Planning Commission, Cac & Pros - Regular Meeting

Okay, it's on. Okay. I'm calling this meeting to order. It is 6 o'clock. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Willers? Here. Commissioner Barnett?

Here.

Commissioner Dombach? Here. Commissioner Gorman-Jenkins? Here. Commissioner O'Neill?

Here.

And Vice Chair Nugent?

Here.

Thank you. I'd like to point out that Chair Weyrich is absent from tonight's meeting.

Approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda?

I move to approve. Second.

A roll call, please.

Commissioner Willers? Yes. Commissioner Barnett?

Yes.

Commissioner Dombach? Yes. Commissioner Ogorman-Jenkins? Aye. Commissioner O'Neill? Yes. And Vice Chair Nugent? Yes. Thank you. The motion passes unanimously.

Ms. Stilkamp, would you like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Please stand.

To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please be seated. Comments from the public. At this time, members of the public may comment on any item not appearing on the agenda this evening. It's recommended that members of the public keep their comments to three minutes or less. For items appearing on the agenda this evening, the public will be invited to make comments at the time that that item comes up for commission consideration. Upon being acknowledged by the chair, when you come to speak, step up to the podium and speak into the microphone, please. Begin by stating and spelling your name. Is there any comments from the public? Please come forward.

Do you have copies of the agenda?

Copies of the agenda are located outside by the door on the podium. You can also access the agenda through the city's website if needed.

Any other, yes, do you have a comment?

Just briefly. My name is Jeanette Harrison. Did you want me to spell it? Would you please? J-E-A-N-N-E-T-T-E. Last name Harrison. H-A-R-R-I-S-O-N. I'm a owner of a unit at Meadow Gardens. And... I really haven't had time to look at the agenda, but this is in regards to the First Street East project, 254 First Street East.

And my main concern at this point is that the- May I interrupt you? Excuse me, Ms. Harrison. That item is actually on the agenda. So when that comes up, we can address that then. Oh, OK. No problem. So this time is for public comment that is not agendized. I see. OK, thank you. So please come back up at the proper time. Thank you. Is there any other public comment that is not on the agenda? Seeing none, let's move to the consent calendar. receiving the minutes from the regular Planning Commission on April 16th and then we have 3.2 is the discussion consideration and possible action to approve an extension of 254 first second Street East or first Street East entitlements First of all, are there any changes to the minutes? Do we want to vote on those now and separate out? OK. May I have a motion to approve?

I'd like to abstain because I wasn't there.

Move to approve. Second.

Roll call, please.

Commissioner Willers? Yes. Commissioner Barnett? Aye. Commissioner Dombach? Yes. Commissioner O'Gorman-Jenkins? Aye. And Vice Chair Nugent? Aye. Thank you. The motion passes.

Moving to item 3.2, the discussion, consideration, and possible action to approve an extension for previously approved entitlements encompassing a tentative subdivision map, use permit, planned development permit, design review, lot line adjustment, and demolition permit for the construction of 31 unit for sale condominiums project, including two affordable housing units. At this time, Commissioner Willers.

I'm going to recuse myself due to association with the project.

Thank you. And seeing as that we do have public comment, Bill will leave the room. And Ms. Harrison, would you like to come forward?

Thank you. I guess my problem is I haven't seen, wasn't able to access any description of what the extension consists of. That's one thing. The only thing I wanted to point out at this time is that not knowing when the project is going to break ground or get started, I do think there's an urgent need for that property to be cleaned up. I feel like it's becoming a fire hazard. My property is right on the other side of the fence that, you know, I guess I'm on the east side of the fence and the property would be the west side. And anyway, I think that attention to the cutting back all the overgrown trees, not trees, but shrubs and blackberry vines and tall grass and cactus. I've had huge cactus things falling over onto my side of the fence. Anyway, if that could be addressed or Kilby could, whoever the current property owners are could address that. You don't need to do it now. I just need to raise it as an issue so that it gets taken care of. I feel like it's close to being a fire hazard. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other public comment?

Is this general public comment or just on this matter?

We've closed the general public. For this particular matter, that is still open. The public comment for things that are not on the agenda has actually been closed. But is it something that we can open up again, Jennifer? OK. Anything else regarding to 254 First Street East? Commissioner comments.

Well, generally the request for an extension for the permit entitlements is a fairly standard or common occurrence And to elucidate for the public, it basically just extends for a purpose of one year, which is the maximum that's allowed to be extended, those permits and the entitlements. And then at the end of that one year extension period, if the project has not moved ahead, then it would have to go through the permitting process all over again in order to receive those permits. In other words, this process of extensions is not unlimited.

Thank you. Any other comments? Yes.

We were all excited about this project, and I think we're still excited about the project. I do have a question that I want to raise for the Commission and for staff. My understanding and I have not had any recent discussions is that the project has not been picked up by any developer to purchase And I wonder if there's something we as a community should be doing to make it easier for a developer to be enticed and interested in a project like this, because this is the kind of housing we want. I don't know if there's the ability tapped into our housing development fund or anything along those lines, but I just want to raise the issue that we all love this project and want to see it go forward. Absolutely in favor of the extension, but wondering what we can do as the city of Sonoma and as a community to to help get a project like this actually breaking ground and get it built. Thank you.

Any other comments from the commissioners? Would the applicant like to speak? OK. Seeing as there's no more comments from the commissioners and or from the applicant, is there a motion?

I'll move to approve the request for an extension.

Second.

Roll call, please. Commissioner Barnett?

Aye.

Commissioner Dombach? Yes. Commissioner O'Gorman-Jenkins? Aye. Commissioner O'Neill? Yes. And Vice Chair Nugent?

Aye.

Thank you. The motion passes.

Thank you. Moving to item four, public hearing, item 4.1, a discussion, consideration, and possible action to approve a sign permit for the installation of a new illuminated wall sign, window signage, and banners at 19201 Sonoma Highway, including action to approve a categorical exemption pursuant to section 15301 and section 15301 accessory structures and the state CEQA guidelines.

Perfect timing.

Sorry about that. All right. So I'm Associate Planner Jacob Dunn, and I'll be talking about the new sign proposal at the Maxwell Village Shopping Center at 19201 Sonoma Highway. The project is located in the West Napa Sonoma Corridor at the Maxwell Village Shopping Center, where the property is about 162,000 square feet in zone commercial. The property is surrounded by some residential properties to the south, as well as commercial properties directly to the north and surrounding it. This project is proposing the installation of some new signage, including one new illuminated wall sign, which will replace a prior non-illuminated wall sign. It's also proposing banners to be placed for an extended period over 15 days, which is usually the standard for banners. It also proposes replacement of channel letters on a monument sign, which is just replacing some previous letters that are already there, and new windows signage that exceeds the master sign plan. So this is a view of that frontage with the new wall sign and some of those window signs that'll be on the front door there. This is the image of the banners that they will be placing with the extended time limit beyond 15 days. There's no specified time right now for those banners. That is something that... has changed just because of the timeline for approving this. So I haven't received a specific timeline on those. This is an image of the window signs that are placed there on the frontage that you'll see. And then this describes the master sign plan for that shopping center, where you can see that this is the forward-facing hanging sign. It has specified dimensions there and standards for the color of the sign and the lettering itself. This is for the walkway, what's expected in the walkway areas. And then this is for the window signage, which the current proposal exceeds those standards. Otherwise, the wall sign is just replacing the old wall sign area, and it's the same. It's actually smaller in size. The only difference is that it's eliminated.

It exceeds by the number of signs, or the dimensions exceeds in what way?

The dimensions don't exceed the previous signage. It's just that it's now eliminated. Okay. Yeah. So in accordance with the findings, the proposed project complies with the applicable standards for the sign ordinance itself. The signage is consistent with the previous signage and has been reviewed and approved by the property owner. And the signage is consistent with the overall location of the site given the previous use. So staff recommends planning commissioner approval of the signed permit at 19-201 Sonoma Highway. I do not believe the applicant's present, but they are on Zoom. So staff is available to answer any questions.

Thank you. Are there, commissioners, any disclosing of any ex parte communications

okay questions from the commissioners yes I have a question for staff regarding those the banners that normally over 15 days so I just want to make sure I understand right now we haven't set a limit on how long they can be up

There hasn't been a limit included in the conditions. That was something that was left out at the moment, but if the commission decides that they would like to add some time frame, if you guys decide you want a time frame, then we can surely add that into the conditions.

In past situations where it's been extended, is there a history of how long we've extended those?

I'm not aware of any in particular. No, we're not aware of any.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, Commissioner Willers. Has there been any discussion of the length of time for the tenant improvements before they'll be done? In other words, how long will the banners be up during construction?

So for the tenant improvements, I'm not too aware of that. The applicant that I've been currently working with is specifically a sign developer. So they are a third party that's been communicating to the owner. And the time limit initially, they would have been done, the banner time limits would have been finished at this point. So I don't know if that goes hand in hand with the tenant improvements or if it was just kind of something they were hoping they would get done.

And then also if you can flip through, I don't know if you have all of the proposed the proposal the application if you have all of them the ones that include all of the elevations oh there's one that shows the banners on below the signs as well as one that shows what i would call circus banners

While he's looking for that, the tenant improvements are currently underway. So if there's something specifically tied, as you can see, their banners are representing different things, from hiring to opening soon, those types of things. So opening soon needs to come down as soon as it opens, right? So we can set some time limits around those different things that are tied to, let's say it's a final occupancy issuance instead of a date.

Yes.

Just in a general question, given the fact that these banners are going to be going up in essentially the parking lot of a single development as opposed to what I refer to as public streets, why would the other than the city sign ordinance which typically comes before us covering exposure to public ways, why would this matter of banners even come up given that it appears to me that it would be an agreement between a tenant of this development rather than an impact on a public street? I'm kind of surprised that something that is internally controlled like this with a master sign program and all the rest doesn't have its own provisions as in process for the approval of banners in all respect. I'm not really sure why the city's in the middle of this at all.

We don't have a distinction between banners that are located, let's say, within our public right-of-way versus banners that are hanging on a facade that may be in a small shopping center. Because not all of our multi-tenant facilities have master sign programs and this master sign program I think from the early 90s still in effect I don't know how prevalent banners were back then but they're very prevalent now even the flowy things and so we wouldn't regulate signs across the board the same and that's part of why we want to do master sign programs too is so that we're having that consistency. We don't have anything in regards to banners in their specific master sign program, so when we don't have something that's consistent, we're gonna bring that to you, which is why the Ross sign and the banners are really the key aspects, and then the fact that their window signs, their decals, I think are larger, or footage-wise? They don't match the actual squares that they were stating in theirs. Those are the things. When we don't match up, we ask for your permission. If they match up, we just approve it and let it go.

Okay, thank you. So if you'll go up and I think it's the next sheet down. So it's another elevation. So there's the multiple now hiring and other ones. And here we have the circus flags and the now open. And there's an interesting comment at the very bottom of that sheet on the left-hand side. It says Ross Stores Incorporated reserves the right to install any other temporary opening promotional material or element they deem appropriate. So they're asking for our permission to do anything.

So I would say that this property management company, we have a very good collaboration with, and we're constantly calling each other, like, did you approve this? And then, likewise, did you approve this? And so when, actually, honestly, when this first came to us, we called them, we're like, did you approve this yet? And they said no. So we said we weren't taking it forward until after they approved it. So our understanding is that they're okay with this, but I doubt that they're okay with the anything aspect in their property. So if we have concerns around flags, most of the time we have concerns around them staying up for long periods of time and then they fade and they look haggard.

The same thing as floaties. Yes, the floaties. So anyway, I don't want to beat this to death, but I'll have a discussion. I just wanted to bring that to the attention of the commission. Thanks.

Yes, please. What are the hours of elimination on the sign?

Based on the sign ordinance, typically it's going to be for closing, I believe. But I'd have to look at the sign ordinance elimination standards again. But we can set times as the conditions of approval to be at closing, just to be sure.

Any other comments from commissioners?

Is the applicant here or on Zoom, and would they like to present?

