Status update of Altamira Family Apartments
At the recent Planning Commission hearing, Planning Director David Goodison and the developer, Satellite Affordable Housing Associates (SAHA) hit a home run on presenting the project. Important points made: The Altamira Family Apartments project meets a critical housing shortage need. It addresses a backlog of affordable housing from the city’s Housing Element. It showed the density, massing, and building height to be equivalent to the surrounding developments. Listed significant changes made to the project by SAHA and the architect to satisfy neighbor input. Showed noise thresholds to be the same as other city streets like Napa Rd. and Hwy. 12. And, importantly, the project complies, and is compatible at every threshold, with the General Plan, the Development Code, and qualifies for certain extras by state law. This project is necessary, street-legal, conforms to all parameters, and is ready to go.
Project held up on design issues
As a strong supporter of Altamira Family Apts. project, and a member of the developer’s Community Advisory Committee, I’m disappointed that at this late stage members of the Planning Commission have used design issues as a reason to not approve the project. Design issues have already been well vetted.
In my public comment to the Planning Commission, I recommended addressing design issues if they did not impact the cost of the project or the number of units. I did not anticipate that design questions would reach a level of non-approval of the use permit and negative declaration.
However, it is heartening that the majority of planning commissioners professed to support affordable housing and said this is a good and important project, minus certain design issues. If the developer and architect address these issues, the project should come out with use permit and negative declaration at the October 12th Planning Commission hearing. Just what may be addressed design-wise, and why, I will explore below.
City planning commissioners have been responsive to neighbor input, and this has caused a two-week delay in the process. What would normally have gone to the Design Review Commission to vet project design aspects has been pre-empted by three members (Coleman, Bohar, and McDonald) to force design changes, in a bid to satisfy the neighbors.
SVCAC element
The SVCAC (Sonoma Valley Community Advisory Commission) voted unanimously to approve the project with no specific design issues to note. With a panel that includes native Sonomans, a county planner, a former county planner, a former Design Review Commission member, a city council ex officio, and others deeply involved in the Springs Specific Plan, the SVCAC is thoroughly keyed into local Sonoma issues, and is highly qualified. That they did not call the design into question is an important part of their recommendation.
Character
Commissioner Bohar began by questioning the basis of the SVCAC’s unanimous approval of the project. He keyed in on the SVCAC final recommendation, that the Planning Commission thoroughly vet the project regarding its effect on the neighbors. One of his questions to staff was about the character of the area. When character was determined to be a subjective criterion, this then unlocked for him a series of observations about project design, and how such character would fit into Sonoma.
The only trouble with appealing to a subjective category like character, as that while you may point out how others have no basis, you have no basis either…
The character issue is one that continually resurfaces as a planning and community conversation weasel word and sticking point. Character is seriously subjective, and people use it in any number of ways, pro and con, to develop their arguments. The character arguments are rational, and use a reasoning capacity, but there are no facts involved. This makes the character question one that is always code for deeper values and identity issues that are not necessarily stated.
Character, noun; 1 the character of a town: personality, nature, disposition, temperament, temper, mentality, makeup, features, qualities, properties, traits, spirit, essence, identity, ethos, complexion, tone, feel, feeling.
Middle English: from Old French caractere, via Latin from Greek kharaktēr ‘a stamping tool.’ From the early sense ‘distinctive mark’ arose ‘token, feature, or trait’ (early 16th century), and from this ‘a description, especially of a person’s qualities,’ giving rise to ‘distinguishing qualities.’
What could be the deeper essential issues at stake with this project? If you hear people talking about character, it usually means they want things to stay as they are. Character is related to the status quo; it values stasis, and an identification of the fixed nature of a phenomenon, for this project, the neighborhood in question, and Sonoma in general.
The trouble is, Sonoma is made up of discreet groups who all see the essential character of town in different ways according to their interests. And, in nature and society, nothing is permanently fixed, like Plato’s Forms. A surrender to change is adaptive, and clinging the past as a raison d’être is stagnation.
In this case, change is afoot, among many local changes afoot, but the immediate locals want no changes. From this flow chart choice, of change or no change, various appeals are made to certain qualities of the neighborhood and Sonoma which various stakeholders hold to be essential. These character properties and essences, however, are not uniform or identical; as such, community stakeholders are expressing diverse realities that reflect their particular values, interests, and dispositions. For some, character can mean embracing change, for others it can mean hanging onto a past stasis. The real trick of all of this is to be explicit and to articulate the values that animate the particular definition of character.
