Healsburg Measure O comment

 

Fred Allebach

NAACP Housing Committee

8/5/24

First glance thoughts on Healdsburg Measure O

A growth management ordinance (GMO) of 30 market rate per year in Healdsburg is pretty low, as well as treating  single family homes (SFHs) and multi-family homes  (MFHs) the same. 20 years ago when this GMO was put in, it was the height of the UGB, no growth movement. Those were different times. This is a significant barrier to new affordable housing (AH) now.

Measure O seems to be saying that some modification of the GMO for   “middle class” housing is the cure for low AH production. In this respect Healdsburg is similar to Sonoma, market rate overproduction and Moderate (Mod), Low (L), Very Low (VL) and Extremely Low-income (ELI)  underproduction. 

So what is “Middle class” housing by AMI and MHI range? We need to know that in Healdsburg. What is the constituency NAACP is seeking to back here given that Blacks in SoCo are over-represented in Section 8 vouchers and homeless, and by this measure, need the lower-income AH to find a home? Where do Blacks fit into Healdsburg’s terms of “middle class housing” and “workforce housing?” Are we backing BIPOC interests in general and in Healdsburg that is local Latinos?  

 

Infill and city centered development is IMO new code to keep single family zoning (SFZ) areas white and low density. This “smart growth” is good from a GHG standpoint but not from a social integration standpoint. Why? Because smart growth lets previous segregated zoning stand pat and does not ask for any changes in the underutilized space in SFZ areas. Smart growth puts green, environmental reasons at the top and minimizes remedies for past segregation. 

 

I need to know Healdsburg’s inclusionary ordinance rules. Sonoma has a 25% inclusionary ordinance that for rentals is 5% ELI, 10% VL and 10% L and for ownership is 5% L, 10% Mod, 10% Above Mod. Sonoma also has an exception that any unit 850 square feet and below does not count to the inclusion and is considered to be “affordable by design (ABD).” There is no proof that ABD does not sell for market rate prices here in Sonoma.   

What does the Healdsburg inclusion for essential workers? Are essential workers even targeted here?  Does it have a fair proportion of ELI, VL and L compared to Mod and Above Mod? Is for sale and for rent different in proportion for Healdsburg AH units?

 

Measure O seems like it is seeking to placate the SFZ areas and voters, most likely a very high percent white. This Measure O may be all that is politically do-able there. Do we take the best we can get? Maybe. I don’t know politics there, if similar to Sonoma, white SFZ NIMBYs are a strong force. A former council member here recently said that “any council member voting to upzone the SFZ east side would not be on the council very long…”  

If 85% of Healdsburg is SFZ, that’s a LOT. It seems that a modern redlining pattern has taken hold, where segregated SFZ areas are assumed to be “built out” and immune from any changes. We got ours, now all you BIPOC can live downtown with the worst noise and air areas. What’s good for the goose is not good for the gander. 

Oh, if everyone got a SFH and a yard, a dog, a garden and a fence, that would be “sprawl”, a fate worse than death for humanity. There is a certain amount of modern reedling that I just have to call BS on, yet it’s also true that endless sprawl ultimately ruins local geographies. 

Being actually sustainable is somewhere in the middle, IMO. This is where AFFH law comes in, with the Martinez v.Clovis precedent, too much SFZ and not enough AH production will get a Housing Element certification revoked. It remains to be seen if SoCo Legal Aid has the appetite to challenge exclusionary zoning in SoCo?

 

In Measure O, I see a standard bevy of build, build, build endorsers that see underutilized space as along commercial corridors and not in single family/ R1 low density zoned areas. There is merit to some of this smart growth planning but IMO, only if it gets balanced with strong lower-end AH inclusions/ production  and only if there is some effort to address exclusionary zoning in the rest of a municipality. 

 

Segregation happened primarily in the white-flight, SFZ areas but owing to entrenched modern redlining and land use practices, these areas are highly resistant to change. They have stacked the planning deck to their favor and the overt redlining verbiage has been taken away, leaving coded language (neighborhood character) and plans that achieve the same result of segregation. 

 

The GMO seems like it may be counter to AFFH, and also to meeting Healdsburg’s RHNA in as much as AFFH calls for integrating SFZ, higher opportunity areas. The Healdsburg GMO could be illegal for HCD, it could be an impediment to housing.   