They're not here, but I know they're on Zoom. I just don't know if they're available to speak.

If we would have questions of them?

Yeah.

Do the commissioners have questions of the applicants? Okay, so let's open this up then for public comment. Would anybody like to come forward on this matter? Clearly not while you're here tonight. Okay, so seeing that there is none, closing the comments to the public, and any additional commissioner comments?

Yes. Yeah, I do have a comment. I personally would like us to set some kinds of boundaries that are appropriate for, as suggested by Jennifer, perhaps the circus flags and the now open coming soon. We can have a limit on when the store opens to have those taken down. And now hiring is a little bit, I'm not 100% sure how to put limits on that. I don't know what's really appropriate, a few months, six months. So I'm looking for guidance on that.

So I agree with you in terms of setting time limits. And the time limits that I would say is that now opening up until it's open, basically, that's the time out for those. now open and beyond, I think that those banners ought to pay respect to the 15 days. In other words, they're temporary signs. We have a temporary sign ordinance. So they're now open for 15 days. They can put that up. If they're hiring, they can put their now hiring up for 15 days. And personally, I don't think we need flags over Ross with the now opening banner. That's just my personal opinion. So that's, you know, I'm not a... I'm not in favor of the question.

Any other comments?

I am wondering, following up on Commissioner Wheeler's observance, that last comment, can we either remove it or put in there that it's subject to approval by the city of Sonoma?

I think probably best would be just saying no other promotional elements may be included besides the banners.

I know, I'm picturing like light shows and bounce houses. Yeah. But I do want pancakes now that you put that sign up. Thank you. Yes.

I guess I'm on a slightly different wavelength. I'm just pleased that this otherwise huge vacant space is getting filled by what I hope is a productive tenant. From what I gather doing my research, Ross is essentially a women's clothing store, but have household items as well. And devote a certain amount of their square footage to non attire items household goods And we need that in this town. We don't have a lot of reasonably priced general house or household goods available by so I'm not going to argue against any of the provisions having to do with the signs and the flags and the rest of it that the Commission may want to impose. I don't want the impression to be that opening a store in Sonoma is a pain in the butt. And sometimes I think that's the impression that's created. And that if they need to put up a sign for hiring and it takes them six weeks to get fully hired, let them have their signs up there for six weeks. I mean, the point is we want employment. We want people to fill jobs. We want our retailers to succeed. We want the sales tax. All in all, I'm just pleased that they're coming and that we're filling this space. And I want to have them feel welcome, not like they're running into a bunch of hurdles that have to be overcome. So I'll just leave it at that.

Thank you. Yes. One point of clarification. There are men's clothing in the office.

That's true. Thank you. May I have a motion on this agenda item?

Any suggestions on how to word what we've talked about?

Yeah, I mean, I think, if anything, I would suggest as a motion to approve it with the conditions added for now opening banners to be limited to 15 days, the opening soon banners limited until open, other promotional elements not to be allowed, and the now hiring banners to be limited to, I think, what it sounds like, six weeks?

It's just making it even two months. And of course, we're going to make these exceptions for this applicant. It doesn't mean that it happens for every applicant. But I agree with Commissioner Barnett. But at the same time, we do have a sign ordinance that we hold everyone else responsible to. So I'll take Jacob's.

amendments to the conditions of approval and make a motion to approve as amended I second a roll call please Commissioner Willers yes Commissioner Barnett aye Commissioner Dombach actually we forgot to add something the illumination illumination and then if I

and i'd like to add to that because i think we're going to end up changing our illuminated sign ordinance in whole so that it in the future be held to that illuminate held to that signage requirement or the elimination requirement a second to the amended motion please second

Roll call, please. Commissioner Willers?

Yes.

Commissioner Barnett? Aye. Commissioner Dombach? Yes. Commissioner O'Gorman-Jenkins? Aye. Commissioner O'Neill? Yes. Vice Chair Nugent?

Aye.

Thank you. The motion passes unanimously.

Thank you. We're moving on to item number five, items for discussion. Item 5.1. a study session to evaluate proposed conceptual plan for a mixed-use project vision for the Sebastiani Winery property. Jennifer is going to come forward and give us some direction on how this study session will move forward.

I think everyone knows .

Yes.

All right. So thank you very much for that introduction chair and commissioners. So before you tonight is a study session. We, um, had a study session last July, so that was the last one. So I'm going to give more information about what a study session is as a reminder. So a study session is an opportunity for our commissioners to identify any issues or concerns. but you are not able to make any statements of absolute judgment. So I like this, I don't like this. It's more about just here's some issues, thoughts, things to think about on the project. And that should be focused on site planning, compatibility, overall consistency with the general plan, I'll get into that in a second, scale, mass, and potentially significant environmental impacts. So during a study session, a prospective applicant will provide an overview of the project concept and answer any questions from the planning commission. The planning commission chair does have the discretion to invite them back up to have any additional comments or to answer any questions after the public comment period. Comments on the study session are directed towards the project proposal itself. So that concept that's before you. there'll be no straw votes there's no polls about what you like or don't like not like what we did when we talked about the general plan commissioner comments during a study session are not going to be limiting any future actions of the planning commission so as a reminder when we talked about the general plan update in regards to land use around the sebastiani winery property planning commission had made a recommendation to kind of hold off on that discussion for that general plan update itself When it was brought to City Council, City Council's recommendation was to proceed with looking during the environmental process to look at just the areas that were wine production and mixed use and look at those for a future development that could potentially include housing as well as a hotel and small retail. And that the agricultural lots would be agriculture. that's what's currently being studied and then that will be part of that draft general plan that will be presented back to all the commissions as well as city council for further consideration finalization of the EIR and then whatever that final version is of the general plan that the city council, the planning commission makes the recommendation on and then city council adopts, that is the general plan for us moving forward for the next 20 years after that gets adopted. So whatever that land use is, that's kind of what lays the future for that site potentially. But like any site we have in town, It is possible that a property owner could ask for a change in that land use. So that's what that's about. I just realized that Mr. Coakley has been sitting here and I forgot to have us reopen public comment. Do you need to get back to the city? Yeah. So Mr. Coakley and I have met, and I said that a good time to come would be to come to Planning Commission to talk about another item. Do you mind if we put the pause and reopen public, just general public comment?

Yes.

So pausing on item five and reopening the general public comment.

Excuse me. Pausing on item five and reopening the general public comment.

Good evening, ma'ams, gentlemen. I'm really sorry for being late. I'm in the San Francisco Police Academy at the moment, and I drove all the way up here from San Francisco, so it took me a couple hours to get up. Thank you, Jennifer. Appreciate it. So basically, what's going on is that my dad owns a property on 673 2nd Street West. About three years ago, he split it up with my uncle. And they applied to turn it from a multi-use to a single family home residence. Long story short, I know I don't have a lot of time, but my dad got extremely ill and I took over all his affairs there about a month ago. But while he was ill and he was in the hospital, there was letters sent to his home up here in Sonoma that he's since sold, saying that the zoning was going to be changed back from a single family to a multi-use if he didn't act on his permits. And we got the person working for my dad at the time. It didn't end well, to say the least. And they kind of just let go of the wheel and let everything kind of slide off. We got one extension on the permits. We were given a second chance to get another extension in December. I wasn't in charge at the time or aware of any of this that was going on. And it was just brought to my attention about a month ago that... that the permits are expired. We can't build a single-family home there anymore. Basically, it's rezoned back to multi-use, and it's not worth as much. My dad can't work anymore, and this is going to be a big help in him to be able to retire comfortably like he deserves. And it's not...

Excuse me for interrupting. Would you please state your name?

John Coakley. I'm John. John Coakley.

And the address again?

673 2nd Street West.

Thank you.

My uncle's building the same home right next door at the moment because he acted on his permits. But like I said, I wasn't aware of any of this until about a month ago when I took over all his affairs. And I just kind of want a fair shake at trying to get my dad the best hire possible.

Is this the property right behind the round table?

Yes, it is. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, I know exactly.

Yeah. So if I need to leave my information or whatever, or if it could come up as a topic in your guys' next meeting or whatever, I would greatly appreciate it be reconsidered for me to be able to get those permits back. When they changed it from a multi-use to a single-family home, my understanding was that they got nothing but support around from the neighbors and stuff. They reached out to everyone. No one wants a multi-use to go in there. They want another single-family home in there. They don't want a big building going up there or anything. And I think the whole neighborhood is in agreement with that. And I just want to build a nice house there and be able to let my dad retire in peace.

We're talking about the lot that's undeveloped at the moment, right?

Yes, correct. Yeah, my uncle owns the lot that is being developed at the moment.

My dad... Am I correct, Jennifer, that the process would be...

is making a formal application for reconsideration and then it come before the planning commission as an agenda item um no but we can't really talk about it right now but i just wanted to just let him have time during public comment to make you guys aware and then we can agendize a topic in the future to talk about um what happened and kind of maybe some topics around our ad hoc around the zoning aspects.

Thank you. Yeah, that's basically all I have to say. I really appreciate your guys' time, and thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Coakley.

Thank you, Jennifer.

Thank you for taking the time to come up here.

item five we are unpausing and the staff you've concluded your I have just a little bit more so when I was talking about changing land uses that's what triggered my brain but not necessarily for that lot but just in general so the idea behind land so a property owner can let me say that they own a larger property and they're not spot zoning which means that there's an island created by a specific type of zone with one small lot that an applicant can come forward for a general plan amendment with a zoning code amendment you know with those a project proposed or just to do those things yes there would be an environmental review of that, just like we're doing an environmental review right now for the changes that we're doing in the general plan land use. So I did want to state that, that this is just a study session on a concept plan. The property owner has given permission to Mr. Aberdele to present a concept on the site for some initial feedback. So that is the purpose of today's study session. There is no application or project being presented or has been submitted to the city.

Thank you. And the applicant is in. Sure.

Jennifer, I have two questions. One, can you go back to the first page? so I can make sure I focus on what we can do. Second, we thought that there was no wine production happening at that site when we previously discussed this project, but I've been noticing frequent tanker trucks going in and out of that site. So can you tell us what is the current status of the wine production at that property?

I do believe that there is actually wine production going on by naked wines. All right, thank you.

Any other questions? Thank you. The applicant, would you like to come forward? Hi, everybody.

I live at 164 Newcomb Street. We can talk about what's happening in winery production. I have some more information if you have questions about it, current wine production. I've got some information. But thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm really here, like Jennifer said, to share a vision for the Sebastiani properties. This is really the beginning of what could become a proposed project. Before any project application is considered, the community and its elected and appointed officials really, in my view, need to send a clear set of signals. signals about land use through the general plan update, signals about priorities and guardrails through the update of the development code, which should be forthcoming, and signals about what the community values and desires for our future via discussions and public forums like this. What I'm going to share with you is not a final project design. It's not the end of the process, but the beginning of one. It's an opportunity to open a door into the future and facilitate a grounded discussion about what it could look like, an opportunity for input and collaboration. There are important questions that need to be carefully studied through the city's normal process. Questions around traffic, evacuation, infrastructure, utilities, environmental impacts, historic preservation, design, fiscal impacts, neighborhood compatibility. These questions matter, and they deserve a rigorous review and public input. But tonight's discussion is more foundational, in my view, and very important. The Sebastiani properties are not ordinary land. We all know this. They're woven into the history and the story of Sonoma itself, past, present, and future. For generations, this area has been part of the economic, agricultural, and cultural heart of town. Sebastiani was never simply a quiet edge condition or an isolated industrial use hidden from civic life. It was an active winery, a workplace, a gathering place, a destination, a source of jobs, hospitality, commerce, and identity. These lands provided new housing for new Sonomans. That history matters. And I think it's important to recognize something very clearly.

This commercial activity at Sebastiani is not foreign to the site. It's part of its very historic character.