“Character” issues became the basis of Bohar’s and McDonald’s questioning of the project’s design. Is it compatible with the neighbors? Compatible with the Broadway gateway corridor? Compatible with Sonoma? Compatible with the General Plan? Compatible with a desired impression people have as they drive into town? Desired impression by whom? According to what? All of this, folks, is a can of worms of subjective feelings having no basis in fact. These are purely preferences.
On one side is a neighborhood that would like to keep things the same, and on the other side is a planning process that values inclusion and residential housing diversity. Since the General Plan leaves openings for interpretation, advocates of stasis or dynamism can jump in and use various conflicting procedural and textual contexts to make their case. The General Plan echoes William Blake’s quote: “both read the Bible day and night, where thou readest black and I readest white.”
As with many different types of development projects, the argument gets down to: whose town is this anyway? David Goodison prepares the staff report and if you want that project, he is great, and if you don’t, he is the devil. The facts, some with more basis, and some more objective than others, are never agreed upon by all actors.
Character is not about facts anyway. It’s about essences; human essences in a socially constructed reality that is purely culture, not math and science. It is unavoidable for facts to not be colored by interests and values.
Is there a Sonoma style?
One of the issues raised here, in this admittedly subjective terrain, is whether the Altamira Family Apts. architecture and design are congruent with any sort of Sonoma style, and whether there is even such a unified style to be compatible with. Bohar said the project area “needs improvement.” This means that with a vote for improvements, the neighbors are getting a concession – having some of their issues addressed. Never mind that a long process of improvement and concessions has already been made. The improvement process-in-place was leading to project approval. Neighbors and their planning Commission allies want elements of project disapproval, at many levels. This has translated to planning commissioners seeking to mitigate project spatial effects, i.e., creating design changes.
If the changes stay at the design level, and don’t impact the cost of the project and number of units, maybe this character and design dance can be done. SAHA and the architect will have to finesse that. However, it seems to me that this current design battle is only Stage One, and the goal of the neighbor group is to reduce the number of units and shrink the project as much as possible, and to alter the low-income portion of the project.
As usual, an EIR is considered the salvation, and a lack of it leads to periodic threats of a lawsuit. This is a stereotypical pattern of conflict Sonoma knows well. When people disagree on the essential nature of town, every step in the process in place will be taken as this is a fight about the nature of Sonoma reality.
Social and civic process of addressing change
In a smallish valley with people already packed rather tightly together in the urban core, the business of negotiating any change is a natural area of tension. Sonoma is known for its plethora of First World-type problems, pink doors, leaf blowers, dogs in public spaces, too many wine tasting rooms, too luxurious, etc. Our local society is in a process of civic negotiation, where the shape and form (the design of a change) are the proxy for deeper issues of use vs. preservation, dynamism vs, stasis, diversity vs. homogeneity, singularity vs. plurality, and inclusion vs. exclusion.
Green checkmate
Sonoma has boxed itself in with an urban growth boundary (UGB), green separators and open space. These constraints have been formally consolidated by boosters of the status quo. The ring around the city has caused housing prices to heat up to a super high level. Now, affordable or not, there is nowhere for new people and existing residents to go but into more dense housing. This housing is then resisted strongly by the in-town status quo, especially if the housing is predominantly low-income and could be seen in a negative social and economic light. I have termed this overall pattern the green checkmate.
Sonoma master narrative
Homogeneity and stasis, the status quo of wealthy homeowners concerned about their property values, and “the feel” of town, is where the current character issue springs from, and from buying into the master narrative of town history; a kind of wine Horatio Alger story. Over time, immigrants of various flavor have collapsed into being white people, their ethnicity gone. Vallejo himself is the ultimate example of a Mexican morphed to being white. The narrative has been set, and now even codified into the Visitors’ Bureau branding of Sonoma. Sonoma character and authenticity are now commodities that can be bought and sold and traced back to the founding myths. Larry Davis makes a fascinating analysis of this on the Friends of Maxwell Park website (WordPress), with his essay, The Subjugation of Ruth’s Protest.
Once this character alchemy gained sufficient mass in the 1980s, it took off like a rocket.
Midas curse, dissonance with low-income housing
This explains the dynamics of how really nice places get taken over by hordes of outsiders seeking the magic formula for happiness. All these great places have the Midas curse. The elusive character gets ruined by those seeking to grasp onto it. First come the hipsters, then the yuppies, then the big gentrifying investors. The latecomers argue for the character – hey, they bought it!