 

Middle class and workforce housing are weasel word terms and really meaningless without an AMI and/or MHI calibration.. Healdsburg may have its calibration. What is it? We need to know what they are talking about. Typically the greatest need is for 60% AMI (area median income) and below, and for below 80% state MHI (median household income.) “Workforce” housing is typically up to 120% AMI? The workforce is middle class? What is middle class these days? Middle of what?  We don’t want weasel word coded terms to nix out lower income people, i.e. essential workers. Middle class is Above Mod and above? Workforce os Mod?  

 

If we throw in “essential workers” as part of the workforce, then we need it include Low, Very Low, and ELI too in the  workforce category, and not at token levels but full, equal levels to the other ranges.

 

IMO, MFH should be exempt in commercial corridors and in SFZ areas, but the NIMBY push back may be too high there, like in Sonoma. NAACP could hold out for an endorsement that peppers MFH exemptions into SFZ areas for AFFH/ equity purposes.

GenH and others talk about “gentle upzoning” and missing middle housing, and what we see really is a bunch of wishy washy terms to disguise what’s really happening. Gentle upzoning in SFZ areas, with small plexes and SB-9 units, will never be AH. Missing middle has been glossed to go all the way up to 160% AMI. What we see is kind of a shell game of terms and all ends up dialed to the highest profit and highest price point possible within these weaselword terms.

IMO an NAACP endorsement of Mearie O should be contingent on at least a 50% share of the AH production being for Low, Very Low and ELI (the other 50% being for Mod, Above Mod and “missing middle.”. Because, if we are going to wat for supply to be increased to a level where prices come down, we will be waiting a long time here in SoCo.

Alternatively, if NAACP Measure O endorsement is a political calculation to hang with GenH and Greenbelt etc, then those outfits can be asked to leverage their heft to making sure the lower-end AH production as a result of Measure O is proportional to the need. 

Median household income (MHI)

CA MHI 2022 ACS Survey is $91,551 (80% is $73,240)

SoCo MHI 2022 ACS Survey $96,830 (80% is $77,464) 

Area median income (AMI), depends oh household size

• Acutely low income: 0-15% of AMI

• Extremely low income:  15-30% of AMI

• Very low income:  30% to 50% of AMI

• Lower income:  50% to 80% of AMI; the term may also be used to mean 0% to 80% of AMI

• Moderate income:  80% to 120% of AMI  

 

Sonoma General Plan land use comment

 

Fred Allebach

8/19/24

Public comment for 8/22/24 Sonoma Planning Commission (PC) meeting, Agenda item 5.1 General Plan land use

 

Given Sonoma’s role as the hub of Sonoma Valley (SV) and that many SV stakeholders are looking to Sonoma to provide leadership on smart growth and dense infill so as to not push the city UGB or have urban service area-edge projects like SDC and Hanna, or even the SSP (Springs Specific Plan), a broader typology of housing, city land use, and zoning is called for to meet the diverse needs of the full SV demographic, not just that of Sonoma.

In an interconnected valley, Sonoma is not an island.  

 

Suggestion: Since the land use map controls zoning and all that follows, look to create a planning process to get the outcomes we are looking for. “We” is the whole community: renters, owners, upper middle class, the “workforce”, essential workers, Latinos, seniors; all. All have different sets of interests and material needs that land use planning can account for. A balanced and inclusive city General Plan (GP) land use map needs to reflect this diverse set of community stakeholders. 

 

Hold in mind ideological, racial, and class inclusiveness in the General Plan (GP) land use map. Start with this map and then make a policy palette to give an appropriate variety of pragmatic and ideological remedies for various community land use needs, housing in particular, that are reflected first in land uses and then aligned in zoning and critical pieces made by-right in the Code.

By ideology I mean allow and be open to planning parameters as seen by UC Berkeley Terner Center and Otheing and Belonging Institute, not just the Embarcadero Institute. The UC Berkeley view embraces puts renters on equal footing with property owners as legit community stakeholders.  

 

Sonoma needs the political will to address affordable housing (AH) from all the angles that it can. Frame AH in terms of adaptive and inclusive demographic planning. Find options in land use and make plans. This is a worthy GP land use map goal. Realize that duplexes and ADUs are not going to do anything for the bulk of AH needs; they are a false panacea for AH. 

Let everyone have  a stake in Planning Commission recommendations. Realize that local control is only good if all local voices are heard and represented, and that many renters see state housing laws as good and necessary to protect their stakes. Hear and respect the renting cohort. Don’t let land use map set the stage for more modern redling, acknowledge that past map and zoning practices have amounted to that. Change is good. 

