Fred Allebach
7/14/24
Cooperage Appeal
Repurposed notes from the 4/18/24 Sonoma Planning Commission (PC) meeting on the Cooperage project agenda item; things I noticed that may help in Council deliberations regarding the Cooperage appeal.
Below in bullet points, are my core points for Council consideration, no need to read further. Below these are my background notes on the recent Cooperage PC meeting fyi.
My suggestion for the Council on this appeal: take the first staff recommendation and approve the amended uses. The PC mostly represents the interests of the local neighborhood, landed class. The Council has a dilemma of which group of socio-economic class fish to side with here, as the Council represents them all. The city has already made a Faustian Bargain with luxury tourism and homeowners benefit with increased property values and the city benefits with tax revenue. Where to draw the line on an amended Cooperage use permit when various interests are at stake? IMHO the amended uses are not out of proportion with what is already happening on First Street West, this is not a tipping point, it’s just a bit more of the same.
Reasons to accept the appeal and grant the amended use permit
Ø City staff initially recommended that the amended uses be approved but now staff recommends to deny the appeal. The city does not have a consistent position here. Relative judgments are being brought to bear; the merits vary. Findings to approve or not can go either way, it all depends on what the Council decides to see happen.
Ø Precedent is what the Council says it is. If inconsistency is common and findings are arbitrary, that itself is the precedent. City Code is time after time seen to be subjective and loaded with values, not objective. Why? Because many interests are in play. Did the city set a precedent by letting a small neighbor group put speed humps on a major city transportation artery? If 50 signatures can win a change of that magnitude, why not a 500-signature ceasefire petition? Why an ambulance and a letter to Ukraine if foreign policy is not city business? When purported good guys and bad guys are doing the same exact thing, it’s not the action that is judged but the loyalty to the perceived good that is at stake?
Ø The amended use is compatible with existing diverse and intense use on First St. West. This is downtown. The notion of compatible use is exactly how zoning gets used to further the interests of some and limit those of others.
Ø Reasons given by neighbors to deny the amended uses are classic one-size-fits-all NIMBY reasons that happened to resonate with the PC more than with downtown business reasons. NIMBYism is an objective fact of human behavior, not a snide judgement. The neighbors don’t want anything different, no homeless parking, no tree cutting, nada. This can be expected because everyone gets territorial about their backyards; the real merits are that people don’t want changes and find every reason under the sun to justify that position, as we see at SDC, Hanna, the Springs Specific Plan, and potential city annexation of the Springs. Whatever reasons work to make a NIMBY case, we'll take them.
Ø The city needs revenue and business based on high-end tourism is what makes the city that money. The Cooperage amended uses and appeal is part of this higher-end, bigger fish pattern. The city has already sold its soul to big business wine-tourism-hospitality sharks. Now in addition to the city chumming the local economic waters that make higher prices for everything, the city will vote to tax us all even more with a new sales tax. This in an already overpriced area. It does not seem right to deny an amended, common, accepted use that will bring in more city revenue and then for staff to recommend and the Council to approve a new sales tax.
Ø The applicant is a respected Sonoma Valley actor who by restoring the Cooperage building, has created a long-lasting community benefit, and added at considerable expense and effort, serious value to Sonoma’s historic character. This deserves some quid pro quo consideration by the Council just as the PC gives allegiance to its friends. The Planning Commission/ Council bent over backwards to put a large historic overlay on the city to evade SB-9 state law and now cannot see the Cooperage has historic value? Historic character seems arbitrary, depending on who is trying to prove what.
Ø Historic character is all facade anyway, all looks, all superficial; adaptive reuse can completely change the insides and this is OK. There is a pot store now in a “historic building” where the PC demanded various changes to keep the looks, although I fail to see much historic character there myself. Jack’s Service Station was prevented from adding a few extra housing units based on historic character and current zoning arguments.
Ø The Planning Commission, IMO, has made numerous inconsistent and rulings based on arbitrary, groupish likes and dislikes, just as an HOA would do.
Ø In response to the Cooperage-remodel-as-community-benefit- argument, PC members called the Cooperage a “trophy location” for a rich guy, as if location value is any different for residents and other businesses who may or may not be rich as well. Is all of the Plaza Overlay Zone and even Sonoma as a whole not a trophy location and that is why commercial and residential rents are so obscenely high here? Through what sunglasses are we looking at this all from?
