Fred Allebach
Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting/ workshop
7/23/24
Permit Sonoma (PS) Environmental Justice (EJ) and Safety Element (SE) info items to the Sonoma County (SoCo) BOS
EJ and SE workshop general info:
7/23/24 BOS Packet materials: https://sonoma-county.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=6784258&GUID=EAF66AF5-6DAA-4017-BCAD-DB6654091313
Find video of meeting at this site
https://sonoma-county.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx
Tennis Wick
There are many state General Plan (GP) requirements, Permit Sonoma had to take Elements out of order, (Housing Element took priority over EJ and SE)
Katrina Brahmer (PS staff for EJ and SE Elements) presents staff report
Stella Acosta, Rincon consultants is present but does not speak
Critical point: “To what degree the GP should be general?”
- GPs are general, keep them adaptable, and also direct and accountable
Safety Element
-SE has to be done on a schedule; it is late bc as Tennis said, PS had to take Elements out of order, do Housing Element (HE)
-SE was last updated in 2014, the state has expanded the scope since the fires, need to identify risks
-evac route capacity, areas of limited egress
-a lot of wildfire work of late that will be leveraged in the SE
SB 379 climate change vulnerability assessment
AB 747, SB 99, AB 1409 (1469?) evac route assessments later this summer
Environmental Justice Element
-identify DACs (disadvantaged communities), low-income areas of SoCo,
-(map of proposed EJ areas is in packet; the EJ and SE Equity Work Committee or EWC did a lot of work to ID these areas; two SoCo EJ communities in SV: South Sonoma [Tract 1502.03?] and the Boyes-Fetter’s Agua Caliente/ Census Tract 1503.05)
-“EJ communities” = DACs; (DACs, DUCs, EJ communities, all have varying methods to define them, not one way to quantify them; one common factor is median household income [MHI] below 80% of state MHI)
-Katrina: all EWC comments are in packet appendix; EJ policy development is led by community voices, civic engagement is an EJ mandate
-PS will “incorporate and align” EJ Element with other SoCo equity work: Office of Equity, RCPA, Regional Parks, CARD (Climate Action and Resiliency Division), Sonoma Clean Power etc.
-(should cities follow SoCo lead here? Sonoma will have an EJ Element? Sonoma seems resistant to opening too much GP equity material, IMO bc that will expose the city Housing Element as having underplayed equity and AFFH/ Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing issues)
BOS questions
Hopkins
-go beyond EWC work to more granular work in each community, Forestville is different than other communities
-west county issues: homeless, septic in Russian River area
-(EWC was pretty granular for SV EJ communities, maybe did not get Temelec and all mobile home parks)
Katrina says that MAC and CAC workshops, and public review period will provide more granular feedback
-and that given state timelines for GP updates, the EJ and SE need to be finished
Hopkins, ask MAC and CAC members who to reach out to? (note, Katrina already did this with the EWC and I provided her with a who’s who of SV equity-focused people)
Gorin
-connect with Paul Dunaway on aging/ senior issues, make state senior initiatives local
-put a senior lens on EJ and safety
-critical area: put mobile home parks into evac analysis, she notes Paul Gullixon’s book “Enflamed”
-how to evac seniors? Are there enough buses?
-require every new development to provide evac plans. Make hotels, VRs have evac plans
-GP be clear about evac analysis
Coursey
stays out of the weeds, for now
Gore
Make sure EJ community ID is consistent with other methods of DAC/ DUC ID (but these can’t be consistent if diff agencies use diff criteria)
-SoCo residents want paving but don’t want gravel quarries; don’t externalize county enviro impacts
-SoCo needs to own it”; don’t push the burden to other communities (LPG tankers?)
Katrina
yes, watch out for unintended consequences
Gore
-By-right housing, people are scared of affordable housing but prior BOS made it by-right
-he draws parallel to city-centered growth (USA/ urban service area growth too? 12 USAs in SoCo) but people don’t want it; “housing is a preeminent justice issue”, how does EJ and SE intersect with Housing Element?
Katrina
-EJ only focuses on housing conditions and pollution/ enviro exposure
-(Fred made point in EWC process that housing was the primary aggregating indicator of well-being, and thus, equity, AFFH, EJ, housing, all interrelated
Gore
-Where housing should be located, make it by-right
Scott Orr
EJ communities map shows housing burden areas (but only by Tract)
Gore
-Make Specific Plans in unincorporated areas, at intersection of county and cities: Springs-Sonoma, SR-Roseland/ Moorland
-prioritize infrastructure in lived-in areas, sidewalks, gutters
Rabbitt
-have GPs be general
-keep it relevant and in use for as long as possible, broad, general
-he sees impulse to more specificity as based on short-term political issues to stop something or to advocate for something (as if impulse to more general does not have a political dimension as well, i.e., to undercount EJ communities)
-he prefers ongoing updates to get specificity
-address disaster response, refers to Turkey earthquakes
-”People want more DACs bc they want to get more money”
-how does EJ work on least expensive properties?