BAFA Bond or bust? That the Sonoma Valley Fund got $20 million donated to the hospital, and that anti-SDC groups reportedly have a multimillion dollar war chest, that La Luz can raise a half million in one night, and that Impact 100 gives away very large sums yearly shows that money is not as big a barrier to local AH as it looks. Where there is a will, there is a way. The land use map can and should assume progressive changes can happen.   

 

Possible options

Put on your can-do hat and re-imagine Sonoma! Smart growth infill applies to ALL of the small city, not just Highway 12. Plan for a transit ring around the city to pick up pockets of planned-for dense residential hubs and areas in all quadrants of town; cash in on transit bonuses etc. Transit can go in ex-post-facto.  

Put all land use options on the table for the First Congregational Church (FCC) lot, so they can get to a dense, multi-story, 50+-unit AH project. Don’t hamstring their potential by limiting their options.  

 

Create four-plus AH overlay zones with a minimum of 40% balanced AH between ELI, VL, L and Mod units., foster the community housing outcomes looked for. If someone wants to develop, they can develop this or other city-mandated prescriptions.  

 

Bump up all zoning to increase density. Bump up FAR (floor area ratio), site coverage, height, and setback allowances etc. Allow no one type of residential zoning to be more than 25% of total residential land use. 

 

Sonoma is now 65% R1 and 70+% low-density, single family zoning which can be seen as and is exclusionary. This needs to be chipped away at to make a more balanced zoning and land use portfolio. Reduce R1 to less than 25% of all residential areas and add more medium and high density in current yellow, R1 areas 

 

For character, focus on social fabric and social character deficits as equal in priority to visual character; in this view, some upzoning of R1 needs to happen. It won’t work for inclusivity, to try and cram all new density into the same current footprint so as to retain visual character. Sonoma land use needs to adapt and evolve and set the table for the next generation in this GP; consider the coming generation. Social character, ie., a diverse community, needs a seat at the table and to have land use reflect pathways to that inclusivity. 

 

Have an eye to make land use and Code housing prescriptions actually work, have some teeth, so as to get what we want and what is right for a just society here. Land use then zoning then by-right Code; create the path for easy action, not a labyrinth of blockades.       

 

In upzoning of R1 low density yellow areas to medium and high density, do so in a proportional way so all sides of town bear an equal upzoning. If some sides have a density deficit, they may need to take more. The central west side and mobile home park areas of the city have strong disadvantaged community (DAC) components and it will not be fair by AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing) standards to load more dense, low-income housing plans there while allowing the whole east side to skate.

Somebody on the PC take up AFFH as their cross to bear, study but good, advocate for it, to be a proxy voice for equity in city planning. 

Low density,  single family home areas are not “built out.”  Keep in mind that the three locations on Hwy 12 set aside in the city 6th cycle RHNA site inventory for lower income housing are all infeasible in serious ways and that the city has already started to accumulate a 6th cycle lower-income housing deficit. Where is the land use map going to account for lower income housing when these Hwy 12 sites go bust? Will the city have to eat an SB-35 by-right remedy because of lack of lower-income housing RHNA production?  

 

Plan for land use with one large, high density, 50-unit lot/ project per city-quadrant with an AH overlay as part of a land use planning palette to give appropriate variety of ideological remedies to the city’s residential pattern. 

 

Key in on state AFFH law as guidance for what’s needed in land use; study Martinez v.Clovis case to see how too much R1 zoning is exclusionary. 

 

Focus on TCAC (tax credit) high and medium opportunity areas in the city for upzoning and innovative land use prescriptions to increase AH there. Prescribe what we want to see on the Sebastiani site, do all you can so big lots and housing opportunity areas do not keep going market rate. Don’t let the Sebastiani site get away with just the inclusionary requirement.

When developers say stuff does not pencil, recall that vampire squid mobile home park investors say the same exact thing, they can’t make a profit. Well, we need to see the books before we can believe any of that. The city attorney said it is not a taking to upzone, and it’s likely not a taking to prescribe what the city wants as long as some profit can be made.   

Allow more of what was done for residential building in the past, allow variety in building types, let builders run with it and have some fun. 

Allow lots to put in a mobile home, not just ADUs.

Look for land to make a new mobile home park that is not in a flood plain. 

 

Possible larger sites: Get bold! 

