First Look: Placer County Master Plan Update

Auburn, Calif. – The preliminary concepts for the future of the Placer County Government Center campus will be the focus of a community meeting Aug. 24 in North Auburn.

The meeting – open to the public as well as county staff – is scheduled for Aug. 24 at 5:30 p.m., at the Community Development Resource Center’s Planning Commission Room, 3091 County Center Drive in Auburn. The preliminary concepts are shaped in part by input from an earlier community meeting in April.

Placer County is updating the 200-acre campus’s master plan, last updated in 1993. The campus was originally the site of a World War II U.S. Army hospital complex that was in use for two years before the end of the war. It was then used as a state psychiatric hospital, and eventually deeded to Placer County by the State of California in the early 1970s. Since then, the county has striven to be a good steward of the campus, using the buildings to provide county services, and replacing a number of them over the years with more modern facilities. A portion of the campus has also been leased for private use by Home Depot.

Evaluating future county space needs, potential relocation of county staff currently housed off-campus in Auburn and the cultural legacy of the campus are significant areas of study for the update.

Upgrading the campus’s aging infrastructure to improve energy and resource efficiency is another high priority. Project planners also hope to get public input on new potential uses for the campus, including possible commercial and residential development, as well as a potential multi-age community center, currently being studied in a separate feasibility study.

The county will host additional public meetings as the plan and associated environmental documents are developed and finalized, anticipated in 2017.