The responsibility before us then, in my view, is not to free Sebastianian time as a museum piece disconnected from the life of town. The responsibility is to help guide a future that allows this place to continue contributing to Sonoma for generations to come. And that requires realism as well as some idealism. Historic preservation requires economic vitality. Open space preservation requires stewardship. Vineyards require maintenance and investment. Historic buildings require adaptive reuse, restoration, and ongoing care. A future vision for Sebastiani cannot simply be about what we want to preserve. It also has to address how we want to sustain and finance that over time. That is why I believe this discussion is so important, and I believe the timing is important as well. Right now, we have a rare alignment of circumstances, a genuine opportunity that may not come again literally for decades. First, we're in the middle of a general plan process that helps shape Sonoma's land use framework and community priorities for the next 20 and most likely 30 years. Second, there are local partners, people like myself and others deeply connected to Sonoma, willing to roll up their sleeves, do the difficult work of building community, engaging in conversations, asking hard questions, listening to hard critique, building coalitions, compromise, and long-term stewardship. Third, we have a landowner who has demonstrated a willingness to allow the community to itself to shape the future of these properties. That combination matters. Too often communities find themselves reacting to proposals after positions harden and options narrow. Here we have the opportunity to proactively define expectations, standards, priorities, and community benefits before any formal project application exists. This is a tremendous opportunity. the current vision being explored includes maintaining key historic structures preserving vineyards and green space integrating wine hospitality creating new housing opportunities improving pedestrian and bicycle connectivity and evaluating carefully scaled hospitality uses importantly conversations have already begun with the permission and support of the landowner with the sonoma land trust to evaluate the possibility of perpetual conservation easements on surrounding vineyard lands including the historic cherry block vineyard This is significant because it reflects something larger than development. It's stewardship. It reflects the recognition that Sonoma's agricultural landscape, scenic character and historic identities are assets worth protecting, not just for today's residents, but for future generations. Importantly, this vision has not been developed in a vacuum. There have been neighborhood meetings, one-on-one discussions, conversations with housing advocates, conservation organizations, local business leaders and residents through Sonoma. And while there are understandable concerns, there are also potential areas of consensus. that are emerging. People have been very clear about what they don't want. They don't want shopping centers there. They don't want gas stations. They don't want formula commercial development disconnected from Sonoma's character. They don't want high density housing. But there has been meaningful support for preserving the winery identity of the site, for carefully scaled hospitality uses for low and medium density residential housing, for open space, and for ensuring whatever happens here reflects this town's history and values. And that brings me to housing. One of the responsibilities of leadership, whether elected, appointed, or civic, is to not think about just ourselves, but about future generations. And we all know Sonoma faces real housing challenges. Young families struggle to stay here. We've closed three schools amid declining enrollment. People who grew up here often cannot afford to return. Workers who support Sonoma's economy frequently commute long distances. Older residents who want to downsize have very few options to stay within the community they love. A mix of housing types matters because one type of housing does not serve every stage or every economic reality. Smaller attached homes can create different price points and opportunities than traditional large lot homes alone. New single family home product, even at the high end, satisfies demand that existing housing stock is currently serving, reducing pricing pressures. For any deed restricted affordable units, we've explored partnering with the North Bay Housing Trust to further restrict those units for sale to first time home buyers. with low down payment requirements. These innovative opportunities allow individuals and families to put roots down in Sonoma, build equity over time, and to pass along that benefit to the next buyer when they're able to move on.

But housing alone is not enough.

If we are serious about preserving Sonoma's quality of life, we also have to think seriously about our Sonoma's fiscal future and economic vitality. That conversation can get uncomfortable sometimes, but it's necessary. Today, the Transit Occupancy Tax, or TOT, represents the most important source of discretionary funding for our city's general fund. It pays for essential services and community investments that we all value deeply. Police, fire, parks, infrastructure, maintenance, and our public spaces. the plaza depot park field of dreams of which i serve on the board bike paths streets landscaping public safety infrastructure and community facilities all require ongoing maintenance and those obligations do not disappear over time they only grow we are facing structural deficits with our current budget and 25 percent of revenue that comes from tot and in some cases up to 40 over certain periods needs to grow with it A new hotel like the one being discussed tonight can add millions of dollars annually in new recurring revenue to the city, year after year, over multiple generations. Revenue that can help Sonoma maintain the quality, beauty, public safety, and civic infrastructure that residents expect and visitors value. And importantly, that revenue is not generated in isolation. Hospitality supports local restaurants outside of its own walls. It supports wineries. It supports retail. It supports tradespeople, service providers, maintenance workers, landscapers, countless small businesses that depend on Sonoma's visitor economy. It can be a teenager's first job and the life's work of a committed culinary artist. This is not about chasing tourism for its own sake. Sonoma has been a visitor designation for well over a century because people are drawn to what makes this place special. History, agriculture, beauty, wine, walkability, community, and culture. The question is whether we plan today responsibly for that reality in a way that strengthens the community rather than weakens it. And I believe carefully integrated hospitality at Sebastiani can do exactly that. Importantly, what is being discussed is not a convention hotel or an anonymous commercial development. We envision something closer in spirit to MacArthur Place, integrated with the existing landscape, public spaces, neighborhood sensitivity. Specifically, we are looking at something just 30% bigger than MacArthur Place, but with less intensity sitting on 100% more land. That distinction matters because the opportunity here is not just to create something generic. The opportunity is to create something distinctly Sonoma, a place where preserved vineyards and historic buildings can sit side by side with carefully designed housing. Where walking and biking connections improve public access and connectivity. Where public spaces, public art, wine hospitality, and community gathering places come together to reinforce our identity. Where friends and neighbors can meet for a coffee or a cocktail. and where economic vitality helps sustain preservation rather than compete against it. That's why I believe tonight's discussion should not be approached primarily through fear, because there's a lot of fear out there. It should be approached with responsible optimism. Responsibility to Sonoma's history, responsibility to future generations, responsibility to the town's fiscal health, responsibility to preserve what matters while also allowing thoughtful evolution. Responsibility to participate constructively in shaping outcomes rather than simply reacting against change itself. Because change will come, and I for one am optimistic. In a world where technology will continue to make the economic and social future radically different from the past, tourism and hospitality, in my view, are likely to be the most recognizable things in the future. The desire to gather with others in a beautiful place to share a meal and a glass of wine is a future worth betting on, in my view. The question is whether Sonoma will shape that change intentionally, collaboratively, and thoughtfully, or whether we'll avoid difficult conversations until we have fewer good options remaining. I believe this site deserves thoughtful planning. It deserves strong standards. It deserves careful environmental review and public scrutiny. And I believe it deserves imagination. The general plan and the future development code work will give Sonoma the opportunity to define site-specific expectations around scale, design, setbacks, open space, preservation, circulation, and permitted uses. This is not a loss of local control. This is local control being exercised responsibly. And I think we should embrace that responsibility. Because opportunities like this do not come often. If we approach this process with openness, seriousness, humility, and collaboration, I truly believe there's a path forward that honors history, neighborhood compatibility, and community character, while helping Sonoma remain vibrant, livable, and economically sustainable for future generations. A path that preserves our vineyards and structures, a path that creates housing opportunities, that strengthens the economy, that improves public spaces and connectivity, and ultimately a path that allows Sebastiani to remain an active and meaningful part of Sonoma's identity rather than becoming a missed opportunity or a symbol of stagnation. We are not going to resolve every issue or answer every question tonight. I'm eager to walk you through the vision we've designed so far to answer questions, to get your feedback, and hear your ideas. And the same goes for all of you sitting behind me. Let's make this a productive conversation. And I'd love the opportunity to take you through the site plan. Great. That's context surrounding area. It does show that there's a bunch of different zoning uses, again, under consideration of the general plan, but I think we can go right to the site plan. Current standards there, or current conditions there, that also shows the size of the buildings that are there, which is pretty instructive. There's nearly 200,000 square feet of space that already exists there today. Some of those buildings range from 25 to over 40 feet tall, in the case of the barrel room, closer to 45. All right, here we are. So I'm going to kind of walk you through what our thinking was when we put this together. So we've worked with an architect in San Francisco called Hart Howerton. And really at this conceptual level, when we sat down with him, we said, here's our priorities. Number one, preserve the existing vineyards and mature green spaces that are on the property. Number two, protect and keep what are presumed to be historically significant structures, which are the tasting room, the house that is on the corner of Spain Street and 4th Street East, and then it's not shown on there, but where the number three is with the yellow building, that's the binning office. Number three, residential character coming up 4th Street East. Single family home in nature, limited to two stories. Number four, create a mix of housing. Use density at the center to keep it away from existing surrounding things and try to keep two stories and less around any existing structures that exist. And then within the hotel, the concept was residential style resort quality similar to macarthur place not there to serve big conventions to be able to be served on site and importantly to have features that are available for use by the public coffee shops little stores restaurant and bar etc available to use for visit by visitors and residents alike That was the overall concept. So on the left, you'll see that the vineyard is shown largely in place. When we talk about ag and we talk about parcels, there's less vineyard than currently exists in this drawing. I'm gonna try to say it more clearly. The vineyard actually extends below into where those buildings are to the south, but to the left, there's new vineyards that extend where there is now building. So the lot lines don't match anywhere close to what they look like today, which is an important topic of future conversation, and we can also get into it. You'll note that there's like a pathway that goes from the bike path through the vineyard and then into what I'll call the Multifamily part of the development or we can call it the townhome part of the development That's by design. Those are open public serving green spaces in between buildings I imagine time where people can on their walk leave the bike path head south through the vineyard curl through the nice little park area in between the buildings and hit the corner and cross over into, in front of what is now the tasting room, and there's the fountain and the thing, and enter into the part of the hotel that has a little restaurant, a little coffee shop, marketplace, come in, you grab a cup of coffee, continue on north up through the park that exists there now, and along, back along Louisville as well. You also notice we drew sort of looks meandering but a pedestrian path along Louisville Valley Road. I have a vision to make the bike path be a more connected straight line through the front of Louisville Valley. That was actually an idea that came from one of the neighbors which would push those houses back substantially but allow for a green space buffer and a continuous pedestrian path. I think it would be really cool if you could walk in between those rows of trees that exist So you have like the vineyard and then two rows of trees and a strip of grass and that becomes the pedestrian walkway off the street Back to the the housing part there's So the yellow ones are two stories the orange ones are three stories and This is very preliminary as shown they are The two stories are 1600 plus a 400 square foot garage 1650 plus a 400 square foot garage The three stories would be 2650 plus 400. This is just because it's simple blocking So this is just plates and we've picked within a length that we think are feasible from a market perspective but very preliminary and open to feedback and They're arranged as three, four, six, and seven unit structures. I mean, I think we don't have a lot of good examples of really well done multifamily projects here in Sonoma, I don't think. And I'd love, and I know there's a lot out there and I think there's a great opportunity to imagine what can be done here. It doesn't have to look monolithic. It can be broken up into different clusters. And there's a lot of potential design work that can go into it. And so I just wanted to kind of show that we can do that. In total, these units represent about 11 units per acre with a 0.6 FAR. And that's calculated using about a five acre total for the lot, which excludes about two to two and a quarter acres for the vineyard. And it also excludes the quadrant down along Spain Street, which has the historic house and that little open parklet too. So how you define density kind of also depends on where you break the lines of the lots and what you include and what you don't include. Right now, the Binning building is shown as a residential amenity. Again, could be all sorts of things. It could be a neighbor serving, some sort of neighbor serving retail. It could be a community space. There's a lot of things it could be, but the building itself, I think, is worth working with. As you move across to 4th Street East, single-family homes designed as two 1,200-square-foot plates, so 2,400 square feet in total with a 400-square-foot detached garage in back. You'll notice we took great care to reduce curb cuts and entries, so there's three shown for the west side part of the development, two on 4th Street East and one on Spain Street, which is an existing access point for trucks. Along Louisville and forth, we would imagine just keeping the same entrance that exists there today and not a new one and creating internal circulation for the 14 single family homes that are, I think that's right, 14 single family homes that are drawn there that each have their own kind of parking and entrance internally navigated. There's a bunch of parking shown, you know, kind of around for different parts and different uses, which will be probably a discussion mostly for another day, but I'm happy to take your comments on it today. And then an entry, oh, so the maintaining the tasting room, I think that's always a key prerogative. I think the tasting room will be heavily integrated into the hospitality function there. and uh and so you know that's how it's shown there's an entrance which is where that kind of number four is sort of imagine a drive drop up drive drive up entrance where you can do your valet parking etc a entrance lobby building um that then has maybe hotel rooms behind it or above it the uh six seven and eight would be some combination of six being Loaded hotel rooms going up on multiple floors. And then I think the restaurant and hotel, again, preliminary ideas. Separate buildings for additional hotel rooms. So that building number 14, I think it's like 20 hotel rooms or something along those lines. That building's only slightly bigger than the building that exists there today, actually. And then nice big open space. Those number 14s are like cottages that would house two to four rooms each that can be configured for like multi-room accommodations. And just as an example of how we can put things on paper, but they're never going to change. When you actually design a project, you have to change everything. That shown as 9, 10, and 11 there, which is like a bathroom and like a, I don't know, some sort of gazebo or something. That could actually never be there because there's a big, important mound and drainage thing. So when you actually get out there and do a real study and do a site plan and get engineering and deal with site conditions and drainage, that's going to have to move. But in total, that's a vision. And it's a starting point for a conversation that I would love to have. Any questions? Your mic's not on.