Sebastiani commercial area. This TCAC High Resource Opportunity Area. Cash in on that.  

 

Armstrong Estates. Combine lots on Napa St. East to meet minimum AH-size lot; change the conditions of approval; that area has lots of wasted space. Those guys should not be able to buy segregation.  

 

Give the city-owned St. Francis Preserve to Satellite Affordable Housing Associate for AH production. Let them deal with the restrictions and getting them lifted.  

 

Vallejo field between FCC and condos to the east. Use state excess land program; that slice if the field is already compromised by houses that have about zero visual character.  

Doyle lot. Have the Catalyst Fund cohort buy it, get the option from DeNova. Work with the county to prezone for a great, dense, multi-income, integrated project. It looks like the prime opponent to Doyle density has sold his property.   

 

Expand the UGB and SOI on an a la carte basis to take advantage of lower land prices, Habitat example at 285 Napa Rd. This will make an end run on land price speculation and overly restrictive UGB by allowing extra-SOI a la carte annexations from adjacent land that is at a lower price. A small annexation here or there is not “sprawl”, give up some of the anti-growth purity and see local land use with new eyes.

 

Take poison pills out of UGB ordinance language, these are part of an overall modern redlining land use pattern. A low-density protective stance contributes to housing shortages. Allow more pragmatic flexibility to achieve the housing equity Sonoma needs.

 

 

 

Exclusivity displaces inclusivity

 

Fred Allebach

8/14/24

 

Exclusivity displaces inclusivity

 

Sonoma Valley is a fractal of coastal California where there has been a long-term, land use chess game to restrict growth which is seen as implicitly bad and destructive. In reality, growth has simply reflected the US birthrate. This game has been played by a determined Boomer cohort who emigrated to the suburbs in a tide of white flight in the 70s, 80s and 90s. They came here and to other nice places in the US and now want to build a wall and don't want any more people to come based on cumulative negative impacts to the environment. 

 

This cohort’s wealth and power came about because of the very same growth they decry. This Boomer group is now made up of mostly white, upper middle class, senior property owners whose voices are over-represented in local government and public policy formation, like an oppressive HOA.

 

This group now has a valley-wide coalition galvanized around and against SDC, the Hanna project, and the Springs Specific Plan. CEQA lawsuits and appeals are and have been used to stall and kill projects and plans that address California’s housing supply and demand issues, RHNA, and the state housing crisis, all of which are seen as illegitimate. Environmental issues and impacts are played way up, socials issues not so much.  

 

A Green Checkmate dynamic is created where environmental reasons forestall any pushing of local perimeters but where people in the core urban service area also resist all dense infill. All land use change is fought and resisted. The longer CEQA stalling goes on, the more powerful and entrenched local elites and the Green Checkmate get because smaller fish are increasingly displaced because of super high housing burdens. This is the demographics of displacement. See the new NPOB/ Legal Aid displacement map: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e69a2477c76542279c910a3ded1f9b65   

 

The results of this aggregate game have their demographic effects. Restricting land use raises prices and ensures that mostly market rate housing is all that can be built. As land and housing prices are driven up by restricted access, valley public policy voices sort to more of the dominant Boomer cohort. This cements their control, and acts to displace disadvantaged communities whose voices are lost. Because of lack of dominant-class political will and money; near all the affordable housing built is from inclusions only, and policy loopholes therein allow even those to be bypassed. 

 

The higher the land costs get, the less able anyone is to build affordable housing. Demographics here are steering here to an elite, high-end, high-resource community where aggregate land use amounts to modern redlining under the guise of environmental protection. A good chunk of this checkmate situation derives from aggregate “local control” policy choices.

 

Centering on and animated by Green Checkmate issues, the local controllers (formerly known as NIMBYs) downplay and ignore local inequity issues and/or set pragmatically impossible conditions to ameliorate them. When rules and policy get made, (urban growth boundary for example) they are tweaked to the advantage of the controllers. The local Latino immigrant community and the essential worker class are having their lunch eaten on public policy and land use issues and for various reasons are not producing self-deterministic community leaders to fight for their interests.   

 

Meanwhile, the US has an aging population shifting to more elderly and less youth. The Boomer generation has accumulated many material and legal advantages but now needs youth and vitality to serve and sustain them in their old age. 

