The Woodland Research & Technology Park, a proposed 351-acre scientific research park and residential community, won unanimous approval from the Woodland Planning Commission Thursday.
The mixed-use development of 2.2 million square feet of commercial, office and retail buildings would also have up to 155 acres of residential space that would include about 1,600 homes.
The project was identified by the city in its general plan update in 2013, and the city sought the mixed-use development so that it would include jobs and career-generating uses and not just housing, said Woodland City Manager Ken Hiatt.
The city was seeking job creation, because at that time in 2013 the city had recently lost 2 million square feet of tenants in its industrial and warehouse space, Hiatt said.
The city’s industrial vacancy is now nearly zero, Hiatt said, but the city is still interested in developing job creation in Woodland so that residents don’t have to drive out of town to work.
The city is hoping to capture employment opportunities related to ag-tech, food technology and food companies in the new office park, he said. The office park is expected to eventually create some 7,000 jobs.
John Hodgson, president of The Hodgson Company, the lead developer on the park, said he anticipates the residential part of it could be built out within five years of the infrastructure being installed. He said there has been strong interest in the commercial property, but the build-out of that could take longer. He said he hasn’t been marketing the commercial property yet, as he's been awaiting approvals.
As part of its approval, the planning commission certified the environmental report for the project, amended the city’s 2035 general plan, adopted the park’s specific plan, adopted prezoning for the park for annexation by the city from the county, initiated annexation of the property, approved a public infrastructure financing plan and approved a development agreement with five landowners of what is currently ag land.
The public financing will fund $255 million in infrastructure and development costs, which will eventually be paid by tenants and owners in the plan area.
That laundry list of approvals now goes on to the Woodland City Council for its first hearing as soon as Sept. 5 and tentatively Sept. 19 for a second hearing and final approval.
The Woodland Research & Technology Park was first proposed in 2017. The land is at the south end of Woodland and is surrounded by the city on its north and east. The project will also partially pay for a freeway offramp and overcrossing of Highway 113 south of the current city limits.
The city hopes to get the annexation application to the Yolo Local Agency Formation Commission by the end of the year to move the land from Yolo County into Woodland’s city limits.
The research park will be the largest mixed-use specific plan ever to go before the city for approval. The last specific plan approval in Woodland came in 2021, which was for the mostly residential 1,100-acre Spring Lake Specific Plan, which is just east of the research park. Spring Lake is mostly housing, schools and parks, with a total of just 11 acres of office, commercial and retail uses.
In comments from the public on the research park before the planning commission, five speakers from the neighboring Spring Lakes development were critical of the lag in development of school sites in their specific plan area, and they sought certainty that the school site identified in the research park would be developed.
Woodland planning commissioners said they have no control over the Woodland Joint Unified School District, whose board is a separate elected body, and the residents should take up those issues with the school district.