Commissioners, do you have questions for the applicant?

You haven't talked about nor have I been able to discern through the materials Any issues addressing the creek that abuts and actually goes through this property? Can you talk a little bit about that?

I know it's there. It needs to be studied. There's obviously riparian corridor setbacks that will have to be dealt with. There are certain buildings that I believe are currently sitting most likely inside that setback. I don't think... we've drawn any new buildings inside of it, but it's something that when we actually get to, if we get to the point where we want to put together an application, those things would need to be studied.

Yes. Regarding the, a couple questions. Regarding the collaboration or discussion with North Bay Community Land Trust, what is your concept of where those homes would go? Would those be those on the left, the one series or the two series?

I don't know. I personally have a bias towards sprinkling affordable units and moving them in around a development, especially this size. I think concentrating them in one building is a bad idea. So that's about as far as I've gotten.

Okay, thank you. The next question I have is around your conversation with the Sonoma Valley Land Trust. So you mentioned the cherry block, which I know there were many public comments about preservation of that. So I just wanted for clarification that those conversations would include the cherry block and the FD portions of the ag space?

Yeah, so this is where the conversation gets interesting. So right now, what is FD has not been considered for zoning agriculture. Can you go back one slide? One more? Okay, that's kind of be too small. So, maybe actually go back to the plan and I'll just describe it. Sorry, Jennifer. So, where the D-strip About half of that D strip is agricultural zoned land. The other half is winery production. So there's a line that goes straight through, which means that about half of where those cabanas are, half the pool, half that building 14, is sitting in what is currently zoned agricultural zoned land. And everything on the left is sitting in winery production. So that current agricultural zoned land, which is about four acres on the right, About an acre of it is green. About three acres of it is dirt in a weigh scale. Of the winery production lot on the left, it's about three acres. About one acre of it is green, and the rest is a build of winery production facility or parking lot. My view is that when we talk about preserving agriculture, I think we want to, I believe we're talking about preserving existing agriculture that's providing benefit that's mostly aesthetic, creates buffers, doesn't create a lot of industry. We have an urban growth boundary for a reason. Agriculture exists outside of our core so that we can develop our core into the places where we live. I don't know where the discussion goes around the zoning of those parcels or if we just have to deal with it another day. But I think the responsible thing to do is to create new ag parcels or new parcels, I don't even have to be ag, new parcels where the existing ag is and where in concert with the proposal and then taking those parcels and um protecting them with easements to the land trust so yes the answer the short answer question is yes it's this but not the exact parcels that exist today in my future vision it's new parcels that will be created through the process of this project application which would involve a map what's it called

Land use map? No. Subdivision?

Well, yeah, a tentative map that would be part of the application for a project.

Okay, thank you. Commissioner O'Neill? Yeah, I have a follow-up question with that. I'm specifically looking at the Mission Vineyard, FD. Yep. What is the, I know it's just an idea, but what is the plan?

So the general plan is to do what you can kind of see there, which is like I think I'd like to square that off because it basically, so there's actually that, and then there's two railroad parcels that are also zoned ag. They're about 20 feet wide and run the length of the thing, and right now they are the buffer between the building and the vineyards. I think I'd like to basically square that all off and square off the vineyard. So you're basically keeping probably, I don't know, 85% of the existing vineyard, maybe even then planting new vineyard where that white space is closer to the houses on La Casitas, which actually right now has the building going into it. And so that's my vision for it, keeping it, maybe cutting a pathway through it. Pedestrian pathway. Okay.

Yes, Commissioner Barnett.

Just a couple of sort of, I'll call them housekeeping questions. You're not the owner of this property.

Correct.

What is your relationship to the owner and the proposed use in general?

So I'm a consultant. I have a consulting agreement. I don't get paid unless something happens here. And basically, I have the right to facilitate this conversation around rezoning through the general plan process and should we decide collectively to come to it to put together an application.

And what about ultimately the sale of the property and therefore into whose hands these development decisions are going to fall.

Yeah. To be determined. I think our desire is to have the current owner of the property contribute the land into a partnership to develop it. I think a development like this is going to require multiple developers. It's a very, very big project. And I believe there's likely to be at least two, if not three, different developers who are going to partner together along with multiple general contractors that are going to operate because different people do different things on both the hospitality side, perhaps on the townhome side, perhaps on the single family side. So it's really going to have to be a coordinated effort, which I hope to be involved in.

And is the current property owner... Foley Family Wines committed itself to any further participation in this process formally?

They have no commitment, and at any time they can say, JJ, stop talking.

Okay. And, okay, that's it for now. Thank you.

Sure. Any other questions? I have a couple questions. The structures that would be deemed historic, what's your vision for the use of those?

Well, my vision currently for the tasting room is the tasting room.

And it would exist as a winery?

Yeah, as Sebastiani Winery, yeah. As a tasting room, okay. You know, frankly, like, I see this all being Sebastiani. I think this is the future of the Sebastiani brand. I think it's the survival of the Sebastiani brand, in my personal opinion. And I think it gives it a new life. So I think that tasting room is a huge part of that. And I don't imagine it changing at all. The home on the corner, I don't know. I'm really open to ideas. I'd like to hear what local business owners want to do. I think it could be a good space for something. I think it could be a great co-working space. It could be a space for other kind of community type uses. It could be, I don't know, I'm open to it. I think it could be a lot of different things. Someone could live there. And then the binning office, I see it as it being like a real valuable thing to either tie, like I called it like an amenity for the residences. Could be like a gathering space for the residents that live in that area. Or it could be some sort of, low intensity commercial use that the people who live there get to enjoy and the people who live around it get to enjoy. It could be a chiropractor's office or I don't know. It could be anything.

Curious about – and this may be premature, but three-story townhomes from a resale value, it's very difficult. Three stories is just – your buying pool is this big. So I would consider something – I don't know where you're – Yeah, and I think that just brings a broader point, which is –

we we have and we can and we will only invest so much as we keep getting signals that it's worth doing so and that's really important to remember and so as we move through this there will be much more effort that will be again provided we're receiving those signals um to evaluating those things and it very much can and likely will change and and um uh speaking of stories

The hotel itself, the different structures, are they multi-level?

Yeah, so I think as shown, it's all... Well, that's not true. So five and six are like something like three or three plus stories. So about up to, I think like that current height today that exists today, which is around like 42 feet. And then I think pretty much everything else is either two story or that little market's one story. And I think the little spa thing is maybe one story.

One last question. What's your water source currently?

Well, there's currently wells on the property, but it's served by city water. And I would imagine that any development would require it to be served by city water, be my guess.

And would those wells come into play at some time?

I mean, maybe for irrigation and, yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Couple more. You keep using the word we. in terms of decision making but ultimately this decision is going to be in the hands of whoever buys this property in other words for whoever owns it whoever owns it yes and so we're going through this process tonight of talking about a vision but this may be bear no resemblance to what it is that somebody who's willing to pony up the dough for this property and to develop it may want to do

Well, I'll just say before I've been able to come here and before we pay the architects, we get the support of the landowner. He's writing checks, too.

Support of? The landowner.

They're writing checks. Okay. To architects, et cetera. So every time we move through this process, it's like, okay, are we still in? Are you still aligned with what we're showing? Are you still aligned with the vision? So the fact I'm standing up here today means the landowner is aligned with the vision.

the landowner decides to not be aligned with the vision or the vision needs to change to something that they don't want to be aligned with then it'll stop okay and my other question is you mentioned square footage of some of these units one of them was 2600 Another was 2,400. How did you come up with that size? I merely question it because given the cost of construction, given the reality of real estate prices in Sonoma, those are going to be very expensive units to sell. And so what informed your decision to design units of that size or propose?

I mean, I think we've had conversations with other for sale townhome developers that kind of said the market that they see around dimensions of spaces, for example, was kind of conformed with that. Again, it can and will change. I don't see it as out of place with the market and what the market wants. In fact, this is a little bit of a side note, but I think I said in my application, we've looked at other commercial uses. I had a conversation with the CCRC developer, Continuing Care Residential Committee, and for their model of work, minimum of 160 units up to 200 is where they're targeting. And I asked her, I was like, well, okay, but they're small, right? And she's like, well, the smallest, so about 10% of the units are like for the actual memory care or assisted living, and those are small. We have 20% of our units are 1,200 square feet. 60% of our units are 1650 and 40% of our remaining units are 2400 and more. And that's for retired people or people coming into the later stages of their life. I was surprised by that. But I think the reality is that even when you're an empty nester, you want a place for your family to come and be able to visit you. You want a place for your kids and grandkids to stay. I believe it's probably around what the market wants, but that will need to be figured out more and definitely studied more closely for sure.

Thank you.

Any other questions from the commission? So let's open this. Thank you, JJ.

I'm happy to come back up and answer any other questions.

Thank you. Let's open up for public comment. Can I get a show of hands of how many of you will be making a comment? Okay, if we could, when you come forward, if you could state your name and if you could spell it for us, that's very helpful. And also, if you so choose, if you could give us where you reside. And if there's, if we could keep it under three minutes. We may have a little experiment tonight with, we have a, it's not a buzzer. It's a little ding that will alert you that you're either approaching your three minutes or over your three minutes. So if it becomes too alarming, we can cut that. But we may try that tonight. In any event, if you would come up and if there's If you are planning to speak and someone has spoken before you and has expressed exactly what you were going to do, we might be able to, in the essence of time, be able to kind of keep this a little more efficient. And you can just raise your hand and say, I agree with that, and that's what I was going to say. So we'll see how this goes. So open for the public. Please come forward.