 

In Sonoma Valley there is youth and vitality in the form of the Latino immigrant community, but this cohort is mainly in the unincorporated Springs area that has the least political power and influence in overall Sonoma Valley land use issues. Youth and vitality here are second class citizens.  

 

Sonoma and surrounding valley elite, wealthy unincorporated areas do address demographics in policy but only insofar as it affects their interests. Yet, for overall environmental impacts, higher wealth translates to higher greenhouse gas footprint, more energy use, and more environmental impacts. It is elites, upper middle class and above, who are in fact the most unsustainable, here and in the world. This group wants to have its cake and eat it too in Sonoma Valley, to disproportionately hoard resources in a nice place and then deny any new people the same opportunity. Exclusivity displaces inclusivity.  

 

Fire evacuation and perceived water shortages are more than pawns in the land use chess game here, they are bishops and knights. Wealth and CEQA appeals and lawsuits are the queen. In local land use policy we see alternative universes of facts colliding; the elite cohort floods the media with their views, over-representing their policy flavors, interests, and rationales to the detriment of overall inclusivity and equity.

 

State housing laws are increasingly under attack by this dominant class. Broad-spectrum housing advocates, renters, and housing burdened constituents support these state laws and want results. The message to housing burdened lower middle class and essential workers get when officials trash state housing laws is that local elites are not fighting for them, not looking out for them, this is the sort of dynamic that tips the working class to populism and Trumpism.

 

The more the renter cohort, near 45% of county residents, hears local gov’t and property owners get on the anti-state housing law bandwagon, the more renters see them as out of touch with their issues and interests. These laws, after all, are designed to break logjams of too much local control that has prevented the building of adequate housing supply. Too much local control in Sonoma Valley has stifled growth and has tipped housing prices to an unsupportably high level.

 

Local upper middle-class controllers see themselves as fighting a good fight against capitalism, corporate power, growth, developers, and perceived corrupt state housing laws and to save the environment. In this struggle, those below them in the pyramid of society are forgotten and are maybe thrown a few noblesse oblige crumbs to prevent an all-out revolt.

 

For these reasons, the lower-income cohorts struggling to get by don’t see much difference between political parties. All politicians talk and promise but the fundamental inequalities of society never change. No one gives up advantages. Politicos are voted in by the powerful, even in districts designed to share power with protected classes. Given that people cling to power, the local Boomer cohort will not move over gracefully and let the young share power, be included, and decide their own fate in Sonoma Valley.

 

Checkmate. 

 

Fred Allebach is a member of a number of county and Sonoma Valley government commissions and committees.

 

 

 

VOMWD Trinty Oaks annexation

 

Fred Allebach

8/16/24

 

Regarding the VOMWD (Valley of the Moon Water District) Trinity Oaks annexation proposal at SoCo LAFCO

https://sonomalafco.org/Microsites/LAFCO/Documents/2024%20Meetings/August%207%202024/Item%204.1%20Staff%20Report%20VOMWD%20MSR.pdf  

 

It seems all are in agreement with an annexation to serve the few parcels that have legitimate water-needs issues. This annexation however, has opened a window to Sonoma Valley (SV) land use and planning wars centered around SDC, the Hanna project, and the Springs Specific Plan.

 

LAFCO gets pulled into local power struggles when questions arise about services in potential annexations. How services affect social fabric is part of annexation and municipal service reviews. The CALAFCO site says, “LAFCO decisions form the basis of sustainable regional planning and strive to balance the competing needs in California for efficient services, affordable housing, economic opportunity, and conservation of natural resources.”

 

Given that affordable housing is a legit LAFCO consideration, there is a nexus between ag and open space preservation and accounting for local DUCs and social and economic communities of interest. 

 

A core question: is the SV urban service area (USA), one of 12 in SoCo, a legitimate land use unit to see as appropriate for infill, smart growth, and conforming to the SoCo RHNA allocation? USA infill to address the the SoCo Housing Element, AFFH, and RHNA seems to meet needed housing supply objectives that impact affordability and to not qualify as “sprawl.”  

 

Sprawl is more at development into greenfields where there is not a USA present.

 

LAFCO staff report language in the Trinity Oaks annexation, concerning the condition of SV water supply context, both groundwater and aqueduct water, is now a pawn in this above-noted SV land use battle. What we have is a framing and messaging struggle over water supply that plays into what I call the Green Checkmate, where tremendous pressure is put to not expand any boundaries but where locals heavily resist any dense infill as well.