Ideas of character are then pasted onto design and made into a sticking point about whether it fits Sonoma or not. What really doesn’t fit Sonoma proper is non-white low-income housing, but this is too shocking for most thoughtful people to verbalize. Only a few will put themselves out there on this topic and use their real names.
Discussion
For something that doesn’t fit Sonoma, design-wise, a big masonry wall might be needed to close it off, or as a corollary, a nice wood fence to make it more like Sonoma. Is this us? Is it us to resist change and close off from view anything outside the master narrative?
Look at all the new modern designs going on with east side remodels. Who is out there making a stink about those styles? Nay, design is most likely a proxy issue for Altamira, one that stands for not wanting the higher density of low-income housing that comes with this project. After design gets played out, density issues are next in line for the proxy objections about character.
The spatial issues of design are a negotiating point where the Planning Commission has asked the developer to make a few more concessions. One of these concessions (Bohar) is to pull the project more tightly in on itself by reducing allowed-for and permitted setbacks, and to put big trees in front to make it look consistent with older Sonoma up by the Plaza. Additional concessions Bohar asked for were to change the style of the community building and (along with Coleman) the block wall.
Now, who is to say that someone else will then not like the new style and the project will be caught in an endless loop of not being able to satisfy all parties? McDonald wants concessions on the building heights and mass, even though these are similar to all surrounding development. A certain sense of futility marks the arguments here, in that they are subjective, not particularly strong, and transparent as to the ulterior motivation.
The result is a process where subjective design values are being used as mitigation for the neighbors, and for some commissioner’s sense of what Sonoma should be like. These subjective design values coincide with unprovable assertions about taste, style, and design, and also stand as a proxy for just plain not wanting the low-income housing.
Bohar’s request for more setbacks, however, could impinge on project density, cause a reduction in the number of units, and effect a rise in the rents. Or, it could make the project much denser within itself. Thus, by satisfying the neighbors’ territorial impulse and criticisms of design and density, the new residents will have to suffer a denser space themselves. The neighbors and the city would thereby seek to push the low-income units away as much as possible. This all has the opposite effect of designing it more like a welcoming Sonoma.
So much for “design” as a category that has any agreed-upon meaning. It’s an entry point where anyone can jump in and mess up the process with their unprovable preferences about style, which in the end signals they don’t want it anyway. In my opinion, the architectural styles in the general project area don’t have much character. It’s tract development with cheap materials. Broadway at that location is like a strip of Anywhere USA. The project will add to the area by bringing in some fresh, modern looks somewhat like an agrarian past. Making the project conform to appearances of the section of Broadway by the Plaza is the height of subjective style choice that has no mooring on anything, only to satisfy neighbors who believe their character, stasis and status quo are somehow infringed by the project.
What if someone else thinks the redesign doesn’t look more like Sonoma? Are we caught in an endless loop of project hold-ups based on unsubstantiated personal preferences here?
Cribb
In the end, I was very impressed by Chair Cribb’s analysis and breakdown of the issues. This was a vintage performance worthy of the best Felder and Willers-type narratives. Cribb expressed a dynamic and evolving sense of design and character.
I erroneously imagined Cribb would be against this project. I have had some snarky things to say about him in the past; I was wrong, and Mr. Cribb showed himself to have more amplitude than I had imagined.
Everything Mr. Cribb said made perfect sense to me. He was articulate, in command of the issues, with a good sense of the big picture. I’ll paraphrase here: He said that yes, the immediate neighbors will be the most sensitive in any project. Yet, a degree of give and take is necessary. No one project should bear the community’s needs all at once, but this is a housing opportunity site long identified as a place for an affordable housing development. It’s time to act and get this project done and built, he said. “Density is the reality” if we are not going to sprawl. The design and architectural character of Sonoma is represented by the predominant housing forms of the times when they were built. Sonoma has an overall eclectic style, from different time periods. Community is not a static element; we “can’t just repeat themes of the past”. The design of this project is OK; less is more. Architecturally, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. The modern elements in the community building reference a different point in time: now. The “setback exemptions are minor”, and being closer to the street means more engagement with the community. For air quality and noise, “you’re on Broadway”; “you can’t burden the project with faults from the Lodge”, or with Broadway noise. The masonry wall, he said, is and undue burden for the project, and a cold shoulder on the new development.
Sek gets to the point
Cribb and Commissioner Sek both gave clear green lights for the project as is. Ms. Sek did a nice job of saying her piece and not belaboring the points.