My name is Elizabeth Sealy, S-E-A-L-E-Y. I live at 277 4th Street East. I own Sealy Mission Vineyard, which is at the corner of the Path and 4th Street East. This project has given me greater anxiety than anything else since I've moved to this town. If you think about the number of cars that will be on 4th Street East, right now we've got a wonderful neighborhood. It's quiet. If you look at two cars per unit, you're going to add 104 cars to the block between the path and Spain Street. And if my numbers are wrong, they're not that wrong. So, and I own a Merlot Vineyard. Across the path is the Sebastiani Malbec Vineyard. And here we've got a whole line where that green manufacturing building is of town homes looking at us. You've got cars, you've got traffic, you've got people, you've got noise, you've got air quality, you've got light. All for money. So I would beg you to please not change the zoning when we bought we were one of the few properties in this town that was owned agriculture so i beg you not to grant a mixed use zone because of the implications that's going to happen to all of us here thank you come forward

thank you my name is randy neely and like nancy okay well i wanted to thank you okay um so um anyway so i live at 17449 garricky road i'm also president of the gerky road fire safe council which is just a really important group that we have just because of our high fire risk and all of us on Gehrke Road and even beyond, Wilking Way, some of the other, we can't get insurance. We have to go through the state just because of our situation. But now to say, because if we look at this, the line, Lovell Valley, if you look above that, which we're in the county, we have one road. That's it, one road to come down onto Lovell Valley. If you're adding all of this population, just the cars, you mentioned that, the cars alone. JJ, you had talked about the infrastructure, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, and you talked about not having high density, but being responsible and imagination. So what are you gonna do about the roads? What's your fire exit strategy for all of this new growth? And I mean, we don't know how we're gonna get out. So it's a big concern for us. I know it's new recurring revenue, a lot, and for years to come, you mentioned, for the city. So that's good. The parking capacity was a question. I saw there was some one said 100, one said, but I didn't see where the entrance to the parking was. But the valley, of course, is so narrow, that wouldn't be a good place. I'm assuming it's fourth. And the neighborhood sensitivity you talked about as being a real important thing. So anyway, we would like to then talk about the investment into the vehicular infrastructure because that wasn't discussed. And that is going to be critical in order to accommodate anything beyond what's there already. So thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. Thanks. My name is Becky Sager and I live on Wilking Way, S-A-E-G-E-R. You know, I sent in some comments before this, which I will not reiterate, but I was moved to come up and say, first of all, there's a lot of really great things about what JJ's saying and proposing about preserving our community and some of the great things about it and doing this in a thoughtful way, but what really strikes me after this conversation is going back to the meeting on February 19th, which was such a phenomenal, insightful discussion that was had and where you guys came to the conclusion that probably we should not make any changes in the land use until we had a much more analysis of the implications of this. And I felt great about that. Now, that since has moved on, but what strikes me the most is the open-endedness of this, the great questions that Mr. Barnett was asking about, you know, what happens if Foley Family Wives decides they don't want to do this? If you change the land use designations and the zoning, anybody can come in and do anything that's allowed within that we talked on the 19th and in other forums about leaving this as a special use property where it would stay the same and specific projects would be brought forth and then there would be considerations about the specific rezoning that was needed in order to make those feasible that makes so much sense to me after listening to this it makes so much sense because then you'd have a project in front of you that allowed you to say this isn't going to work or it is going to work or these are the risks instead of having new zoning when anybody can come in and do whatever they want within the within the lack of guard rails so that's what i wanted to say tonight and i'll reiterate the concerns that none of this has been none of this has mitigated fire evacuation and safety and the lives. The deterioration of our neighborhood with parking and cars and all the noise and everything that Elizabeth mentioned. All of the things that we've talked about in the past, the strain on our water and our sewer and our resources. and just the extraordinary density increase that would happen all at once at this very special corner of Sonoma. So please, let's go back and think about the idea that this doesn't have to change until you have a project in front of you that makes sense. Thanks.

Thank you. Come on up.

Good evening. My name is Pat Summers, S-U-M-M-E-R-S. I reside at 17401 Garakee Road. I'm also on the, I'm a founding member, board member of the Garakee Road Fire Safe Council. We spend a lot of time keeping our neighborhood clean, monitoring, doing whatever we can. We got a grant to clear our roadsides, but we still live in such precarious position with a one lane road that serves more than 45 houses and 100 residents. We have a precarious evacuation situation as it is. Our roads were not built for this. They were built for farms. Our road was a wagon trail that's been paved over. None of the streets. Fourth Street has got the one lane bridge. There are no evacuation routes to accommodate the people that we already have to accommodate, much less adding hundreds of people and cars. So, this is a huge concern, not only the fire evacuation, but changing the whole quality of life. On our road, we already experience really heavy traffic from the local community and visitors walking and, you know, we can't hardly get down the road at times. People get irritated with us for driving our cars home. It's quite a situation. And I'm sure everyone's familiar with the Valley of the Moon Alliance study that has dire predictions of evacuation with the existing population. Like it would take one to two miles per hour to get, yeah, one to two miles per hour getting out of town once all of the people are on the road. And if there is a really serious fire, we could, all go up in smoke. It is, in my opinion, we're over developing way too quickly without considering this infrastructure first. We already have, let's see, The Paul's Field development in progress with three-story affordable housing units, 71 units, and a large hotel, a Marriott hotel. That's already in progress, already approved. Darius Anderson's project on the plaza, a large 80-some thousand square foot hotel, 80-seat restaurant, a spa, and eight housing units. Our industry is only at 60% occupancy, and why are we building all of these hotels? We are in the process of watching a decline in the wine industry ripping out vineyards. If we fill these spaces with housing and hotels, nobody's gonna wanna come here anymore. We're losing the charm. So I just caution, this development with all my heart. I do not want to see our community changed to an urban, busy, loud, noisy community. And I know this all sounds very charming, but I think we have a lot of thinking and planning to do, especially evacuation before proceeding with anything. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Tom Hauser, H-A-E-U-S-E-R. I live at 484 East Napa Street, and I have three points. Nathanson Creek goes along the southern boundary of the Sebastiani property. It has been channelized. It's just a concrete ditch. If this property is going to be developed and it's going to be attractive, that should be returned to its natural state. That should not be a channel that floods there. Second thing is the railroad right of way. The bicycle path was originally designed to cover the railroad right of way that was no longer being used. On the west side of town, that's exactly what happened. When they got to the Sebastiani property, the city made a deal with the Sebastiani family to jig it up to Lovell Valley. The problem I have with that is you walk or ride along the bike path west of 4th Street East. It's very calm. It's very safe. People just fall asleep as they're walking along. If you're on Lovell Valley Road, you have cars zipping by from all these people escaping. So I would like to see the bike path return to the railroad right-of-way venue, which eventually exits out at 7th Street East and follows around. I believe that's the original plan the county had for the bike path. And finally, I would like to say that Mariano Drive off of Fifth Street West has two lots in there that have two places.

Mr. Helzer, may I ask you to speak into the mic?

Okay. Mariano Drive off of Fifth Street East. There are two units in there, two lots in there that have duplexes on them, and you don't even know that they're duplexes. They're on the corner. It was done over 50 years ago when we first moved to town. And that is possible. It's a question of designing and not pushing too hard.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, David Eicher, E-I-C-H-A-R. And at the beginning, it was mentioned that one of the things you could talk about is consistency with the general plan and development code, but it's not defined yet. It's not finalized. That's working on it, so you're not going to really be able to do that. Another thing about fire hazards and such, I just pulled up the... It's the fire hazard map. You can see it's red. It's high fire zone, this area you're talking about. And if you're adding 100 hotel rooms, so you have 100 guests with 100 cars, maybe some use Uber, so how are they going to get out? And they don't know the roads that well. It's gonna cause even a bigger headache than if you had people, the residents, who the county is trying to help plan and work with the residents to say how to evacuate, where to evacuate, when. So having a hotel there, as well as the additional housing, the cars you have in there, evacuating, that's an issue. Now, what was mentioned here was that they wanted a collaboration and productive conversation, but it sounds like the hotel's a done deal. So I'm not sure what the conversation is about, if the hotel's a done deal. There are a couple things I do like about the project. One is the ag or open space along the bike path. And I think when that comes to, you know, if this plan continues, then those should be split out separate parcels and be designated as ag or open space so those maintain those as well. And another thing in terms of parking for all the residents, you can't tell if they're allowed to have street parking or they have to park in their garages. You know a lot of people don't park in their garages, they fill them up with, for storage, and so that would spill over into other neighboring areas if they don't have the street parking along with all of the housing that is built there on the west side. Thank you.

Hi, Amy Alterman, A-L-T-E-R-M-A-N. I'm at 272 Wilking Way. I also have submitted things in writing, so I'm not going to reiterate everything, but there's a few things I just wanted to touch on. First of all, I do really appreciate the thought that's gone into the proposal. It definitely took in some of the feedback from the community. Obviously, we all have different opinions, so it's hard to make everyone happy. I also really appreciated when I was at the City Council meeting, although they didn't fully take the proposal of this group, I appreciated that they said they wanted to keep the Ag and the green spaces, which I think are really important, like I said, for providing the buffer. I ALSO WANTED TO TOUCH ON THAT A LITTLE BIT MORE. WHATEVER PROPOSAL WE ACTUALLY HAVE, I DON'T WANT A MIXED USE GENERAL ANYTHING GOES DESIGNATION FOR EVEN THE PARTS THAT ARE NOT CURRENTLY AG. IT JUST IS VERY SCARY TO ME FOR ALL THE REASONS PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT AND FOR WHAT COMMISSIONER BARNETT HAS SAID ABOUT YOU CREATED KIND OF AN OPEN DOOR FOR THINGS THAT THEN WE DON'T HAVE ANY CONTROL OVER OR PROTECTIONS IN THE FUTURE. Obviously, we're all afraid of what could happen if there's a fire. And we've seen what's happened in other parts of the state or even the county. And so I think that's really important. The other thing I would just note is if this were to be a proposal that was actually a project, I'm not sure it would be one project. It might be multiple projects. And so again, it might be things that would get proposed separately. But again, the parking, I don't even know if there's enough parking there for the employees that would work in this hotel, if that was going to be there. So I do think there probably needs to be some thought done, not just where would the guests park, where would the employees park, where would the people who live there park, where would people who are visiting the people who live there park, what would be the impact to all the other people in the neighborhood. There isn't really street parking there on, I mean, people do park on Louisville Valley there, but it's limited. And so again, I just think it's not... There's gaps in what I see in terms of the proposal and I know this is just a concept but those are things Also level Valley floods every time it rains so that makes it also really a challenge. So that's something That that I just wanted to also comment on I do think in terms of doing the environmental impact and all of the other things like having some kind of a proposal so that when you're doing those studies to have something that you could look at which I think was something that the City Council wanted so I appreciate that there's something here that maybe can be taken into account but I would strongly urge this group this Commission as well as the City Council when they eventually vote on the general plan not to use a mixed-use designation there's different pieces of this and even in the proposal there's different pieces and i would i would like to see the more strategically placed so if you're going to do something with this part over here let's designate it as such and not have just one general anything goes designation thank you thank you hello commissioners

I have several questions tonight, and I'd like to know, will you respond? May you state your name, please? Oh, yes. I'm Jeannie Schramm, S-C-H-R-A-M, 17303 Gehrke Road. I'll start over. I have several questions tonight, and for each of them I'd like to know will you respond this evening, or if not, how and by whom will they be answered? In February, the City of Sonoma released its emergency evacuation route assessment. I'd like to know who conducted that study. Was it staff or consultants? What drove the decision to do it? And what were its objectives? What commitments were made by decision makers about how the findings would be used, and was there a timeline for action on them? And what funds paid for it, and is that public record? Second, what is the role of the state and local fire departments in determining whether a construction project should be built, modified, or deemed too dangerous to proceed? Third, what is the present state of the land use designation discussion? I'm very confused about that. Has it advanced from the February 19th recommendations of leave it as it is and act when an individual proposal is put forth? Has there been more Planning Commission input to the City Council since February 19th? Where do things stand procedurally with the City Council? Is this study session an indication of where the City stands on the issues discussed regarding the land use designation that they brought up in March? In fact, I don't even really, and it may just be my ignorance here, understand why we're even here tonight if this is not a formal proposal or something that is going to be acted on within that domain. I raise these questions because I think we're all confused. At this point, we witnessed the council's own appointed experts, you, flag significant concerns and raise a wealth of very thoughtful questions. A month later, the council appeared to not be fully informed and seemed more focused on internal timelines than on the substance of what had already taken place here. So the question is simply, why? what is the city's commitment to a thoughtful process is the city council still reluctant to follow the lead of the very people that appointed to understand and explain these issues what is driving that disconnect and who is accountable for bridging it finally is there a formal process for incorporating sustained citizen input into what is eventually decided for this land. Several of us are willing to serve on a citizen task force or advisory board. Is that feasible? If not, what else might be? We're not here to obstruct. We're here because we believe this community deserves answers that match the seriousness and the long-range future of the decisions that are being made. We'd like to know tonight which questions you can answer and what is a clear path to the rest. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. Tom Graves, G-R-A-V-E-S. I live on Wilking Way. I didn't expect to appreciate Mr. Abedeli's presentation tonight, but I think he has a great presentation. Unfortunately, he also has some pretty big problems. He's not going to be able to change the roads and the streets around this property. I'm one of the people, like the earlier speakers from Yerkey Road, who's going to have to get out of this neighborhood if there's a fire. We've had to do it once in 2017. That's my primary concern about whatever happens on this property. And I know something will happen. I think something deserves to happen there. My concern is to get people getting out. However, there's an equal concern of mine for people not getting out of town, but people from this development, say, going into town. There's only a couple roads, a couple streets to get to the plaza, to get to Highway 12. People go to work, they're going to go to Highway 12 or they're going to go out east and toward Napa. So my concern is, and I think it will always be, the ability to evacuate this neighborhood. But the fact is, this number of new cars they're going to come and go every day and they're going to go down spain street and they're going to get to the plaza and it's going to be really busy They're going to go down Fifth Street East. That's going to get really busy. So is the city prepared to widen streets if necessary, put in roundabouts, put in traffic signals at all these, you know, at least a half a dozen what I would call choke points just to do business Monday through Friday? And then, God forbid, we need to evacuate again. So I like your proposal. I think it's in a bad spot. And I would encourage... THE COMMISSION TO NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT MR. ABBADILLI'S PROPOSAL ANYMORE, BUT I THINK PROPOSALS OF THIS NATURE DESERVE TO BE IN CERTAIN CORRIDORS, THE HIGHWAY 12 CORRIDOR, THE BROADWAY CORRIDOR, YOU KNOW, IF THE CITY IS GOING TO GROW, IF THE CITY IS GOING TO GROW TALLER, those are the appropriate places, I think, for that sort of growth to happen. So thank you so much for your consideration.

