City Council - Regular Meeting

We just here.

I'd like to welcome you to uh the city council meeting of March 4th and we are running a little bit late so it says we're starting at 6:05 but the first item will be just simply to join us if you can with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Madame clerk, may we have the roll call?

Council member Gurnie here. Council member Ferrar Rivas here. Council member Dean here. Vice Mayor Low here. Mayor Willander here. Thank you. Okay. At this point in time, I I ask my fellow council members if there's any desire to change anything on the agenda or if not, may I have a motion for approval? I move to accept the agenda. Second. Thank you. And this can be a general or do we need Okay, this can be a general. So for all those in favor, say I. I opposed.

Agenda stands as written. Oh, I'm sorry. My attorney just is giving me the stink eye. Uh, prior to the vote, is there anybody from the public that would like to speak on the agenda? Mr. Mayor, I was just wanted to note that there was no reportable action at close session. So, I didn't have to do this. Correct. That's even worse. Uh, we did have a close session and there is no reportable action. And if you want to know anything else, contact the attorney.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So at this point in time, we can now move to the point in which the public is invited to come forward and speak to items that are not appearing on the agenda. Unfortunately, up here, we cannot respond or engage in any discussion regarding the item. Nonetheless, we will be here listening. So the first go round we are offering up an opportunity for 10 people to come forward and it' be just a matter of queuing down the aisle and you will each be given two minutes and if there is a desire for more than 10 we will be opening it back up at the end of the session at the close of the meeting. However, I'm not very good at counting up to 10. So uh if there's an 11th one I think I will forgive. So, with that in mind, please feel free.

Oh, I'm sorry. And please identify yourself. Yes, of course.

Good evening, Mayor Wellender, members of the council, city staff. My name is Kate Chz. I live on the west side of Sonoma. I'm a past chair of the city's cultural and fine arts commission and presently the secretary and member of the board of the Soma Valley Historical Society. I come before you today to speak on behalf of the commission and the many cultural and nonprofits that enrich our valley. I commend the council on having included support for the arts as one of its five goals for this fiscal year and for addressing the cultural and historical heritage of our heritage of our town in the general plan. Many nonprofits in our community are instrumental in implementing programs that will make those goals a reality. And as always, they are seeking more support, financial and moral. For more than 20 years, there has been a city resolution that a percentage fee would be assessed on all city building projects, and that that fee would be designated for public art. The darth of such projects and various economic pressures on the city, the 2010 economic turndown, the 2017 wildfires, the 2020 pandemic and its aftermath have led to this method of funding public art never having been activated. But there's now an opportunity to finally realize this well-intended project via the city of Soma Nexus fee study. I urge the city to determine how to implement a greater cultural plan related to this study that includes funding mechanisms. This is a critical time for our region as the demand for our primary product wine declines worldwide. Soma is very lucky to have other highly developed ways to make its mark in this new world in which we find ourselves. We have a rich history of art and artists from Marian Brackenidge who designed plaques that mark the Pony Express trail through to the 24th poet laurate of the United

States, Ada Limon. Our celebrated Plenair Art Festival draws painters from across the country. Our art museum mounts unique and sometimes challenging exhibits within its walls and in our plaza. Our local theater is gaining regional recognition for the quality of its productions. And our local historical society continues its robust collection, preservation, sharing of important historical documents. Almost every week, it inherits a valuable collection of Sonoma Valley history. Recently, that of the renowned local historian and lawyer, Robert Parmaly. I'm sorry. Could you go ahead and wrap it up shortly? We're in

Yep. I won't compliment you anymore. But but telling the the but telling these stories, all of these stories, supporting these artists, all takes money. And volunteers provide the vast majority of staff work in these organizations. But they don't and can't pay for the utility bills, the necessary publicity, or the modern technology required to compete for today's audience. They need a hand. Please extend it. Thank you. Thank you,

Mayor Willander, Vice Chair uh Low, city council members and city staff. My name is Connie Schlayine. I live on the west side of the city. I'm speaking today as a resident, not in my capacity as chair of the cultural and fine arts commission. First, I want to say I'm grateful for the our hardworking city staff. Especially, I'd like to do a shout out to our city manager, David Guuan. David, you have steered our city with a rare perspective, an eye toward the future and appreciation of our unique past and in the present. Despite the challenges we have right now, you spotlight our path forward. Your thoughtful guidance has empowered us to build a solid foundation in the arts. You've told us to go slow, to go fast. You've told us to respect the process. And now we have some groundbreaking wins like our new parks department and an incredible director, Dave Jans. Sonoma County is the new beneficiary of your leadership and our county will soon be in great hands. Thank you. And next, I'm grateful for our city council. You've added arts and culture in two of our annual city goals. Unprecedented. Our whole community just scored a massive win with that one. Your first parks and wreck. Our residents hungered for it. Now it's a reality and amazing. And um you added arts to the title. PE parks, arts, recreation, and community. Thank you, Councilwoman Low. Sheer genius in my opinion. The second, the economy. We have a need

to diversify the economy and it's now the the 1% for the arts or 2% for the arts has the ability to do that. I encourage you to be bold as you do this. This is a once in a in a lifetime opportunity to really think about this. We won't be able to go back. It's going to change our community. Thank you for all you do. Thank you.

