Fred Allebach
4/18/24 Sonoma Planning Commission (PC) meeting
Things I noticed
Kudos to Chair Larry Barnett for not strongly enforcing the timer for three minutes.
One sense is that if these PC folks took the level of study, desire, detail, and knowledge of city Code they have to protect neighborhood character and put it to AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing), that Sonoma would be in a much better equity and integration position.
Some of these folks are denizens of all the rules, like a grouper, a big fish that comes out and swallows up any other fish that doesn't know all the rules. The biggest PC fish here made the rules over time, and the sense I get is that the process and rules are being gamed to maintain the status quo, that’s the underlying goal. Protection of single family zoned areas and neighborhood character is the highest value here. We are, afterall, in an iconic fractal of US suburbia here in Sonoma.
The upshot I see is that neighborhood compatibility is among the highest values and that this stands as the prima facie reason to deny all upzoning and change. When can any social justice charge happen if it might impact a neighborhood? Could social justice be incompatible? When it comes to that, we enter a new realm of covert, coded values that are not explicitly in the rules.
There was one agenda item to approve a pool house. This 650 square foot pool house was about twice as big as my apartment. People, what we are dealing with here is ultra-First World problems.
The agenda item that took the most time was 301 1st St. West, “the Cooperage'' building, that recently had an @ $10 million or more remodel. The applicant was asking for an amendment to the use permit to add a vacation rental (VR) and wine tasting, on the basis that these things could be added to allowed adaptive reuse findings. An outside pool was also put in. There was an ADU built out back. The expanded uses asked for were said to be all quiet and inside.
City staff recommend that the amended uses be approved. Staff usually finds for the applicant. Staff claims to be functionaries, to have no interests of their own, they act at the pleasure of the city council, but the notion of an Iron Triangle says otherwise. Successful project and money-making approvals guarantee staff their jobs…
It didn’t take long to figure out that the Commission was gunning for the project, there were no overt supporters. Chair Larry Barnett had the City Attorney on hold to answer questions. The PC went on to pick apart details and make the case to deny the application, which they ultimately did unanimously. It was reminiscent of how the PC denied an application by Jack's Service Station, revealing values and how rules bend to them and how it can appear unreasonable.
The applicant’s reps, architect
Michael Ross and municipal lawyer Michael Woods (both very smooth operators)
did a good job to make their case but no one wanted to hear it, their points
fell on deaf ears. Michael Woods said “all findings have been met.” These two
did not seem too upset they lost, they got paid. However, they may not have been sad because they have a big ammunition client who won't give up without exercising their right to appeal or maybe to sue. In fact now, there is a sign out front right over the front door of the Cooperage, a few days later, that says "Abandoned building, no entry." A signal that the owner is pissed and the fight is on?
From my view as a neutral observer, it seemed the use permit findings needing to be made to approve the amendments were diverse enough that it could go either way, if you wanted to approve, you could find a way, if not, not. The findings language seemed hardly airtight as to what would constitute a valid finding or not. But, the whole dance and game here is to use all these rules and regulations to either support or kill a particular item.
This is all very much like Kabuki theater, what looks to be one thing is really another. Divining the interest at stake is what makes this local analysis fun!
The PC is like a subdivision HOA where certain ensconced groupers are in control and they enforce their will and make the rules. There is an arbitrary element to it, is it really that important that all grass gets trimmed by 3:PM on Friday? If you aren't an inside player, the HOA, the PC has your lunch and you have to conform or be penalized by the rules they made. They own the game and rarely lose. This is why American suburbia is so uniform overall, the same set of interests is in play.
Everyone said it was a nice remodel job. The applicant was hoping for a modest expansion of the use permit so that with a planned resale, the property would have more value. The applicant was asking the city for a little help to help recoup costs of remodeling and historic preservation. Historic preservation in this case was played as a community benefit. It came out that this is a “trophy location.” The applicant is very rich and is also the owner of a local ranch/ farm (Stone Hedge Farm) where a local energy grid is made.
The Cooperage is obviously a very cool historic building but initially the historic status was questioned, was it valid? Was the property listed? I couldn’t help but notice that much the same Planning Commission was only too happy to put a historic overlay over one third of the city in order to frustrate and subvert the intent of state SB-9 law which would have allowed a lot split and two duplexes plus an ADU by-right, in order to increase density in single family zoned areas.
