Springs Specific Plans comes into focus
After last month’s Sonoma Valley Citizen’s Advisory Commission meeting, a slew of Donald Street neighbors came to express their thoughts on proposed Springs Specific Plan (SSP) high density zoning in their neighborhood.
As is typical for public process, planning and meetings go on, and engaged citizens follow along and attend. But many people don’t follow public process and when they discover all that has been going on, they feel blind-sided. They say they weren’t noticed etc., and blame their lack of public participation on someone else. The mass SSP public comment reflects this kind of engagement lag.
Lag no more, this showing was a notice to the public of where this particular interest group stands. They want to be heard.
What was telegraphed here, is that this group is set to fight high density housing in their neighborhood.
An ongoing fight to try and dial back high density zoning is just about guaranteed. I have followed the SSP process from the very beginning, and attended all meetings, and have had an ongoing dialogue with planner Yolanda Solano and Community Action Team members. It is unfortunate that Ms. Solano is no longer involved in the SSP; this represents a substantial loss of institutional memory.
I also followed the Satellite Affordable Housing Associates (SAHA) process, for the 48-unit project on Broadway across from Train Town from the get go, and advocated for high density housing there, for years. I got to know all the arguments. The objections of the Donald neighbors feels like déjà vu all over again.
One issue brought up by the Donald neighbors was where the public actually stood on the various planning alternatives of the SSP. As far as I know, there were only three public meetings out of the promised five, and at the third meeting, where the public placed stickies on their preferred options, a dual preference was shown for the moderate growth alternative but also for higher density housing.
These alternatives, and public preferences, were not supposed to be all or nothing propositions, and planners have done their best to include and balance all interests.
Class and race tensions
It is worthwhile to mention that from the very get go, there has been tension between SSP actors regarding unintended consequences of potential gentrification from the SSP. Social justice advocates and Latino community members hoped for demographic and cultural inclusion, and more affordable housing, i.e. high density housing. A cohort of more status quo actors preferred a more upscale, cosmopolitan future for the SSP area, with more gentrification, and lower density. This same tension is reflected in CAT and MAC membership, with low and high density advocates getting a seat at the advisory tables. In spite of built-in tension over density and its implications, a goodly proportion of high density housing remains in the currently proposed SSP zoning mix. SSP planners and the county are endeavoring to do their part to address the housing crisis.
Zoning can be a tool to lock in class privilege, and it can also be a tool unlock it. The debate about zoning here will revolve around certain proxy merits (traffic, parking), but will also have an unspoken subtext about exclusion or inclusion. Protective zoning is in many ways, like building a wall. Currently zoned land was once zoned otherwise, for ag or rural residential uses, and objections were likely raised in the past to what became the current zoning. Society changes, population grows, exigencies come about, and land use changes follow.
It remains to be seen how the cards will all fall when the SSP EIR, or Environmental Impact Report process plays out. Typically this is when all interests really turn up their games, and put as much pressure in decision makers as possible. The EIR comment period closed in the summer of 2018.
A structural and representational problem comes to light here as well: Latino community members participate in public processes at much lower rates, and their interests end up being steamrollered and/or taken up by proxy white actors. This is clearly the case in the local school system’s education foundation, on the La Luz Board, and has been evident with attendance at Springs Community Alliance meetings. So now, we have a situation where an activated white neighborhood group is pushing for low density SSP alternatives, to the detriment of the social equity, social justice, and affordable housing goals implicitly and explicitly agreed to by many in the SSP process overall.
If Donald neighbors want to make an argument for lack of representation, and that other active community members have stacked the Plan to their interests, I believe the Latino community in general can make the exact same case.
The end game is upon us all in the community here, for equitable housing and inclusive alternatives to be taken up in the Plan. High density affordable housing is for “the 90%” (1) of the people in the county: firemen, police, teachers, nurses, dental hygienists, hospitality workers, gardeners, house keepers, painters and on down the line. These 90% of people have annual earnings that are on a spectrum of the area median income, or AMI, which is $68,000 for a family of two and $83,000 for a family of four in the county. Market rate, low density housing, starts at price points AMI earners cannot afford.
