Clovis council considers rezoning to allow apartment buildings at Shaw Avenue corner

A proposal to rezone a parcel of land for higher-density housing in the Loma Vista area is under review by the Clovis City Council, despite the plan being voted down by the city’s Planning Commission.

The 7.39-acre parcel, located at the southeast corner of Shaw and Locan Avenues, is planned to be rezoned for the possibility of constructing up to 30 units per acre, according to the city’s document.

Through the rezone, the city hopes the site could accommodate 111 to 229 residential units to offset a housing capacity deficit of 177 low-income units created by some previous development projects.

No actual development proposal has been submitted, according to the city’s planning department.

The latest rezone plan is part of Clovis’s sixth-cycle housing element. Under state law, every county and city in California must adopt a housing element as part of its general plan to outline how the city will meet the community’s housing needs across all income levels. In the current cycle covering the time period from July 2023 to December 2031, Clovis is required to maintain a housing inventory of 8,977 units, including 4,475 low-income units, according to the city’s housing needs projection.

The 7.39-acre parcel in discussion is not associated with the city’s infill rezone program. Previously, Clovis was caught in a lawsuit for failing to comply with the state housing element mandate in 2019. The city is making progress on meeting a series of requirements in the 2024 settlement agreement, such as adopting an ordinance to set aside at least 5% of units for lower-income residents in any new residential developments with 11 or more units, and implementing an infill rezone program to redesignate 20 parcels for higher-density housing within established neighborhoods.

Low-income unit deficit

Clovis is significantly behind in the rollout of lower-income units, as developers tend to favor providing market-rate housing. As a result, the city has to continually seek alternative sites to meet the potential future demand for lower-income residential projects.

As of the end of 2025, Clovis issued permits for 1,442 units, including 21 very low-income, 16 low-income, 49 moderate-income, and 1,356 above moderate-income units, according to the staff report.

Marisa Parker, the city’s associate planner, told the planning commission that developers have their own ability to decide the rate of the housing units and ultimately, it’s the city’s obligation to find a replacement site and to meet the state requirements.

The city started the cycle with a 215-unit surplus in lower-income unit capacity, but two development projects resulted in a 177-unit deficit, staff told the planning commission at a meeting earlier this month.

Said Matthew Lear, deputy city attorney: “I just wanted to mention that, under the Government Code, it wouldn’t be grounds to deny a project if it was going to create a deficit in our housing inventory. You couldn’t deny it on that ground.”

Per state law, the city has 180 days to identify and make available a replacement site, or Clovis will be out of compliance and potentially leading to a loss of local control over land use, according to the report.

“I think this is going to be the categories that we’re probably going to wrestle with the most. I think we really need to try to get ahead of this. We either need to identify them, and then they’re in the surplus, or we need to have some kind of high level of confidence that they’re sitting in the parking lot, so to speak, and could be brought in,” said Commissioner Brandon Bedsted.

Bedsted said he understands the city is in a “behind the eight ball” situation, but he also recognized there’s not much the city can do.

“Ideally, we want to have property owners that want to pursue that, or developers that would want to pursue that, versus canvassing the city and starting to pick sites that folks may contest if those properties get selected for something like this,” he added.

Staff told the commissioners that in this case, the parcel owner, Nikdokht Karimkhanzand, reached out to the city and his parcel meets the criteria for selection.

Opposition from the commissioners and residents

The planning commission declined to recommend the proposal to the council by a vote of four against and one in favor.

The proposal will still move forward to the city council for discussion with the record of objection from the Planning Commission, according to Lear.

Besides typical concerns such as traffic, parking spaces, and school capacity, the commissioners also worried that the lot adjacent to the east of this parcel has already been approved for the construction of a multifamily apartment building, which is expected to bring in approximately 200 units.

“As a citizen, if I lived across the street from this area, it would be of concern to me that there’s a possible project in the works, and now we’re going to have another project of the same size there,” said Alma Antuna, chair of the commission. “If I were sitting in that chair talking to someone up here on the dais, I would want them to hear that I’m not against housing, and I understand why we’re doing what we need to do, but two big projects going in my neighborhood, that’s hard.”

The city received a dozen written comments in opposition to the rezone. A handful of homeowners and residents spoke to the commissioners at the September meeting.

“The Clovis community works hard to keep our property values up. By building cheaper housing options, our property values will drop,” wrote Sara Mitchell, an adjacent property owner. “While lower-income families will bring diversity to the community, these homes may not attract the type of neighbor we all want to have.”

Pat Heisler, a resident who lives across the street from the parcel, said the introduction of apartment buildings will make the neighborhood a mess, which will “put the value of my house down to nothing,” she said.

“I’m from a city, I didn’t want to live in a city and being near any kind of high-rise or very dense housing, right back to that kind of an issue of people and traffic and all of that,” said Michelle Resendes, another homeowner. “So, just the quality of life, and that’s why everyone lives in this area.”