Thank you. Okay, yes, it's me. My name is Alec McTaggart. Do you want me to spell that? Okay, I have a disclosure to make. First of all, I am not a resident of Sonoma. I am a resident of Windsor. Pardon me. And the reason I'm a resident of Windsor is because it's affordable. Okay, my family's been here for 140 years. That was pretty stupid, sorry. It's a little emotional.

But my great-grandfather built that library.

and it's decommissioned, essentially. Times have changed. Before he got here, it was agriculture. It was just a field. He had the vision, he put it in, and it was great. It's really served this town great, pardon me, for the last 120 years. It has to change. There has to be something to go in there. But it has to be smart, because you're going to get one shot at that. And I appreciate the fact you're here, and I appreciate your presentation. Thank you. But I'm going to give you a hypothetical to consider, please. If you have a winery which is essentially not being used as a winery anymore, the community has grown up around it. You're going to think about putting a hotel in there. I wish them well, but let's use heresy as a thought problem right here. Let's say they go out of business. Let's say someone buys them and wants to put a hotel in there. Would you do that on Castle Street or something like that? Back over on the west side of town or east side of town? Does it make sense to put that over there with the residents? and I'm thinking it doesn't fit. They didn't sign on for that. They should be put through the ringer so that we can have more revenue for the town when the town isn't filling its hotels right now.

Nicholas Dixon, D-I-X-O-N, 318 East Spain Street. I did submit written responses. A lot of my neighbors who are actually very vocal on this subject also have submitted very good responses, and I really hope that the council will really review those responses. i was very much also disappointed with the february 19th decision i i really appreciated your decision in putting a hold on and as the lady prior explained why the city council is not aligned but rather than go into that i did want to point out a couple of points specifically on this proposal. And again, this is just a proposal, and as many people have put it, that this could be completely wiped out when the new person comes in. Three-story housing is over 35 feet. We heard from JJ that it was 45 feet. That is actually on the actual far side. The warehouse itself is only 20 to 24 feet, and so having housing that's over 35 to 40 feet in three-story apartments, I don't believe is really appropriate. Until the new houses, I didn't know of any three-story buildings that were in the local town of Sonoma until this recent one. It seems very inappropriate. They talked about 11 units per acre. He's aggregating that because they're single family homes. When you look at the three stories, they're probably more like 15 to 20 units per acre. A lot of times we've heard about comparing to La Casitas. La Casitas is very similar to that. There's very single family homes. I went out there and measured it. It's seven acres per density. And even that is pretty close. So anything over 10 or 11 units per acre, I think, is totally inappropriate for this area. We've talked a lot. We had a lot of waxing and waning about we love the Sebastiani family and the commitment that we've heard. We heard a lot of waxing and waning about this is a legacy for Sebastiani. Let's be very clear. This is a legacy for Foley. Foley is behind this. He wants to sell this property and, you know, the wine business is, you know, it's a financial benefit. You know, there may be some great benefits for the town of Sonoma, but this is definitely a Foley legacy. Lastly, I think a lot of people have brought up the fire, the cars. I'm not going to go into all of that. But, you know, I work in Santa Rosa. I see a lot of these developments that are going up. When you talk about two cars per unit, that's a complete fallacy. People have campers. They have trucks. They park them on the street. He talked about having your family for retirees and their families coming in. Well, guess what? They all have cars. There's going to be two, three, four cars per unit that's out there. Anyway, maybe those are all too specific, but again, I really appreciate a lot of decisions that you ladies and gentlemen have made, and really hope that you will take a very much harder look at this proposal. Thank you.

Thank you.

Commission members, thank you for all the work that you do and all the effort you put into each of these projects. I like the vineyards being saved. I like the historic stone buildings being preserved. May I ask you to? Oh, I'm sorry.

Victor Conforti.

Thank you. C-O-N-F-O-R-T-I. We knew that, but we didn't. I like the presentation. very smooth. The 100-room hotel is a very intense project. It's not consistent with the surrounding areas, obviously. The new hotel should be located in the commercial zonings, not in the ag zonings and adjacent housing zonings. There are, and they should be located on the existing major thoroughfares like Broadway and Highway 12. There are parcels, owners who own parcels on those two locations that would be where hotels belong. Let me see here. The proposed hotel, it's going to have a really negative impact on the other hotels in town. In fact, it could be robbing guests from the existing hotels, as someone pointed out, the hospitality. economy is not the best. And there are the hotels today in town that are functioning, they're running okay. But it could, and there's examples of this too, that actually taking the TOT on a on an additional hotel in Yonville didn't create any more TOT funds. They just basically spread out the TOT amongst what's already happening into two buildings, two hotels. So that's very likely to happen. The historic buildings, saving those, are I think a top priority and I'm glad to see that. One of the buildings is proposed to be demolished, the one on the west side across the street from the parking lot or near the, across from the wine tasting area. The other thing that seems like it would be, is the process that's happened here. Study sessions normally are done near the application and that's part of the development code. However, this is well, you know, way, way before and that's what's causing all this confusion. you know, all the difficulties in understanding this. So I think it really, this should really come to an end and not proceed any further and wait until the general plan update is approved before you do anything else. Thank you.

Any further comment from the, oh please come.

Hello, my name is Erin McTaggart, that's E-R-I-N, and it is McTaggart, M-C, capital T, A-G-G-A-R-T. That's my brother, Alec. So, like him, this is very emotional. I had a hard time paring down what ended up being an almost two-page letter to the commission because We've been in the neighborhood for a very long time. I have lived the majority of my life at 44, 272, 402, and 402A, 4th Street East. I've had a lot of interaction with the winery. And it was mostly all good. The winery does seasonal things. You get crush, it smells great. There are trucks, that's great. The anecdote about one of our cousins being sent to tell neighbors that it was crushed and sorry about the noise, never lived near the winery. My grandmother lived in the house when I was born at 402, 4th Street East. So very intimate with the noise of the winery. The only time the noise of the winery was upsetting was when they rented out the barrel room for parties. There was no enforcement of noise ordinances. There was no enforcement about drunk people. There was no enforcement about time limits by the city. I'm concerned that any commercial use would require enforcement that the city doesn't hasn't done in the past the traffic the traffic for fires definitely a thing the current traffic is a thing if you stand at the intersection of fourth street east and main street you will see probably Three out of five cars roll through the intersection. They don't stop. No one's there to tell them to stop. They live there. There's nothing coming. So they roll through the intersection. There's no traffic enforcement. If you want to increase revenue, start with enforcing the traffic. You know? So anyway. But I'm going to just read, I think, part of my letter. So it's a little choppy. My great-grandfather, Samueli Sebastiani, did not put a hotel or market on the property. Samueli did have a motel along West Napa Street, which is part of Highway 12, right? He also helped greatly with the development of the plaza, right, downtown. He did build affordable housing for workers. Apparently, he could discern the difference between a residential and wine production area, which is a shopping and hotel area. Maybe the developers can skip the hotel and market that are incongruous with the neighborhood and focus solely on housing. And if they are allowed to build a market or a hotel, their new houses can be right up against that new market and hotel and not subject the people on the existing residential property lines to a parking lot or a market. A market? When's that going to operate? Anyway, it's concerning, the whole thing's concerning. And I echo pretty much everybody's sentiment so far.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Sarah Parker. And my parents are on the corner of 4th Street East and Level Valley. I have Howard's house, who's the famous teacher in town. And I grew up here and have rehabbed that house, keeping with the integrity of the neighborhood because I love that area. And this is what is being proposed is really not consistent with the neighborhood. And when I bought that house, the concern was that we were going to take it down and put up a big two-story house because we could, and we chose not to, to keep in line with the neighborhood. So I would ask you, as you look at all of this and what's going in, to think about the neighborhood. And from my kitchen window, every Saturday morning, there are hundreds of people walking. up and down the bike path around brazil and back and they park and so again like all of this extra density there part of why people go to the corner of fourth street and level valley is because it's charming and there's vineyards and it's kind of the old sonoma that used to be all over town that has slowly gotten taken up and parceled out. And so I am concerned as I look at this and I fully know change is coming and can get on board with change, but I think there needs to be a real remembrance for the charm of the neighborhood and the area and the sense that people come there as a destination to walk to ride their bikes to walk their dogs locals people from the other side of town it's a whole community that's happening there and i ask everyone to keep the integrity of the neighborhood and the charm as i have done by preserving 292 and 282 from with my parents and all the other neighbors So that's my thoughts and thank you everyone for listening. Thank you.

Ken Stokes, I live on Brazil Street. I've gotten older since I've been talking to you over the course of the last year and a half. Oh, I'm sorry.

Ken Stokes, Brazil Street.

I don't want to speak, S-T-O-K-E-S, by the way. I don't want to speak to the specific proposal tonight. I really want to dial back to something that few people have mentioned, and that is the role of these various meetings in the general plan update process. Whether you love this, hate this, don't understand this isn't the point that I would like to make tonight. The point is this property is too large, too important. There are too many ideas floating out there. None of them are concrete. None of them are well grounded. None of them are at the point of decision making. The point I want to make is the only appropriate designation for this in the general plan update is either to leave it as it is or to make a special planning area. All else leads to way too many risks down the road. So I just want to dial it back to where this meeting fits in the general plan update process, which is becoming increasingly less clear to me. and remind us that that's what's on the agenda for the city council in the next few months. It's not this project. So either designate the whole thing a special planning area, which means nothing changes, or don't change anything and don't designate it a special planning area. But until we get to the point of actual concrete discussion about a real proposal, these meetings are largely an interesting, entertaining evening, but they're frustrating. I'll leave it at that.

Please come forward.