 

With land use being so heavily constricted in SV, housing prices have gone through the roof. LAFCO has a role here to balance the municipal service forces in play. LAFCO policy decisions have to account for DUCs and housing affordability. This is why I suggested at the August 2024 LAFCO Board meeting, that an appropriate and pragmatic water policy is not to be exclusive and build a wall and allow no more new users but to have an inclusive, efficient policy of “the more straws (into water supply), the less each.”  This means all have to sacrifice for the greater good. 

 

As I see it, at the August LAFCO Board meeting, successful pressure was brought by some Board members and by Norman Gilroy of SDC Next100 and Mobilize Sonoma etc., to make the language about VOMWD water capacity more stringent and to set verbal precedents re: SV water conditions that will serve to work against approval of and/ or water service to: SDC, Hanna, the Springs Specific Plan, and even 100% affordable housing projects. This even though Director Bramfitt felt he had already accurately described local water conditions. 

 

Part of the issue here is that groundwater (GW) makes up a portion of VOMWD’s supply. Sonoma Valley has a state Department of Water Resources high-risk GW basin with a Groundwater Sustainability Agency. Gilroy et al are making a case that the percent of overall VOMWD supply that constitutes GW may not be or is not adequate when the overall water demand from SDC, Hanna, the SSP, the Krug hotel, the MidPen 100% affordable housing project, and from projected RHNA numbers, and when the effect of state housing laws are all considered in aggregate. Gilroy et al don’t see all these projects etc. accounted for in the VOMWD UWMP (Urban Water Management Pan.) 

 

This is basically a CEQA cumulative impact argument that is being made, and CEQA lawsuits are the tool being used to fight SV urban service area infill projects. CEQA reform has been called for because of the negative effect it has had on state housing production and resultant high prices, especially in coastal California. 

 

The Sonoma Water UWMP does say there is enough water and top Sonoma Water staff have recently said as much to the SV Community Advisory Commission. Whether or not there is enough water depends on who you are talking to and what spin they are bringing to the table, even at the highest levels of regional water management.   

 

It is reasonable to have GW supply and demand figures align, and it is also reasonable to weigh this in the context of supply and demand for housing in SV and SoCo. IMO, water scarcity cannot end up as a reason to build a wall and maintain SV as an elite location that has increasingly displaced DUCs and DACs. This kind of consideration is on LAFCO’s turf. My own 2020 US Census, 2022 American Community Survey update studies indicate that if one were to take the most liberal (but literal) SB-244 interpretation in counting/ locating local SV DACs and DUCs, there are a lot, and contiguous to the city of Sonoma.     

 

Any LAFCO Trinity Oaks annexation analysis that sets precedents for SV water supply overall, IMO, should grasp the full subtlety of the local GSP (Groundwater Sustainability Plan) and whether the Gilroy scarcity argument really holds water in the context of the GSP, VOMWD supply, and the Sonoma Water UWMP.

 

There is a deep aquifer depletion area (one of two) near the golf course on Arnold Drive but the most serious depletion area is nowhere near VOMWD supply wells, and the deep aquifer is not like a big underground lake that is all at the same level. The SV basin surface aquifer system is sustainable in the sense that it recharges quickly with rain. All in all, California has had periodic drought for 1000s of years, and inhabitants adapt during those periods by curtailing use. 

 

The SV GSP also has built-in growth rates and accounts for future uses, has sustainability metrics etc. that may not all conform to a simple GW accounting. VOMWD itself, by its very existence, offsets GW use to a high level. 

 

So, an appeal is now made to LAFCO to, in the Trinity Oaks annexation analysis, to put a negative, more severe spin on the impact of SV USA (urban service area) infill, and on state housing laws, and link these to VOMWD water supply capacity and GW use.

 

If housing impact issues are to be brought up, I suggest LAFCO must also include and address points about water capacity related to SV disadvantaged unincorporated communities (DUCs) and housing supply for them. Is it legal to use water scarcity rationales to bypass RHNA, and Housing Element/ General Plan-required laws State laws like AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. These laws and policies are necessary to address the cumulative negative impact of CA housing underproduction and for social justice. There are also a variety of CA fair-use water laws and policies to protect DAC’s and DUCs interests. Water has to be portioned so everyone gets a share, not so some sequester the supply to keep an elite lifestyle and have more than their fair share.

