Issues meeting notes

11/16/06

Future Planning in Santa Rosa

We had a 2-hour long fascinating meeting today, with our 2 guests, Wayne Goldberg and Laura Hall. Laura, for those who don’t know her or her reputation, is an urban planner with a local practice and national experience. We convened to discuss the Wal-Mart project on Stony Point Road, and asked Laura and Wayne to comment on the potential for modifications in the design of the project, which now has Planning Commission approval (over Susan Gorin’s dissent). Both said there’s little to be done because the project fits in the envelope of a previous building, has support from many Roseland area residents and civic leaders, and from Laura, because of a City Council that lacks leadership in framing projects for community benefit (my words) that are do-able by the development community. We discussed the potential for a renaissance of the Roseland area. Wayne described a glimmer of hope in the successful meetings held recently, that had participation by a large number of local residents, including the Spanish-speaking community. Two main issues: The fact of mixed city and county jurisdiction makes resolution of planning and expensive toxic clean-up site questions impossible. The last LAFCO ruling on annexations in the area said that they would only consider complete city annexation of county areas, and there has been mixed interest on the part of Roseland residents in doing that. Secondly, ownership of the central Roseland shopping center remains with the longtime owners, and they have let the center languish. Until there’s a cohesive plan within city limits and with Council support, the multi-cultural village envisioned there won’t happen.

The bulk of the meeting concerned a project introduced by Wayne, called “Santa Rosa 2030; Envisioning the Future.” Santa Rosa Executive Staff have posed the question: “If there were no fiscal restraints, what should be done?” They created a packet of issue pages: Creating a Vital Downtown; Creating a Multicultural Village on Sebastopol Road; Expanding Open Space and Creating Multi-service Parks; Enhancing Santa Rosa Avenue (including Mendocino Ave.); Building a More Inclusive Community; Connecting Santa Rosa Junior College and Coddingtown; and Creating Appealing Transportation Alternatives.

In this process, Wayne and other senior staff are taking the packet out to interest groups for their input, and they will then consult focus groups made of selected citizens who are “not the usual suspects”. The project will be modified after the input, and go back out to the community in January. They hope that then community members will identify efforts they want to pursue, so this is a not just a top-down plan, but becomes a grass-roots effort.

Our input included (as well as I can remember) the need for “how-tos” as well as goals; that the hard things to do are locate land for housing and commercial/industrial space in our idealized city plan; that we can use the creeks plan as a model for creating connectivity; that we should consider whether we want to promote a city of small villages; that areas of aquifer recharge need to be planned; that a separate element of “Energy Efficiency” should be added, which examines each projects’ efficiency as well as policies that promote energy efficiency.

 Anne E. Seeley