Hello, yeah. I just want to start off by thanking the Planning Commission for having no time limit. Oh, there is a three minute now. Okay, great. Wow, that's great. Yeah, Logan Harvey, 380 West MacArthur Street, or East MacArthur Street now, Sonoma, California. I just want to comment a few things here. One, you know, I'm born and raised in Sonoma. My wife and I have left Sonoma, come back to Sonoma. And looking at trying to buy a home and raise a family, Homes are like $1.4 million here. Rents are like $3,000, $4,000 a month here. So if you want to have community, we need to continue to build housing. We need to continue to create opportunities for young people to be here. We've just closed down Presswood. It's going to be a charter school or whatever. We're closing down. We closed down Adele Harrison, a brand new school. Having opportunities for this to be a thriving community is really important. And I think it's been interesting hearing comments about this and everybody calling it an agricultural area. One of the defining features of this parcel for me is the like 400 space parking lot. There's space for commercial 18 wheelers to show up there. This is a massive commercial operation. It was for a long time. And it got shut down because of sewage issues and smash jams and everything else. So to call it agricultural land, it's really a misnomer. And I think we need to remember that when we talk about it. The buildings there are very tall. They're much over an average two-story house. They're probably edging into three stories. It makes sense to me to put a significant amount of housing here. And We're four blocks from the plaza, so it's not really like in the hinterland. We're not out in the middle of nowhere with this. This isn't 10-acre parcels out here. This is residential housing. There are apartment buildings there on 2nd Street East a couple blocks away. There's two-story tall buildings there, lots of condos and townhomes. It does fit the character of the neighborhood to have these things here. A hotel, do it, don't. I don't know, it's gonna be a luxury hotel. We need hotels here that people can stay in and spend 200 bucks a night or 300 bucks a night. Everything's five, six, $700 a night now. That's not gonna be this. This is gonna be a very expensive hotel for sure, but adding the demand, Adding the supply can help that, right? This is a capitalist society. So I just think build the housing. I like keeping the grapes right along the bike path. It keeps the nature of that. I notice that there's a lot of trees and contacts built into that along Lovell Valley Road. Will it change the character of the neighborhood? Yeah. They've been blessed with the fact that the winery shut down for a very long time. So you win some, you lose some. And a lot of people have been losing some for a long time. So this will be nice. Thanks.

Thank you. Any further comments from the public?

Do I get to talk again?

I don't get my public comment? Three minutes. Yes, we can allow you. Yes. In fact, if there are questions of the commission of the applicant, Yes, please come forward. Right now? Come on up. I'll be really brief.

We're trying to have a dialogue, and I like dialogue, and it's productive. There's questions that were answered, and there's a few I can answer, and there's a few I can't. Becky's raised about why can't we just not rezone it, and Ken also brought this up. Can we not rezone it and just wait for an application to come forth or kind of avoid the question? And the reason why I believe we cannot is because it is very expensive and very arduous to create an application in in a community like Sonoma that is a risk that very few people I think probably no one is willing to make if the community itself is not willing to say here's a list of things we'd like to potentially see here here's a list of standards we think are reasonable for such consideration if we can't say that as a community then It will not be worth certainly my time or I think probably anybody else's to try to come in here and cram something down without any boundaries. And so I think it's basically a non-starter trying to suggest that that will come. um the question of like road improvement question of you know road quality um the fire questions are important questions i don't know i don't have answers they need to be studied but when you have a new development correct me if i'm wrong there are conditions of approval that come on the heels of the environmental review that happens specific to the project they assess things like sewer capacity like traffic and circulation and roads. And when such project, should it be approved, comes with conditions of approval for the developer to make improvements to those things. That might include roads, that could include sidewalks, that could include traffic measures, that could include sewer capacity, utilities, etc. And so really development is what helps drive the opportunity to improve aging infrastructure. Because there's not really money to do it on its own. And part of that utility permits too, like the flooding that exists there, very well worth. This is an opportunity for there will be, by necessity, a study of the issues that affect that site, which will create solutions to current problems. I anticipate that through this process, we will actually create solutions to those existing problems, particularly around the flooding as very obvious solutions is to move water strategically through the east part of the Sebastiani site and into Nathanson Creek. dropping power lines along Louisville Valley Road. That's an opportunity that I think a project like this gives you the opportunity to pursue because you're making infrastructure improvements, you're already doing, you're in the ground doing those things. If we're working on extending the bike path, it's a natural time to have the conversation with PG&E and the county and say, let's drop these power lines in front of the vineyards. My point being is these things that are problems today It's hard to believe it, but development is part of what provides those solutions and the opportunity to provide those solutions. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.

JJ, can you remain? I think we've got some questions from the commissioners. No questions? I do have a question. You had mentioned earlier that you could expound on what the wine production is going on currently at Sebastiani. I understand it's a limited contractual

So I spoke with the operations director, and so they have a, they're subleasing effectively, or they're leasing out the space to Naked Wines. The current production expected for this year is about 10% of where Sebastiani was in 2020, 2021. It's very limited production, but they're using it. And then both Sebastiani and Naked are also storing wine as they've continued to store wine on parts of the site. But they're making wine there, about 10% of the highest capacity before they shut down.

Thank you. So I understand there are no further comments or questions from my commissioners.

Okay. Can we ask a question of our community development director? Okay, I'm going to start. One of the questions that was brought up by the community about the process between City Council and Planning Commission, do you want to speak to that?

So it's kind of what I said earlier, Planning Commission, when we talked about the land uses and the edits to the land use element, we had talked about not, when we had separated it, and we pulled just that section out, but we had talked about, um, basically either waiting for an actual application to come forward, but to not actually do recommend to city council that we change the land uses as they currently stand, which again is wine production, mixed use, um, agriculture and a little residential. So that would go that went to city council and then at city council, It was refined. The actual description was refined slightly. And at that meeting, the agriculture parcels were separated from the discussion that they would stay agriculture, but those that were already wine production and mixed juice would be part of moving forward with the EIR and the draft general plan. And so that is currently still with the consultant. I do not have a draft yet. Once I do, it'll be public and it'll have a certain number of days for the EIR and for the actual general plan itself. And my plan is to hit, not hit, sorry, wrong word. and go to all the commissions and present the draft at that time of the whole general plan. So not, you know, before we were doing each element, this will be a whole comprehensive general plan to look at. So it's going to take time to go through. So that will be hopefully before the end of summer. So that is the goal right now.

And just to clarify, the EIR you're talking about is related to the general plan, not to this site-specific?

That's correct. It's regarding the general plan as a whole and all the changes associated with the general plan that are proposed.

Commissioner Delmar.

Just to follow up on that for clarity this evening, is that the general plan EIR, the comprehensive EIR, including this parcel in question. The EIR will be based on the assumption that it's mixed use. There's an ag portion, and then there's also a potential lodging. So when the EIR is analyzed, it will include assumptions around, for this parcel, around what? Like a little bit of housing?

It's not necessarily around the parcel. It's around the changes overall and how it impacts the city and the general plan. So in a bigger sense, like these things are going to happen. It's not necessarily parcel by parcel based in any of those studies. It's what is the overall change by these aspects of the general plan that impact traffic, that impact our biology, our cultural resources, things like that to develop those mitigation measures and understand those impacts. So vehicle miles traveled.

instead of LOS is what's studied now. But based on the recommendation by the city council, there are assumptions made in that EIR evaluation. Yes, because there's change. Correct. And so even though it's not per parcel, the assumptions made for this area will be rolled into the EIR. And so those assumptions for this area are mixed use with at least 11 units per acre plus a potential hotel. So that assumption is rolled into the whole EIR. Yes. Thanks.

I don't understand how we do an EIR for the general plan with the assumption of making this mixed use without actually making it mixed use. Are we making it mixed use?

No, so the EIR is going to, it basically contemplates the big picture of it. It doesn't The EIR, we're contemplating that bigger picture. If the council says, nope, or you guys make a recommendation, no, we still go with our original recommendation, and city council says, okay, we're going to do that, I have to look at the EIR and make sure I don't have to redo the aspects of the EIR. So that's one of the things that we need to look at. When it comes through, if it's not adoptable at that time, it may mean that I need to do the EIR. I may need to re-release it. But our goal always with an EIR is to do the max, and then your alternatives are going to be a little less. And so it may be that we take an alternative.

And I'll just follow up. So the assumption when you make it mixed use and versus what it is right now is that there would be higher density?

Yes. Yes, Commissioner Barnett.

Well, are we in the comment period of the commission?

Yes. Yes, we are in the comment period.

OK, well, let me just say a few things generally. As I think Mr. Stokes brought up, conducting a study session on a non-proposal to me is a waste of time. And I'm sorry to say that. It hasn't been a waste of time to hear the public. And I'm glad we have these opportunities to get a sense of the community, because it's important. But Mr. Abedilli could bail. Mr. Foley could bail. And all of this will have been for naught. I'm not really sure and I would be interested in having a discussion at some point, Jennifer, in the future about when it is that a study session actually comes before this commission because I think this is highly premature. Give me a favor and hold your applause because it's getting late. with regard to the relationship between the decisions of this body and the City Council what can I tell you yes we are appointed by the City Council the City Council is its own independent body it establishes its own set of priorities which may not be the same priorities as ours but basically they are the ones who are going to approve the general plan not this Commission we're going to give the City Council recommendations and And that's our role. The city council are elected. If you don't like what they decide, get involved in the local electoral process and elect people who are aligned with what you want. That's the system we have to work with, good or bad. I'm some of the issues for me that will pertain to any development of this project and I just want to break in and thank the McTaggart's for being here tonight I knew Ken well and I know how long your family has been here at Ken was for those of you who don't know City Council and a mayor in Sonoma the he was a direct descendant of the spastiani family and they've had an involvement and and relationship with this community for a very long time so i appreciate your coming um one of the issues is how it is that even any project even a proposal at a study session like this comes up to me It intersects with the recommendation of our own safety element of the general plan, which specifically states, if I recall correctly, that high intensity development should not occur in a high fire zone. It couldn't be a lot clearer than that. And frankly, my concern is that when one considers a hotel, to my way of thinking is a high intensity development. I've heard nothing about the specifics of a hotel operation in Mr. Abedeli's comments, but I am familiar with the impact of the hotel operation of the lodge on the residents that are near that, and it has been a problem from the very beginning. Truck deliveries, garbage pickup, I mean, noise, one thing after another. A hotel is a high intensity use, period. And what gets looked at, someone mentioned the Darius Anderson Hotel, which, in my opinion, may or may not ever get built. We gave a one-year extension to the permit. We're probably four months or more into that one-year extension. And if it doesn't get built within that one-year time period, guess what? They got to start all over again. So I don't know if that project's going to happen. It's not a slam dunk, in my opinion, to count on the money from a hotel. And so I think hotels can be a positive contributing factor to a community, and they can be a negative contributing factor to a community. It depends on where and how big and whether or not they succeed. You know, the lodge. went bankrupt and got sold. And the people who invested in that property got $0.15 on the dollar when it got sold. It wasn't proposed as a Marriott-affiliated hotel. It was proposed as a local hotel with low rates of $150 a night for the locals who want to have a wedding here and invite their family. Well, it didn't really work out that way. So what can I say? Plans of mice and men don't always turn out the way they are expected. One more comment, or two more. One, I didn't see anything nor was there any discussion about hotel worker housing and And my opinion is that high intensity commercial uses need to take a hard look at how they are going to provide the housing for the people who work there. Did you know that less than 20% of the employees of the city of Sonoma live in the city of Sonoma? And do you know why that is? It's because they can't afford to live here. The biggest complaint to the Chamber of Commerce members is that they can't find people to hire who live locally. and the people who have to work in particularly the service industries have to commute to Sonoma from places like Fairfield because the housing costs are lower there. I'm concerned about 2,600 and 2,400 square foot units, which frankly are gonna sell for a million or two each. If it gets old, look at that. And the last thing I want to say is that the wine industry is clearly going through tough times right now. And what we're looking at, despite the fact that this facility is not currently being used as a primary agricultural use, it does represent the leading edge, and in fact, What we can see is a trend of what's happening in the wine industry in general. And the question it raises, and this is gonna be a question not just for this community, but all of Sonoma County, is what is going to be the alternative use for these vineyards. and this amount of agricultural acreage devoted to growing grapes when it's no longer profitable. This is not the first or the last time we're going to see development proposals coming forward and potentially high intensity development proposals coming forward in response to an economic change in the basic underlying structure of the economy of this county and correspondingly the valley and the city. So this is kind of a test for us of how we can cope with this systemic change. And it is going to be a systemic change. I may not live long enough to see the final outcome of it, but our children will and our grandchildren will. And if we are interested in creating a legacy for this community, which really consider a responsibility of those of us who have positions of decision-making and influence and involvement in the community it's a serious consideration what is the community we want to leave to our children and our grandchildren and the future inhabitants of this community there's a there's an absence of and I say this delicately, fought leadership right now in this community. It wasn't always true. There used to be a circle of people who were so invested in the future of this town that they'd sit around and they'd talk about it for hours. And they'd come up with ideas and they'd come up with visions. And it doesn't happen very much anymore. In fact, it practically doesn't happen at all. It doesn't happen at the city council level. I hate to criticize my friends, and I know everyone on the city council, and they're good people. But I'm not seeing a lot of creative thought leader examples coming out at that echelon right now. And unfortunately, the state of government is that we rely on a city staff for most of the ideas that come forward for public discussions. I'm not happy about it, but it's also the change in the world systemically that we're working with. And part of it's a disenchantment with politics, which is why I suggest you pay attention to local politics. And it's just another one of the changes that we're going to have to cope with going forward. Thank you.