 

As well, the Green Checkmate has resulted in a sitiation where pretty much only market rate housing can be built. In many cases all that gets done for affordability stems from project inclusionary requirements. In Sonoma from 2000 - 2020 there is a demonstrable RHNA underproduction deficit for Moderate, Low and Very Low-income units. Mod, L, and VL underproduction by 263 units and market rate overproduction by 296 units, see ABAG RHNA production website.

 

Even though the Springs has take proportionally more 100% affordable projects than Sonoma, as we look at SV as a whole, when water limits are considered to maybe foretell more development, as I suggested at the August LAFCO Board meeting, to account for local DUC’s/ essential workers/ BIPOC protected class’s place in the community, a water-use placeholder needs to be maintained so that by the time any 100% affordable projects come along, those DUCs will not be pre-displaced by an argument that there is not enough water to go around and only the wealthy can live here.    

 

Here we see CEQA and environmental considerations ending up in tension and conflict with RHNA and AFFH. What takes priority over what? My ask here to LAFCO staff and the LAFCO Board, is that if water is to be used as a political football: address the full scope of laws and policies that impact and are impacted by local water use and supply. LAFCO should be fair and address all possible sides of this calculus, and not end up as a proxy agent of any one side or the other in SV land use wars. 

 

If laws and policies conflict, that needs to be noted. In sustainability, there is a triple bottom line for which there needs to be full cost accounting. Economic, environmental, and social pillars are all equal and necessary legs to support a balanced policy stool. Equity and social factors for the little guys can't always come in last place. When LAFCO considers services allocation and annexations, the triple bottom line and full cost accounting should be in play in your calculus.   

 

A full spectrum analysis by LAFCO of water and other services includes impacts that affect a pro-housing agenda as reflected in state housing laws. West-of-Arnold property owners are not the only community stakeholders and interests here. If we have water used as a political football, the spin needs to also include the displacement effects of a limited growth, austere water policy on DACs and DUCs in SV. And include a presumption that state housing laws are for the benefit of housing-burdened renters and lower-income, essential worker people, many of whom are BIPOC, protected classes, EJ communities, and DUCs. These people need water too and should have their place held for future water use here in SV.

 

It can’t be fair that land use is all framed from a pull-up-the-drawbridge, environmental issues-only standpoint because this then amounts to using water scarcity alarmism as a reason for that ends up being modern redlining.  

 

 

Tourism Improvement District proposal

 

Fred Allebach

7/30/25

Proposal for city to leverage Tourism Improvement District (TID) reauthorization for local full cost accounting sustainable tourism 

 

Abstract

-True sustainability calls for an equity component for labor.

-Sonoma sustainable tourism lacks this component.

-Equity has been externalized in Sonoma economic policy.

-Business and city economic interests appear as paternalistic, and justify an unsustainable economy as necessary.

-TID reauthorization is a chance for the city to leverage more labor equity. 

-The city can restructure the TID to make for specific labor benefits or it can demand, for TID reauthorization, that hotels have a non-interference policy to union organizing. 

 

What is Sustainability? 

Sustainability is a popular and apt public policy frame that includes a triple bottom line (TBL), and full cost accounting. No unaccounted-for negative externalities allowed. Triple bottom line means that economy, environment, and society (profit, planet, and people) all have to be accounted for as equal public policy pillars. Unfortunately, the meaning of sustainability has been altered and watered down in many cases so as to not include people and equity.

By not including people and equity, many so-called sustainability initiatives are actually unsustainable when measured against what the full sustainability paradigm really means. See University of Illinois at Urbana curriculum on Sustainability.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/sustainability 

 

Lack of equity is understandable since in hierarchical class society, workers interests are the greatest by number but the lowest by political power. Today, business and government have framed sustainability to be all environmental, and to only reflect their economic interests, externalizing the interests of labor.  

 

 

The City Council can leverage TID reauthorization to gain concessions for labor interests

It’s not an unreasonable ask for the Council to leverage TID reauthorization with some concessions to labor. Make reauthorization contingent on wider benefit sharing with labor. 

 

Why? Sustainable tourism calls for it. The wine-tourism-hospitality combine is making high profits and the benefits need to be better shared to cover negative externality social costs.

 

Prices don’t need to go up for labor to have a fair share of the pie, all that needs happen is for business to lower its profit margin which by objective measure is quite high.  https://home.binwise.com/blog/wine-industry-growth-rate   

 

Since the City Council has all the cards to grant a TID reauthorization, the TID terms of agreement can be changed to reflect new, fully sustainable priorities. 