NIMBYs and protectors
The term NIMBY can be taken as an insult. I don’t use the term in that sense. My take: everyone is a potential NIMBY; it’s almost an instinct to rail against change. I’ve also called NIMBYs protectors. If words like “developers” or “planners” can be used to signal membership in a cohort, NIMBYs and protectors are the ones lined up against them. This is just descriptive, not judgmental.
As with the SAHA neighbors, the Donald Street neighbors looked to find every possible reason to be against the projected zoning. In a positional fight, there is really no end, as stakeholders just plain don’t agree on what merits are most important. Everyone feels they have a case. With the SAHA example, the city, the county, the planners, and the relevant commissions were all squarely behind the project, as ultimately the merits fell out along lines of a supporting a greater good.
Burn the bridge
Once we’ve got here and when we don’t want to let more people in, that’s called burning the bridge (building a wall). The ironic thing about NIMBYs is that previous character was changed to make room for their houses. One Donald neighbor said to me at the SVCAC meeting, “if it was anywhere else, I would be up there saying the same things you are.”
Typical issues and merits
Neighborhood character is the basis for high density objection number one. Changes to the character are not what people bought into. Change is not supposed to happen to people’s investments. In this light, any changes should be “appropriate”, “reasonable”, to protect the rural character, protect the wildlife, and to protect the property values.
At the end of the day, character becomes synonymous with low density, single family homes, exactly what the bulk of people in the county can no longer afford to buy, and what society can no longer afford to sanction because of the sprawl into fire zones it demands, because of the greenhouse gas transportation costs it makes, and the for the inherent segregation low density tacit redlining it allows. Low density aspirations are now an anachronism in many ways.
Traffic and parking are two other biggies called into question, with development projects in general, and with high density zoning. Apparently, Donald Street is used as a cutoff to avoid Verano Ave./ Hwy 12 intersection congestion. Limited fire and emergency access to the Donald neighborhood was another point. I agree that these issues are challenging and uncomfortable to have to deal with; these things are a major pain, but in my opinion the alternatives to protectionism are even worse.
Steve Ledson’s motivations?
In this Donald Street SSP case, there is only projected zoning to be against now. A possible high density housing project may be in the offing by Steve Ledson. Ledson owns some or all of the three high density lots in question just east of Robinson Rd. Should Ledson come off with a market rate, low area median income (AMI) inclusion project, I’ll be the first one to join the neighbors against it, as in a previous public meeting, Ledson said, referring to his Boccoli Place project, that to him affordable is a $600,000 price point. (2) Maybe Mr. Ledson has a different sort of project in mind here? Maybe he will be able to buy a right of way to Verano Ave. from the dome church people and solve the access issues. Maybe he will pull a rabbit out of his hat and take up the challenge of addressing hosing needs as they stand today. One thing you can say about Ledson, he gets things done, and his projects are well-built and mostly attractive.
At any rate, market rate, low inclusion projects, to meet housing demand for 90% of people who can’t afford it, is just not going to fly. Business as usual, market rate projects is not going to solve our collective housing problems.
The pertinent unknown here is, will Ledson hold his hand close while affordable housing advocates fight for high density zoning in the EIR, and then he does a market rate project? The public needs to know Mr. Ledson’s intended plans before the EIR comes out in April.
SSP website
The SSP has been kind of a moving target. The website has been changed so that previous links are renamed, and stand-alone zoning maps for versions one through eight, are not available. Which zoning map will be the final version for the EIR? Number eight? I have felt personally that the dials of community preferences are being turned by actors with perhaps undue influence, to dial back high density, affordable housing. Certainly, all interest are acutely tuned into perceptions of possible insider advantage-taking. However, a look at all the documents shows a good faith effort to be transparent, in spite of some riffles in the process here and there. You expect stakeholder to lobby for their interests.
Housing crisis needs to be addressed
Burning the bridge means that the working class, the 90% necessary to keep the county going, will continue to be displaced to the Central Valley and Lake County. Housing has taken a huge hit from the fallout from the 2008 mortgage bundling scandal and from the fires. The state, the Bay Area, the county, the SSP and the city all know they need to step up and address the problem with more affordable housing, not more low density, market rate housing.