One thing about historical designation and adaptive reuse, the historical character is all in the façade, it’s all in the looks. Inside can be whatever.
There was a dug well (not a drilled well) inside my 1912 rental building. In order to drill a new well on the property where I rent here, this old dug well had to be filled in. Killing this well did not take long for a few laborers and a big load of pea gravel, sayonara history… This was a very cool, rock-lined well inside my building, inside a well closet adjacent to an old hotel kitchen.
The Cooperage had a dug well too, and they spent $200,000 to preserve it. The water from this well was used in the Cooperage building to make ice once upon a time when ice making was the use there.
It started to come out that the Planning Commission felt that it was not their job to address the owner's economic troubles. To paraphrase, it’s not the PC’s job to bail out an owner, this being a “speculative project”, not the PC’s job to cover an owner if their costs go over, “cost is not our issue”, the PC is “not here to help people economically” just for plans.
Yet, ironically, the PC does see its job is to bail out owners when it comes to any negative effects on property values from upzoning neighborhoods to more dense or more mixed uses. It is well known that changes to property values is a huge neighborhood item in city planning when it comes to anything that might reduce values, like dense upzoning.
Overt property value impacts to neighborhoods, from any changes, now defaults to covertly coded reasons why not, as it is perhaps too crass to reveal the naked self interest at the bottom of it all.
One theme I saw was that the PC, as an agent of the local landed, neighborhood class, sees that their enemy is commercialization, speculation, developers, investors, and predatory capitalism. This is a righteous fight and fight they will, same impulse as at SDC, Hanna, and to protect what I call the Sleepy Hollow Suburban Stasis. They see that these mal big money actors are big, corrupt capitalist fish who are hell bent on destroying the fabric of Sonoma’s authentic, charming neighborhood character to make a profit. Thus, the fight is seen and felt as true and righteous, on the right side of history, with a clear bad guy and enemy to rally around.
This above dynamic also fuels the local Wake Up group, but add religious fundamentalism to the mix and Wake Up has a very potent cocktail going that fits the neighborhood character cohort like a glove.
And it’s true, what smaller fish will take the side of big sharks and killer whales? But as in Orwell’s book Animal Farm, some animals are more equal than others.
The ironic thing here is that this same group of PC agents, in the hierarchy of big fish and little fish and relative wealth, stands to the essential worker class in the same place as they themselves stand to the super rich. Yet they are so consumed by their righteous fight they can’t see the collateral damage of their own protections on the littler fish just below them in the local struggle for existence.
As local, relatively wealthy suburban neighborhood fish fight to protect their interests, the collateral damage for smaller fish is like shit that rolls down hill. The protections against bigger sharks also exclude the littler essential worker fish, as all the rules are made by and to the advantage of the medium wealthy neighborhood fish.
All the same reasons given for not wanting this Cooperage project to have added uses of a VR and wine tasting also apply to any upzoning the city might do in the General Plan update land use map. Is there is a pattern here?
Speaking of property owners, the real constituency of the PC, the neighbors, turned out in force with every reason under the sun to deny the use permit amendments for a VR and wine tasting. These reasons ran the gamut of all the typical NIMBY rationales to preserve the status quo: the character of the street will be changed, we did not move here for this, business intrusion disrupts the quality of life, we cannot comfortably enjoy our street, commercial noise, delivery noise, party noise waking up grandchildren, the use is too intense, fabric of neighborhood and community will be compromised, parking compromised, the change is not compatible with the neighborhood. All that was missing was inappropriate scale.
Nevermind that this street gets very heavy use from: five baseball fields, a weekly farmer’s market, a dog park, a public historical society building, the Vets Hall with big events etc, city meetings, a police department, existent wine tasting, multiple city park and trail access points, a bike path etc. The homeless shelter got run out of this area previously, incompatible with neighborhood.
Which brings me back full circle to AFFH and if this PC was more focused on that, the fine detail they are capable of might show that is against AFFH law to make any kind of service shelters harder to have, this on the same street where compatibility issues are all at stake.
This Cooperage item took near two hours as a few of us waited for a quick Housing Element and General Plan update.
Some public comments were made on these update items. Maria Barakat also made a General Plan comment but it did not make it into this folder.
The upshot was to get a bird’s eye view of the PC in action, which was revealing, even though I, like PC members may just be finding what I’m looking for.
Who can be more just when all fish are eating other fish to get by?