 

Maybe the city can simply leverage the local hotels to get an agreement to have a no interference policy with union organizing actions (card check), like with the Plaza hotel agreement? 

 

What are tourism’s local negative externalities?

The city and county, by boosting a luxury tourism market to finance themselves with TOT, have presided over an economic regime where all prices are artificially inflated. Local prices, food, and rents are affordable only to the upper middle class and to wealthy tourists and homebuyers. This has made all prices unaffordable to the wine-tourism-hospitality combine workforce. While government and business reap strong financial benefits, workers do not.

 

A living wage with health benefits is not an unreasonable ask. Otherwise an argument is made that only by being unsustainable, can our economy work. That seems like an unreasonable proposition.

 

Local hotel union movement

A hotel union movement is afoot in Sonoma Valley. Sonoma Mission Inn is in process and has passed critical thresholds of organizing. The Plaza hotel has an agreement innplace to not interfere with union organizing. 

 

Benchmarks will soon be set so wine-tourism-hospitality combine workers can look forward to a living wage with benefits. This will put pressure in non-union hotels to ante up. This need not be an adversarial process and indeed, TBL, full cost accounting sustainability calls for city government to back labor and equity interests on equal ground with business and profit interests.     

 

What is sustainable tourism?

Samuel Mendlinger, Sustainable Tourism professor at Boston College says, “... tourism is not hospitality. The goal is not to provide the best service possible to our client/tourist; rather, true tourism development has three clients who all must be satisfied: (1) the tourist who we wish to provide with the best memories and experiences possible; (2) the local population who we wish to aid in wealth and good job creation; and (3) the future, so we wish not to destroy or seriously damage the environment or the local culture.”

 

Sustainable tourism is defined by the UN Environment Program and UN World Tourism Organization as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.” 

 

This is TBL, full cost accounting. This is what Sustainability is and what sustainable tourism is: TBL, full cost accounting. 

  

City sustainable tourism is lacking a social component and is therefore unsustainable.  These same concepts were presented to the TID Board many years ago by myself and Tom Conlon. Sustainable tourism still lacks an equity component for labor; there has been little to no equity movement at the TID or the Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau or in city economic policy. What we see are attempts to mitigate negative externalities in ways that do not squatley address the inequity that is in fact created by a city economic policy that is biased to business interests so as to fund the city. 

 

Special District policy? 

Who approves this TID special district? Just the Council? LAFCO? Is CA special district formation law in effect for the TID?

 

Why not change the TID’s terms? 

The TID, like all policy is not cast in stone. Other types of special districts can levy fees etc. and use them for certain purposes. TID conditions of approval can be reformatted to include sustainable tourism equity goals, which are currently lacking in city sustainable tourism. By close analysis of city web pages, sustainable tourism is all about the economy and environment, not one word on equity which is an integral component of real sustainability. 

 

The city Sustainable Tourism page does specify environmental sustainability, but where do we see and find social sustainability as equitable economic outcomes for labor in any city policy?  

 

Branding and ad campaigns versus reality

In the mid 2000s, as sustainability burgeoned as a cutting edge policy concept, SoCo and Sonoma Valley wine rebranded themselves quickly as sustainable. But this Vintners Alliance designation is self-certified and has no social equity aspect. Wineries and vineyards resist union organizing and workers rights in fire conditions. 

 

The combine and the city appear as paternalistic to labor, not seeing labor as an integral and essential part of the TBL that needs equal accounting for. 

 

By objective measure, the wine-tourism-history combine is not sustainable because the negative externalities of worker’s poverty are unaccounted for. UN Sustainable Development Goals do not externalize the people who hold society from the equation.  

 

8000 SV residents are food insecure

Case in point, 8000 SV residents are food insecure, this in an area where the wine-tourism-hospitality combine is the main economic driver. Profits are not being equitably shared. 

https://www.sonomanews.com/article/news/report-8000-sonoma-valley-residents-face-food-insecurity/  

 

Sonoma labor relations? 

City economic policy seems to favor the management class over the labor class. There is no city funding to unions or to working class advocate organizations. The Chamber, a business interests outfit, manages the city’s economic policy and receives a good chunk of money every year. The TID generates 100s of $1000s of dollars a year which funds the city and the SVVB, where is the city’s overall labor equity component? 

 

Is City management staff union? Is City management in tension with city unions? To what extent can it be said that the city is biased to management and business interests?