that announces many international contests. “Dealing with a region is very rare,” he said.

Some entrants complained that the contest is especially difficult and unfocused because it does not seek proposals for specific locations. Organizers say the issues and the area are too big to emphasize particular sites.

“It’s pretty daunting,” said Brian Rex, an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Oklahoma. Yet unlike designing a concert hall or a war memorial, he added, addressing the valley’s future “seems more relevant to our world and where we live.”

Rex will propose so-called smooth housing that allows more choices for families, singles and senior citizens to easily move among different types of residences in the same neighborhood. Later this month, he plans to bring two vanloads of students to tour the valley for their own contest ideas.

“Students are having a hard time thinking about 10 million people,” he said. “They are wide-eyed at the number.”

Jeremy Edmiston, a New York architect, is excited by the scale. He and a partner are conceiving an elongated city--as high as 10 stories--that would stretch along existing north-south freeways for hundreds of miles. The result, he said, would be the preservation of farmland to the east and west for cantaloupes, almonds and peaches.

Whether that notion pleases, say, Stanislaus County residents, is another matter.

“Our idea for entering the competition would be to challenge existing notions. We wouldn’t be interested at all to fit into existing opinion or playing politics,” Edmiston said.

In London, architect Annabel Brown said she hopes to visit the Central Valley soon because she is fascinated “in the conflict between housing people and the sustainability of agricultural land.” The British designer wants to combine commercial and residential uses in a building that makes “minimum impact on the landscape.”

Contest officials want to see new housing types that fit the valley. “We don’t want California ranch houses in 50 different flavors. In a way, we want a style that says Central Valley in the way that Victorian says San Francisco and brownstone says Philadelphia,” said Whiteside of the Great Valley Center.

Other organizations helping to present the contest include the League of California Cities, Local Government Commission, California chapter of the American Planning Assn., County Supervisors Assn. of California and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

‘Alarming Rate’ of Development

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, associate professor of architecture Peter Testa is designing ways for housing and agriculture to coexist better.

Using Los Banos as a setting, he and colleagues will propose buffer zones of hydroponic operations and greenhouses--that don’t use big machines or chemicals--between residential neighborhoods and more traditional farms. A recent weeklong drive through the valley convinced him that the population pressures are real.

“It’s very urgent and immediate,” he said. “You see these developments taking place in many places and at quite an alarming rate.”

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Preparing for Population Surge

The population of California’s vast Central Valley is projected to triple, adding 10 million people, in the next 40 years. An international contest is seeking ideas for accommodating such growth without destroying the nation’s most fertile farm belt.