Serrano El Dorado Owners’

Serrano El Dorado Owners’ Association to Take Ownership of Open Space

LOCAL CONTROL WILL PRESERVE A PRIME COMMUNITY ASSET

by BILL ROMANELLI photography by CHARLENE TAYLOR / CHARM PHOTOGRAPHY

One of the best amenities Serrano off ers is idyllic scenery, with its master-planned residential villages surrounded by beautiful areas of open space. All told, there are about 1,000 acres of open space in the development and, over the next years, ownership and management for all of them will come under the control of the Serrano El Dorado Owners’ Association (HOA).

Considering that the entire development is approximately 3,500 acres, preserving nearly a third of the developable land as open space is signifi cant, but it was part of the development plan from the very beginning.

Songbird Pass

“It’s unusual to have this much open space within a community; in fact, I’m not aware of any other development in the Sacramento region that has near that amount,” says President of the Parker Development Company Bill Parker. “ at adds a great deal of value to the community, and the homes. Proper maintenance of the area, particularly its trails, vegetation, and fi re prevention provisions, will ensure that value continues in the future.”

Development of Serrano has been subject to the El Dorado Hills Specifi c Plan fi rst approved in 1988, which called for the 1,000 acres of open space. It requires completion of a separate Open Space Management Plan to ensure the ecosystem can thrive and remain protected from intrusions, such as invasive species and inappropriate uses.

Work on that management plan has been ongoing since 2016. Initially, Parker Development Company was required to give the El Dorado Hills Community Services District (CSD) fi rst right of refusal on the open space, and then the off er had to be made to the county. Both entities declined for various reasons, mostly due to fi nancial obli-

Serrano residents love the landscape of their community; becoming the owners of that landscape all but ensures it will remain a community asset.

Goat Hill Trail

gations, paving the way for Parker to offer the land to the HOA. From the start, they were very interested.

“At first, it came down to local control; we didn’t want to have a maintenance obligation for property the association didn’t own,” says General Manager of the Serrano HOA Kathryn Henricksen. “We also did some research and learned that when a single agency both owns and maintains open space, membership satisfaction is actually higher.”

That’s mostly due to the efficiencies that come with only needing to contact one agency instead of two when maintenance issues need to be addressed, but it also comes from simple pride of ownership. Serrano residents love the landscape of their community; becoming the owners of that landscape all but ensures it will remain a community asset. Given that the HOA is already responsible for much of the landscape and maintenance within the development, taking ownership of the open space was a logical next step.

The HOA board of directors approved efforts to take ownership of the open space (a goal in 2017) and the HOA’s Land Use Subcommittee

Songbird Pass

of volunteers took on the herculean task of realizing that goal. ey hired an environmental consultant and began working in partnership with Parker Development Company to prepare the fi nal Open Space Management Plan for approval by the county. at plan was formally approved by the county in May 2021.

With the plan approved, the county and the CSD were once again given the opportunity to take over the open space. Both declined, freeing Parker and the HOA to begin identifying the fi rst open space areas that could be transferred. Phase One, which encompasses about 400 acres, is currently under way and should be complete by the end of this year. ese initial acres include a variety of grassland areas, oak woodlands, riparian areas and wetland mitigation areas. Prior to the fi rst transfer, the HOA will appoint a supervisor manager to oversee the formal monitoring work. Future phases and the timeline for compete transfer of all the open space are still in the works, as they are dependent on the fi nal development plans for the remaining villages.