If you walked past the old pony ride corral on Land Park Drive this spring, you already noticed the change. The rails came down in February. The grass is coming back. What you probably did not notice is that the empty patch is now the smaller half of a much larger question: whether the Sacramento Zoo grows into William Land Park, or eventually leaves it.
For a hundred-year-old institution wedged onto 14.3 acres, the math has been closing in for years. The Elk Grove relocation is over, the neighborhood association is at the table, and the city gave itself a deadline. If you live in Land Park, this is the summer the shape of your park gets decided.
Two parcels, not one
The 5.8 acres you keep reading about is not a single lot. It is two very different pieces of ground, and they are contested in very different ways.
- The pony ride parcel, 4.4 acres. Across Land Park Drive from the current zoo entrance. Workers disassembled it in February, and the pony ride attraction had closed in 2022. At the April 28 council meeting, no speakers voiced concern about expanding into the pony ride area, largely because the underlying use was already gone.
- Primrose Hill, 1.4 acres. Directly north of the zoo. This is the site that currently includes a statue of pioneer Charles Swanston and garden, and it is where the argument actually lives. Multiple speakers voiced fears about the zoo expanding into the Swanston statue area. Rick Stevenson said the area was a good vista. "To capriciously destroy it makes absolutely no sense," Stevenson said.
Treat the 5.8-acre number as shorthand. The real fight is over 1.4 of those acres. The other 4.4 is close to a done deal in the court of public opinion, because the pony rides took the sentiment with them when they left.
Why "900 percent" is the quiet part
Read one number from the April 28 hearing and everything else clicks into place. At a Land Park Community Association meeting in March, Stallard stressed that if the zoo wasn't able to expand in Land Park, it would have to look at moving once more. Following the council's vote, Stallard said the possibility of a move was "900%" still on the table. "It is always on the table," Stallard said. "We have to plan for the zoo's future and the 14.3 acres is not enough space."
That is the board president of the Sacramento Zoological Society, speaking after a council vote in her favor, telling the room that another relocation is not off the table. Land Park residents who assumed the Elk Grove collapse ended the moving conversation should read it again. It did not.
The context matters. "When we began the new zoo project it was with a vision of a 65-acre, state-of-the-art zoo. Unfortunately, over time that incredible vision has been fading. As design work proceeded, it became clear that the new zoo's size would be dramatically reduced, and critical features would be eliminated to control construction costs and stay within budget," the society said when it walked away in April 2025. In other words, the leadership already tried the "leave Land Park" answer, and the answer they got was that they could not afford to leave well. Expansion inside the park is Plan B, and Plan C is another version of Plan A.
What the September 1 date actually triggers
The Memorandum of Understanding the council approved on April 28 is not a land transfer. It is a study window with a hard stop.
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| April 28, 2026 | City Council approves the MOU to study a 5.8-acre expansion |
| May 2026 | Simon said he expects the working group's first meeting to occur in May |
| Sept. 1, 2026 | The agreement expires Sept. 1, when staff are expected to return to request an extension and outline their next steps |
| After Sept. 1 | Any land or funding decisions require further City Council approval |
The MOU is nonbinding. Because the document is nonbinding, any actual land transfers, construction or permits would still need separate council approvals and environmental review. Under the terms, the Sacramento Zoological Society will develop conceptual designs showing potential uses for the additional space and conduct community outreach to help ensure the project aligns with the surrounding neighborhood. The MOU also includes plans for the society to identify potential funding sources, assess impacts to historic features, trees, utilities, traffic and parking.
The window between now and Labor Day is the one moment when conceptual designs are still conceptual. After September, the working group hands its work back to staff, who hand it back to the council, and the decisions stop being about ideas.
Where residents actually get a vote
The working group is the mechanism most Land Park households will interact with, whether they know it or not. The MOU indicates that the group will include representatives of neighborhood community organizations. That means the Land Park Community Association has a seat, and Kristina Rogers has been vocal about what she wants that seat to accomplish.
Land Park News spoke with Kristina Rogers, a 23-year Land Park resident and president of the Land Park Neighborhood Association, who said the association is not opposed to the expansion but wants a more transparent and collaborative process with the city and the Sacramento Zoological Society moving forward. "We really want to see it thrive and do well," Rogers said. "But if they're going to expand, it has to be in a thoughtful manner, and we want to get some details and collaborate with them." Her concrete asks are worth remembering the next time this comes up at a neighborhood meeting: "It's (Land Park) been around for over 100 years; it was not designed for the amount of traffic that we get now," and she suggested solutions including shuttle service similar to other zoos and said the expansion could be strengthened with sustainability features that better connect the zoo to the park and highlight local wildlife, including a potential bat sanctuary.
Shuttle service. Bat sanctuary. Traffic management. Those are the LPCA's opening bids. If you have a stronger idea, this is the summer to bring it.
The Primrose Hill question
Zoom back in on the 1.4 acres. This is where the trade-off gets uncomfortable for people who love the park exactly as it is.
Primrose Hill is not a fallow patch. It is the vista with the Swanston statue and the surrounding garden, and it is a piece of park most residents would not have volunteered. The counter-argument came from Linda Farley, who urged the council not to move forward with the MOU. "I understand the MOU is being positioned as a study, but it is not a neutral exploration of all options," Farley told the council. "It is focused on advancing a specific path: extension, expansion within the park. Studying this option doesn't solve the zoo's long-term challenges. It risks losing park land without delivering a lasting, sustainable solution."
Farley's point, translated: a study designed to figure out how to expand inside the park is not the same as a study designed to figure out whether to. On the other side of the ledger sits Hollingsworth's rationale, that expansion talks have been ongoing, driven by efforts to modernize facilities, improve animal care and meet Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) standards. He added the upgrades could also increase attendance and help maintain the zoo's role as a regional attraction. Accreditation is not a marketing pitch. It is the floor the zoo has to stay above to keep the animals it has.
Somewhere between those two speakers is the Land Park a hundred years from now. The action comes as the zoo marks its 100th anniversary and would be its first major expansion since the 1960s. A neighborhood does not get to weigh in on a decision like this very often. This one is on the table between now and September.
What to do with all of this
If you live within walking distance of the zoo, the practical takeaways are simple. Watch for the working group's summer meeting notices through the Land Park Community Association. Read the conceptual designs when they are posted for public review. Show up to whatever hearing the council schedules after September 1, because that is where a study becomes a plan.
And keep an eye on the pony ride corner. That patch of grass across Land Park Drive is not returning to its old use. What replaces it, and whether Primrose Hill goes with it, is the shape of the park your kids will remember.
Land Park is a place where the difference between neighborhoods is measured in half-blocks. If you are thinking about a move within the neighborhood, a purchase closer to the park's edge, or a build on a lot where the trees and setbacks matter as much as the square footage, Lisa Rayman knows the streets, the parcels, and the people at the meetings. Get a Free Home Valuation & Build Consultation and start the conversation before September does.