Coleman
Commissioner Coleman’s final comments were read from a prepared statement, which signaled that the hearing was a futile exercise in deliberation and for influencing his opinion. Coleman pretty much gave a red flag to the project. Ironically, he found many of the same traffic and parking/delivery issue arguments unpersuasive for the Kenwood Investments hotel. He voted to approve the use permit and EIR there, but they were used to deny the use permit and negative declaration here.
Somehow the diesel fumes, and cancer-causing agents in transportation greenhouse gases are OK for a major generator of fumes in the Kenwood hotel, but are not OK otherwise with this affordable housing project. Coleman has taken an immediate neighbor’s arguments about the Lodge loading dock and transferred them to the affordable housing project as if they were a project contingency. They’re really a triangulation of this neighbor’s long term personal battle with the city and the Lodge projected onto the new development.
McDonald
Commissioner McDonald had a laundry list of points to make. Like the Jasper/Routhier hillside projects, he tried to satisfy public opinion by seeking to place some restrictions on the project. In this respect, McDonald is consistent, and responsive to the community, and he appears to sincerely vet and consider each project. McDonald is obviously authentic, and makes a good effort to be fair. He gave a pink flag to the project.
Some lines of questioning by Mr. McDonald revealed a paternalism towards low-income residents that are never said about other development projects. For example, whoever asked Steve Ledson if there would be security cameras at Boccoli Place, or a restriction on people storing things on their porch, or drying a shirt on the porch? If guests and the length of their stay would be restricted? If there are guest hours at Boccoli Place? If fences will be needed to keep kids from running in the street? These types of questions show a level of prejudice, and presume that low-income people are like slaves and children, not like good civilized white people. If we are going to make this project compatible with the neighborhood, all provisions should be required of the Clay Street neighborhood as well.
Mr. McDonald wanted to make it clear to the public and the city council, that he does not oppose the current number of units. He just wants to see some design changes in building heights and mass, to respond to the neighbors’ concerns. But the project’s building heights are exactly comparable to the surrounding area. What the neighbors and McDonald appear to want is for project residents to have less than the existing neighborhood already has. McDonald said he wanted to see the project “look more like a village”, “to make it compatible with Sonoma”.
This is frustrating in that the project design has been laid out for a long time. Why couldn’t McDonald voice some of these concerns to SAHA before?
Reflecting on this, and what the neighbors and McDonald are asking for in terms of “character”, I believe the surrounding development in the Clay Street area is devoid of design character itself, if I might throw my opinion in as to style and design. It is more likely that the new project will be much more interesting to look at, versus making it conform to a tract development style. And this area will never be like Broadway and Chase, regardless of design or how many or what type of trees or setbacks or roof lines.
I felt McDonald’s overall list of points started to veer into imposing an impossible level of detail and unspecified character values onto the project, exaggerating his importance as a commissioner. It seemed unwarranted to ask for so many detail changes that should go to Design Review. There were many unclear pink flags, where a red flag or a green flag would be appropriate. There is no way the developer and/or staff can address all those points! Hopefully this is not a pretext for future stalling if SAHA does not address the whole list.
Bohar
I thank Mr. Bohar for triggering all this character stuff! This has been a fun analysis.
Commissioner Bohar gave a combo of pink and red flags in his final comments. After it being public knowledge for a long time that the project cannot legally prefer city residents, Mr. Bohar said that the “benefits are uncertain”, and therefore the project should be “improved” and aligned with General Plan more than ever. He couldn’t really say why he didn’t like the design, and deferred to McDonald and Coleman for specifics. Never mind that the project already conforms to ALL applicable guidelines, rules and regulations.
Bohar and Coleman want a block wall along the western edge. So, if McDonald holds out for the block wall, that could be a new poison pill, and project-tipping point. Inclusion or exclusion? Is that block wall more or less like Sonoma?
Disappointed but waiting
What once seemed like a great project, with much preparation for this moment, to address known, salient and crisis-level housing needs, has now been hauled out of the water and left to founder until the October 12th Planning Commission hearing. This is unsettling to project supporters, but the neighbor group is not going to lay down and can be expected to win a few points and battles. Maybe this can be a signal for project supporters to turn out on October 12th. Its approval may be at risk.
Hopefully, SAHA can regroup, keep up a good attitude, make a few design changes, and there can be a quick approval of the negative declaration and the use permit. With some concessions, the pink flags can turn to green. It is hard to imagine the active neighbors will not appeal an approval; hopefully, the city manager and the mayor can get that appeal on the agenda quickly, so that if this project is to come to fruition and build the needed housing, it can be done expediently and get all these process-in-place steps out of the way and start ASAP.
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