Ø City rules were used to approve the First Street East project, even with a glaring inclusionary ordinance loophole rule that was ignored to the detriment of the city’s greatest lower-income housing needs, as stated clearly as a priority in the current Housing Element. The PC invoked “the law” to justify FSE sidestepping a major Housing Element goal, and the PC now seeks to invoke the rules to deny the Cooperage an amended use permit.
Ø The PC did not asses a Quimby Act fee on FSE but did asses one or more on the DeNova developer; inconsistent again.
Ø If you are a friend or a local, you get special treatment and the rules are bent in your favor, if you are a rich developer, you get every roadblock possible. The PC is like an HOA Board, a small cadre of people have cornered power and enforce their will on everyone else. This is the downside of “local control”, certain arbitrary, groupish interests dominate to the exclusion of others.
Ø 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, it is the Council’s job to consider economics as it did in the recent Plaza hotel approval and ironically, the PC does see its job is to bail out home owners when it comes to any negative effects on property values from incompatible upzoning of 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 nationwide when it comes to anything that might reduce values, like dense upzoning. Property values issues and interests are just not stated because naked self interest invites common opprobrium.
Ø City rules are invoked to say neighborhoods are “built out” even as there is a lot of obvious underutilized space in single family zoned areas. Property value impacts to neighborhoods, from any upzoning, larger scale, or increased intensity changes, now defaults to covertly coded, proxy reasons for why not (see preserve local character as a major city value). Clearly, homeowners accept and protect the speculative, trophy value of their homes that results from city high-end tourism and restricted land use, but then the same cohort wants to deny others that same opportunity? Clearly it is the city's job to address economic value issues, the main question here are being transparent about whose value and why?
Initial observations of the Planning Commission meeting where the Cooperage item was heard
One sense I got from this meeting 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.
I see is that neighborhood compatibility is among the highest values in Sonoma 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 prior 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.
301 1st St. West, “the Cooperage'' building request for amend use permit
The building recently had an @ $10 million or more remodel. The applicant is substantially invested and 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…
However, now that the PC denial of the Cooperage amended uses has been appealed to the Council, staff now recommends to not approve the amended uses. Why this inconsistency?
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.
The applicant’s reps, architect Michael Ross and municipal lawyer Michael Woods 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.”
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. The whole dance and game here is to use all these rules and regulations to either support or kill a particular item. (The rules were used to approve the First Street East project, even with a glaring inclusionary ordinance loophole rule that was ignored to the detriment of the city’s greatest housing needs, and the PC did not asses a Quimby Act fee on FSE but did asses one or more on DeNova developer; inconsistent again.)
This is all very much like Kabuki theater, what looks to be one thing is really another. Divining what interests are 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. See this link to the Smooth City article in The Nation.
Everyone said the Cooperage 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 the Cooperage was seen by PC members is a “trophy location”, but other 1st St West residents do not have a trophy location as well? 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 applicant was noted to be a good actor in SV, maybe one deserving of a break for restoring a very neat old Sonoma building?
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; SB-9 in order to increase density in single family zoned areas. Inconsistent again.
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.
As an aside, 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. This preservation job as a whole will likely outlast current uses at the Cooperage.
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 home owners when it comes to any negative effects on property values from incompatible upzoning of 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.
The rules are then invoked to say neighborhoods are “built out” even as there is a lot of obvious underutilized space in single family zoned areas.
Overt property value impacts to neighborhoods, from any changes, now defaults to covertly coded, proxy reasons for 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 malign big money actors are corrupt capitalist fish bigger than local groupers 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.
Never mind the smaller renter/ essential worker fish that get eaten and excluded by local moderate-sized fish.
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 sh*t that rolls downhill. 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 who insist that all be compatible with their values.
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 single-family zoning-area 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. The council can expect to see them again. The reasons against 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.
Never mind that this street gets very heavy use from: five baseball fields, a weekly farmer’s market, 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, as incompatible with neighborhood. I guess the very rich and the very poor are just not compatible on 1st St. West.
Which brings me back full circle to AFFH and if this PC was more focused on that, the fine detail and study they are capable of might show that it 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. The city is inconsistent again.
This Cooperage item took near two hours as a few of us waited for a later 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 the city public comment folder and thus the PC did not see her comments.
The upshot was for me 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, for my preferred interests and values
Who can be more or less just when all fish are eating other fish to get by?
My suggestion for the Council on this appeal: take the first staff recommendation and approve the amended uses.
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