So I had to go after a commissioner for that. I was still in the question phase. I could certainly ask questions. And I do have a lot of comments. So are we still questions? Or are we kind of merging the two? Or it's however? OK. Well, first off, I want to be sensitive to some of the comments that were made. And just really quickly, I heard a lot of comments about traffic congestion in that area. I grew up in that area, a little bit further down, but I was off of Old Winery Road, and I'm very familiar. I walk there very frequently. And have we done or do we know at this point how many cars are coming into and from the winery now? I mean, I think that's a question that we need to evaluate. I think I would like to know what the existing capacity is. I saw 103 parking spots for the hotel. What is the existing capacity and has it been utilized? Because I remember at some point it was a high traffic area. I think that's waned over time. But I think those are important questions because I also have seen, and I live near MacArthur Place now, and I also kind of walk also by Best Western, I don't see significant traffic congestion that has been contributed to those that the hotels are contributing to. So I think I'd like to know what the traffic looks like now. I think that's an important thing to evaluate in the context of any project. In terms of this study session, I kind of agree and disagree with whether, I don't think it's a waste of time. I actually would argue that having a vision to review invoked after the study sessions that occurred or the citizen workshops that I've actually seen a plan, and so I seek the value in allowing the public to comment on that, engage feedback, as well as allowing the commission to provide that feedback. So I will respectfully disagree with Commissioner Burnett on that piece, because I think it gives people a vision and a thought process to provide additional feedback and comment, and that includes myself. Anyway, I talked over my question, but I should just go back to the original Do we know what the traffic looks like over there currently and how many cars? Because I'm not convinced it would dramatically change.

No, but that would be part of an actual application. There would be a traffic study done with that application.

And that's a follow-up question, too, because we've talked about it, the EIR, for purposes of the general plan and the items that would be contemplated with this new zoning designation. But

a project came forward wouldn't there be an additional environmental review that would assess traffic you know running runoff all of those factors so there would be a different there would be additional studies that were site specific and related to a proposed project and then the whatever the outcomes of those studies are then lead you to what the appropriate environmental study there was an environmental impact report or a mitigated negative declaration. That's based on what the studies say specifically.

Okay.

Um, but yes, so a site specific understanding would occur. Um, we don't have a comprehensive, you know, cultural resource study for that site. We, um, it is a creek creeks. How we are creeks here have setbacks. It isn't because it is open as well. So we definitely are going to look at it closer for biology. as well, so we have those aspects too. So it'll trigger a lot more studies that would be with that development proposal if one is proposed in the future.

If and when there's a proposal that's brought forward. Right. And so right now this is simply a vision narrative. Just a concept. Correct. Okay. Just want to make sure that we're clear on that. I think I've probably got a number of other questions, but I'll let some of my colleagues provide additional feedback and then maybe I'll come back and make some final comments.

Commissioner O'Neill. This has been really fun and I appreciate your optimism. I really do and I appreciate your vision and as much as I want to get engaged in this visionary utopia. There's just not enough here. So the question is, is this too soon for a study session? But I actually agree with my fellow commissioner that I don't think it's too soon, because not only for the community to get involved, but I think you're asking for feedback, and you want to know how this is going to go. And I think that's our role here, is to have that open dialogue. I see the hotel as a non-starter right now for a couple of reasons. Location, I'm just going to put aside. But right now, we have Hotel Sonoma, Darius Anderson's project. They can't get off the ground. They can't get funding. There's not a drive for that hotel to go in, and that's actually in a better geographic location. And if they can't get funding there, that makes me just think that's not really a rush to get a hotel. It makes me nervous because First Street East, we can't get that one off the ground. So we have an entitled project with 31 condos and we can't get a developer to buy it. So I'm not seeing a rush in terms of what we need to do with this project. So I'm not feeling the pressure or the anxiety to make something happen quickly because I just feel like that there's so many market constraints and obstacles that are going to make it difficult for any developer to go forward on that. I do think that if we could have any kind of EIR that was site-specific, that got into the historical, the buildings, the environmental. I know I've seen those huge salmon in Nathanson Creek up there on that 4th Street Bridge, so I know that there's going to be some issues around on that that if we can go ahead and get that done so developer knows what they're going to work with i know the developer pays for that so obviously the developers got to agree to that but if that's something they're willing to do i think it would be very helpful for them with just this concept to at least get something done so they know what properties are historic what's the story with the creeks you know get that information so they they have some data because a lot of this visionary utopia but without any data to back it up i'm like I don't know. I have no idea what to do with this. So right now I don't think it's consistent with the general plan. So I don't feel like we can go forward on that. A couple of other things that I wanted to mention is City Council last night and the Jock and Hill houses, that's straight up the street. So we're talking about a whole other three-house development straight up 4th Street East. And to complicate this at the same time, it's like a lot of absorption on 4th Street East. which I think is beyond what we should expect the neighbors to bear. And obviously, this project is perfect for bike paths, pedestrians, runners. We all use it. And if we can incorporate that in whatever happens in the future, that's ideal. Two of the things that, one thing gave me huge anxiety, a wagon on Garrickie. Holy heck, I have horses, and I would die if I had to drive a wagon up Garrick. And the other thing that was really cool is Howard Costello's house has a new owner, and that was really cool. So I have to say, I don't think the study session was too soon. I think it was really wonderful, and I really appreciate your openness to this. And I think we've made some progress.

Thank you.

I'm gonna start by saying as a professional I have three things that are I'm legally bound actually to follow and that is the health safety and welfare of my clients I'm bound to it by the state law that requires me as an architect to to make sure that I don't injure anyone not only my clients but public and I bring that context to my role as a planning commissioner because it's a grounding fundamental for me. I don't understand why we're here, actually, for this site plan. I don't understand why we're here for a study session of it. I appreciate your idea of visioning this property. I think you're right, but I think you're in front of the wrong body. I think you should turn around face the people that you're actually affecting in the neighborhood, spend the time, spend the money, and come up with a vision that is actually the community, that protects the health, welfare, and safety of that community. And then maybe the approval process will be simpler. The approval process will be simpler. I feel like that the proposal is searching for an answer in the general plan to be the general plan to fit the proposal. And that is not how we should be planning our community. It's exactly opposite. community should say happens on that property and if right now the best thing to happen on that property and I stand by what we talked about in February if the best thing to happen on that property is it to remain exactly the way that it is and a proposal from Foley comes forward and says we want to make general plan amendments and we want to bring a for a project forward that requires all of these general plan and zoning amendments which by law they can legally do and then put that application forward and see if it lives or dies. But incrementally to put ideas and float it out in the community to try to get the community buy-in for essentially what is the sale of a property, I think we shouldn't be talking about it. And so I'm really, other than that context, I'm really not gonna talk about this proposal. And I do think that the general plan process needs to be thoroughly vetted when it comes to this property, when we get back the EIR and when we get back the new zoning of it. The more the fire issue is a fire issue, as we all know it is, Dave Kuntz, And the way in which our general plan and our zoning code treat high now what is extreme, you know very high fire hazard zone. Dave Kuntz, We have to consider this property in that context, regardless if we want density for housing or not, and as all of you know that i've stood in front of this body for 30 years asking for higher density 30 plus years. Dave Kuntz, But there is a place where it's appropriate and there are places where it's not appropriate. And and so I think that this process has to complete itself and open itself up to applications whatever that process is because the zoning will then be established for this property and We shouldn't be going about it backwards We should not be going about it in the way of a project looking for verification through a general plan process Those are my comments

Any further comments from the commissioners?

First of all, I appreciated all the commissioners' comments. I appreciate the public comment. Again, it's been continuous dialogue. And I do want to thank JJ for coming, because it was pretty courageous for him to come up here. I agree with Commissioner Gorman that I think that this is a process where we have someone who is coming forward where we're understanding how they're connecting dots in their vision trying to incorporate input from the community and it's not fully baked i agree we we should finish this general plan and zoning process and have an application come in front of us but i think What helped me tonight was to actually see something visually. I agree. And it helps me to further put ideas, boundaries, feedback forward. So I appreciate it. I also did not think it was a waste of time. I know it's a confusing process to go through this, but believe in the process because there is a mechanism for it going forward with regard to the general plan. This is a project. So the final thing I want to say is, you know, I'm an advocate, too, for having housing for everyone in our community. And most of the people in our community are healthcare workers or are service workers, and they can't afford to live here, and we've heard this before. We have a property owner who's very wealthy, has a large parcel of land, And a comment I have is how do we think creatively about protecting our community, but also actually providing housing? because there is a deficit of funding that is available in the government and will probably not come back. And so the idea of having public-private partnerships for us to enable our workers to thrive in this valley is very important. I very much appreciate your collaboration with the community land trust, but I also would ask that this particular property owner, if they want to really do something for this community, that they have charitable donations around helping us to build some affordable housing. Thank you.

Any further comments? Well, I'll wrap it up with I'd like to say how much I appreciate my fellow commissioners' comments. And I appreciate you taking the time this evening to come and share your comments, your concerns, I appreciate your passion around it. I appreciate JJ coming and putting yourself out there, but it's really important that you participate at this level. That's where we're going to get some traction and to be able to further the vision for what's appropriate for you. And I do appreciate your time for being here. Thank you. So that's item five. And we now move on to item six, which is direct comments and announcements.

That's me. um so i don't really have too much to say other than what commissioner o'neill announced a little bit ago is that the three brazil hillside single-family homes were approved by city council last night so that was a an item that went directly to city council and not planning commission so that's why you did not hear that item or those items plural um The other is I will be bringing a comprehensive fee study to city council on June 3rd. It's going to be modifying all of our, it's going to be recommending modifications to all of our fees for everything from building planning to special events, cemeteries. So comprehensive, whole city. And a new cost allocation plan along with that fee study. And then a loo fee for our trees. then also a consideration for a general plan fee as well as a fee for art so 1% when you say modification of fees that just you know permits and I said are you saying an increase Yes. And changes. So we're completely changing how we're going to process, how we are going to do fee schedules for building permits. It's going to be completely different. It's not going to be based on the valuation of the project anymore. It's actually going to be based on its square footage. So to kind of even the field instead of somebody spends a lot of money, they get charged more. So looking at that aspect of it. So it's going to change it up a little bit. So there'll be in the, It's currently up right now on our website what the fees are being proposed at. The recommendations are up as well as the cost allocation plan, the fee study, as well as the in lieu fee memo from our consultants. So everything is up on our website right now. So everybody can look at it. So it would be June 3rd. They would go and infect 60 days after. And I think that's it, unless anybody has any other questions specifically.

Did we lose our alternate?

Yes, the alternate did step down.

OK. Is there going to be a replacement? I'm concerned because I'm going to miss again next month. And I don't want to leave the commission in a lurch

Anybody else going to be missing next month? Potentially. We can talk about it, but I am not aware of any board movement on commissions being seated.

Is that because we don't have applicants or it's just not on city council's radar?

It is on the council's radar, but I think it comes down to applicants as well.

So we need to go chase down some applicants.

We need to chase down some applicants for all of the commissions, especially my preservation commission, please. Preservation.

Oh, preservation. OK. We'll work on that.

Any other comments? No. OK. Commissioner reports and comments. OK. Seeing, hearing none, then I think that leads us into a motion to adjourn the meeting.

So moved.

All in favor?

Yes.