The local housing market has been distorted by speculators, second home buyers, vacation rentals and AirBnBs. These buyers and uses have taken up the housing stock niche for AMI and working class residents. This has left planners scrambling to meet the needs of locals who work here; so far, the need has been proposed to be met with high density housing, duplexes and triplexes, ADUs (accessory dwelling units), cottage housing, workforce housing overlays, and not by more low density, single family homes. The ideal builder is a non-profit builder like SAHA, who uses multiple finding sources to create AMI affordable, deed-restricted units for 50 years or in perpetuity. Equally adaptive: partnerships with for-profit and non-profit builders and investors, with high, deeded AMI inclusions, like 50%.
HAP
The city is taking the lead to put in place a Housing Action Plan (HAP), and county actors will do well to try and support this HAP and glom onto it for collateral effects into the Springs and adjacent Urban Service Areas. One point the Donald neighbors made was that they are not in the Springs. Well, we are all in the same community here, with the same common housing issues, and it will serve us all to get on the same page. So, where to put the affordable housing that is our responsibility to provide in the lower valley?
Green checkmate
If city UGB and green community separator advocates are determined to not push the collective lower valley urban area edge, and they are a powerful lobby, and neighbors don’t want high density housing near them for character reasons, where is the local housing going to go? When you can’t go out and you go in, this is what I call the green checkmate. Walls inside and out. Where are any of the environmental advocates except Teri Shore when it comes to defending high density infill? It could be time for Sustainable Sonoma to step up and advocate for high density SSP alternatives when the SSP EIR comes out.
Which of the lower AMI stakeholders will be able to hire a lawyer and go head to head with parking and traffic appeals that seek to dial down the density and thus the affordable housing? It’s no wonder that CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) is seen as a problem when it comes to affordable housing. Why? Social equity concerns get smothered by endless appeals to merits on proxy issues like parking and traffic.
Take responsibility for our nexus
A nexus is a connection between two things. Locally our economy has a nexus between jobs and housing; that connection is our collective responsibility to meet. The lower valley has a proportional responsibility.
For example, the county needs gravel for road projects, but no one wants a gravel mine near them, nor the environmental consequences of it. It seems OK to externalize those costs onto someone else somewhere else; this avoids our nexus and responsibility for our own gravel needs. Likewise, it seems OK to protect our own neighborhoods low density, and to not address the effects of a regional and state-wide housing crisis here in our own back yard, thereby throwing our own workers and servants under the bus.
The rationale for high density infill is very strong. You need larger lots to get the density, the economies of scale, and the bonuses. The CASA (Committee to House the Bay Area) process is now unfolding, through state law, to attempt to address the multi-fold checkmates put up against the types of housing needed, and in what locations. CASA is attempting to force the housing issue against a North Bay system evolved to throw up whatever checks possible to protect rural and small town character, i.e. low density. Something has to give, and everybody knows it.
Ultimately, it is simply unsustainable to not account for social equity, and to put all our marbles into economic and environmental buckets only. To be sustainable, we need to include all the people who work to hold society up.
(1) The 90% figure is based on national income spread analysis, that breaks earners into the 1%, the 9% and the 90%. The 90% are all on an AMI spectrum. The 9% start at about 160% AMI and up. In this “missing middle” or “hourglass economy”, what was once the middle class has disappeared, leaving bulk of people struggling and burdened with a cost of living only affordable by the upper 9% and 1%. This is why market rate housing is no panacea, and why all manner of innovative housing alternatives need to be put on the table.
(2) Affordable AMI price points have to be pegged to what various AMI earners can pay at 30% of their annual income. With 90% of people at essentially AMI earning levels, a 10%, 15% or 20% AMI inclusion is clearly inadequate.
Donald Street neighbors will hold a meeting March 6th to discuss their questions and concerns regarding the SSP. This meeting is at 6:15 PM in the Community Room at the Sonoma Valley Library at 755 W. Napa Street, Sonoma.
Contact Kyle.Rabellino@sonoma-county.org at Permit Sonoma to get on the SSP interested parties mailing list. The SSP website has all the current information on the Plan, including the full proposed zoning map.
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