Within weeks, grading could begin on a long-awaited master plan in unincorporated Sacramento County, now with a new name as well.
Braden, formerly known as Cordova Hills, could see its first lots turned over for housing construction in early 2026, said Rachel Bardis, chief operating officer of development firm Somers West.
“For what I do, being part of on a scale such as Braden is inspiring,” said Bardis, a veteran of residential development and construction in the Sacramento region who joined the project six months ago. “What was inspiring to jump over was the plan itself.”
Approved 11 years ago as Cordova Hills, Braden would have 8,000 homes at build-out and has about 270 acres at its center planned for a higher education campus, on 2,700 acres southeast of Rancho Cordova.
Although the project has faced both skepticism in the development community and criticism from environmental groups as “leapfrog development,” it’s far from a traditional project for the region, Bardis said.
Homes in Braden will be alley-loaded, as an example, and the plan calls for more commercial development upfront to create natural places where the first residents can meet and start forming community, she said.
Sidewalk widths, 18 to 24 feet, are also bigger than traditional for the same reason, Bardis said, adding the goal is to deemphasize the car and promote walkability.
In concept, the plan is like an infill project such as Sutter Park or McKinley Village in Sacramento, she said, but on a much larger scale. The first village “Town Center,” which Somers West has applied to start grading work for, would have 968 homes in a variety of styles and densities as well as 900,000 square feet of commercial space.
The latter could take the form of shops, stores, farmers markets, restaurants and workspaces. A central tree-lined boulevard, an extension of Chrysanthy Boulevard from the north, would be the principal geographic feature.
Bardis said the project’s planners took inspiration from similar “new urbanism” projects such as what’s now called Central Park in the Denver area. “This is the antithesis of everything that’s been done before in Northern California,” she said.
Somers West is also hopeful of landing a higher education partner to center the project around, she said, though she acknowledged there’s not one on board yet.
Other initial Braden features would include a community building, dog park and trail system, she said. Braden, which is an Irish word meaning a “wide valley,” was renamed from Cordova Hills to give a sense of wide-open possibility, Bardis said.
“You never have these major roads that you have to cross,” she said. “They talk about the missing middle housing, this is the missing master plan.”
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