It’s ghost town, hidden in plain sight, right in the middle of Fresno. Or if you prefer a "zombie" neighborhood. Not exactly alive, but not exactly dead either, located at the end of the Fresno Yosemite International Airport runway. On KVPR’s Central Valley Roots – the story of Fresno’s Sierra Village subdivision.
This story begins in 1946. World War II had just ended, and the Pentagon sold the former Hammer Field Army Air Corps training base to the City of Fresno, to become the city’s primary commercial airport. The city officially discouraged residential developments near the airport, but Fresno County had other ideas. In the 1950s the county approved a subdivision at the southwest corner of Chestnut and Dakota Avenues called Sierra Village. It contained 88 single family homes. It was your typical middle class suburban development of the 1950s. At this point, the closest homes were a few thousand feet from the end of the runway.
But things began to change with the dawn of the jet age. In 1962, the city opened a new air terminal building, and later extended the airport’s runway to accommodate ever-larger aircraft. Together with FAA policies, airport expansion put many of the homes too close to the runway, and put homeowners at the mercy of city hall.
A legal battle ensued that lasted all the way until 1979. Eventually the city purchased many of the homes, and resorted to eminent domain seizures against a few holdouts. Today you’ll still see city streets like Dayton, Fedora, Garland, Robinson and Dearing on the map at this corner. But where there were once homes, you’ll see dry grass, with dozens of driveways and curb cuts, leading to homes that no longer exist. Some homes in the parts of the neighborhood furthest from the runway were allowed to remain. Part of the land along Dakota Avenue that was once filled with homes now houses the stables and training grounds of the Fresno Police Department’s mounted patrol.
Fresno's Sierra Village isn't the only California subdivision that was largely leveled for the sake of airport progress. In Los Angeles, the former site of the Surfridge neighborhood sits at end of LAX's runways, overlooking the Pacific.