Katrina
-mapped EJ community areas have to be elevated and prioritized
-data-based decisions important to implementation
-recognize historic underinvestment (PS seems to me to be on the right track here, with it for Sonoma to emulate)
-EJ map and EJ Element provides a structure to monitor conditions and make sure SoCo is operating on best available info (best is most general when it comes to counting DUCs?)
(-self-contained community means you have to have all functions here, like Gore said)
-have an adaptable GP document
Gorin
Mentions Tract-level as too general, can get a better granular analysis on DUCs and DACs?
Katrina
-state use Tract, majority of state data is at Tract-level
-PS can “supplement with more community input”, (I sent my SV DUC study the next day)
-”Make data-based decisions”, continue to look at approaches we take
-for sub-Tract data she mentions timing and budget consolidations
-(on one had a call for best data, on the other, time and money preclude that, so we end up with less than best data; so what is it?)
Gorin
-SoCo failed to ID Springs DACs, does not want GP to lose track of people
-get additional data she says
Hopkins
-refers to general/ specific tension
-unique identities of smaller areas, integrity of small towns, can we do better? (to preserve and protect them?)_
-”do meet specific EJ community needs”
Katrina
-mandate of EJ is to meet needs of communities, with parks, public involvement etc (but not to address structural issues that create EJ communities and segregation…)
-if specific EJ communities to highlight, please suggest says Katrina
Public comment
Duane DeWitt
-for meaningful engagement, has to be authentic, not just pro forma; engagement needs to be acted on or said why not
-put “shalls” in or else it is all just aspirational
Thomas Els
-each element has to be reflected in the others
Cactus Pete
-living cactus fire walls
-geoengineering
Laurel Chambers of Food System Alliance
-act on the FAP or Food Action Plan endorsed by BOS in 2012
-i have a lot of background on this, Sonoma endorsed FAP in 2014
Rue Furch
-there may not be many here today but many more are concerned about fire evac issues
Pete Parkinson
-sees PS as derelict for not doing SE sooner
Gail Yamamoto Seymour, NAACO EJ committee plus more
-please share list of all groups outreached to
Fred Allebach
-gives kudos to Katrina for acknowledging in staff report that housing is a critical indicator of well being and lack of secure housing has cascading negative health effects
-also good on PS staff to lead with EWC comments and put all of them in packet appendix, this is consistent with EJ public feedback being heard and being taken seriously
-easy enough to do a Block Group-level to properly ID DACs, use LAFCO tool, don't leave 1000s of people unaccounted for as EJ communities by using a Tract method that doesn’t accurately see DACs
-EJ and Safety Element are in tension, on one had many want to protect small-town-rural character, but this has effect of being exclusive and maintaining segregation, and ends up working against EJ, equity, and inclusiveness
-disaster planning can’t go against AFFH law, DACs, DUCs and EJ communities have to be accounted for with AFFH; where Housing Element intersects with EJ and SE
-need consistent overall social justice policy themes
-tensions between exclusivity and inclusivity need to be balanced
Fred’s post-meeting thoughts
There was not strong consensus that the GP be more general than specific but the tension between these poles was noted; Gorin wanted many specifics on fire evac, some were concerned about more DUC specifics; will fire evac specifics trump DUC specifics?
Fire evac, as a Safety Element item, has become highly politicized as it relates to new housing or commercial developments and any potential increases in population and traffic. This has breathed new life into the preserve local character cohort that has already not wanted to see any changes; this translates into a renewed vigor by small town character advocates to play the fire evac card against all new development.
Small town character people and fire evac advocates typically ignore the equity externalities of their positions. This is an ongoing blind spot; their righteous fight is against growth, sprawl, and developers; DACs are collateral damage whose interests are lost by omission.
VOTMA (Valley of the Moon Alliance), a member of the SDC Next 100 Coalition is seeking to limit development on Arnold Drive and Glen Ellen, has commissioned a fire evac study of its own that will likely be a lot more detailed than PS produces; will not be right for Sonoma Valley (SV) to have a very detailed plan but not the rest of county, this works into general/ specific tension, if SDC Next 100 insists on a very detailed evac plan in GP, then rest of county needs it too, and rest of county needs a very detailed DAC study.
Where do you stop with specifics in GP?
Hopkins plays the small town character card under different names “unique identities” and “integrity of small town areas”, her whisperer, Eric Koenigshofer was there but said nothing in public comment.
Gorin and Hopkins ask for a lot more GP evac details and specifics, not “general”; Gorin also asks for more DAC detail in Springs.
PS needs to match DAC detail to fire evac detail, if we are going to go the detail routes and times for fire evac, that needs equity balance to get more DAC/ EJ community details too.
Mobile home parks are a most serious evac issue for limited egress, put multiple exits in each park, get rid of so many speed humps.
Disaster evac, disaster response; fire has taken the top disaster planning billing but disaster prep in general will serve us all well if there is a major earthquake. Before the fires, we weren't prepared for a big quake. We in SoCo can be prepared but not hyper-vigilant and paranoid, this area has risks all know and accept to live here.
Gore keys on on Green Checkmate dynamic, says make EJ communities and DACs consistent with LAFCO DUC map. How to make consistent when diff agencies use diff criteria? This makes DAC ID a sort of elective issue of seeing more or less depending on political, or budget obligation preference.
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