Hi everybody. My name is Jamie Love. I've lived here 31 years. Um I was proud to be your treasure artist in 2023. And I'm also very very proud to have been creating live theater in this town for just about 31 years. And um our company is Sonoma Arts Live Theater Company. We serve over 6,500 people coming through those doors that go to the plaza, spend money, have dinner, and I'm just here to say that I was thrilled when Connie reached out to me and told me about the things that you're all working on. And if there's any way I can be of help or our theater company can be in any way helpful, let us know. And I appreciate this. It's so exciting to be part of the conversation. Thank you. Hi. Uh, good evening. I'm Pat Meyer Johnson and I'm here to talk about support for public art. Being named the uh, Sonoma Treasure Artist in 2022 truly took my breath away. Just like this beautiful place where creativity is woven into everyday life. I'm not only an exhibiting artist, but I also sometimes work the front desk at the Arts Guild of Sonoma. And one of my favorite moments is when visitors come in after walking around the plaza and they say, "Is everybody around here this nice?" And they say it like almost like a memo had gone around. And in a way, it has. Art sets a tone for a place. When people encounter art in a public space, something shifts. They slow down. They look more closely. They notice things. They start conversations with strangers. We saw that with the grassroots co hearts in the famous Albert Paley sculptures on the plaza. We want more public art. We've seen it in Napa, Pedaluma, Mil Valley, where my husband

and I lived before moving here. Public art elevates a place. It pulls us away from our phone screens and gets us to experience where we are. and even talk to each other. And they say that art is good for business. Yes, that's true. It's been proven that businesses that are near public art do better. And visitors stay here for everything else our town offers. But I believe public art is more than economics. Public art is for everyone. It is public and it deserves to be supported by funding now. And here's something I've also noticed. No one is be mean around public art, adults or kids. And people of all ages admire it, talk about it, and when people talk about art, they connect with each other. And we need that now more than ever. I'm honored to stand with a community where so many people care about art in this vibrant and beautiful Soma. Thank you. Thank you,

Mayor and Council. My name is John Kainir. My day job is I'm um the CEO of the Downtown Berkeley Association where I've served 17 years. Um but I've been blessed since the year 2000 to um vacation and weekend in Soma. And um I'm going to be retiring at the end of the year and I'm looking forward to making this my full-time home. very very passionate about Sonoma. Um, arts and culture is part of the DNA of Berkeley and sort of integral to what we do. It's for commerce, it's good for visitors and I think it's also true for Sonoma. I just happen to bring a couple of props. This is our annual port and our visitor guide which have two sculptures that have been funded by the 1% for the arts. Um, we passed the measure in 2016 in Berkeley. We've done dozens of projects both onsite with new development and off-site. there's an alternative to pay 80 cents on the dollar that goes into the civic arts fund. Um, and I just stoked our civic arts um director before I came in. She said there's $3 million in the fund. So, um, you know, Berkeley's a bit bigger. We've had more development projects, but there's a real opportunity here. One of the things I'd also like just to mention is you might want to think about as we implement this, thinking of what I heard at the MTA in New York um, city at a conference years ago, permemorary art. rather than making everything permanent where you get pitch battles, it gets sort of static, etc. Think about, you know, cycling through or opportunities to bring in new art. Um, we've got a big Burning Man community in the Bay Area. This sculpture, Michael Christian, the Globe one, was on the PA. It's been was on our pause for six years. It's now switched out. We're bringing another sculpture, but there's an opportunity to bring new um energy. Controversy is not a bad thing. If you read the chronicle today about the sculpture um down at the in at the end of Market Street, um you you want to get people activated in noticing and you might also want to

think about matches from uh private citizens or various sponsors to stretch the dollars. Um I look forward to being engaged in this as you go forward and thank you very much and I'm looking forward to spending more time at my full-time home. Thank you. My name is Linda Keaton and I live in Boy Springs. I'm the executive director and chief curator at Soma Valley Museum of Art. Thank you, Mayor Wellender, and council members for allowing this public comment. I'm here to thank all of you for supporting public art in our community and to show my wholehearted support for sustainable public art funding through a percent for the arts on all new construction. Supporting public art in Soma is a strategic investment in the city's economic vitality, our cultural identity, and our social fabric. The benefits of public art are numerous and they're well doumented. Um some of the benefits some of the best studies are done by American for Americans for the arts and some of the uh benefits that they site are that public art boosts local economy and retail sales. It increases property values. It's a direct investment in our local workforce. It increases social media opportunities and brand identity. Provides education and youth development opportunities. boosts creativity and innovation. It enhances mental health and well-being, and it's part of urban beautifification. Soma Valley Museum of Art has partnered with the city on several successful public art projects, and we hope to partner with the city uh in the future. Through these projects, I've witnessed firsthand some of the benefits that I just mentioned. What I love most about

public art is the community engagement, the cultural identity and inclusivity that public art brings to our community. I've seen firsthand hundreds and maybe thousands of people who use the love sculpture that was installed in the front of the plaza one year after the 2017 fires to take selfies that then became Christmas holiday cards and social media posts. I love seeing the kids making garlands for the deer that were around the pond um out of clover and um and flowers to make rains for those deer that were uh that were installed. And I enjoy hearing the thoughtful discourse about every piece that's been on the plaza through that partnership. Kids, visitors, residents interact with public art in a way that no museum or gallery can possibly provide. Public art provides an opportunity to look at our everyday environment differently. I hope you will support sustainable funding for public art in Soma. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Uh, good evening. My name is Richard Price. I'm a resident of Soma. I moved here about four years ago. I spent 40 years as a planning and real estate consultant in the New York metropolitan area. I worked for a lot of local governments like this uh private sector nonprofits and I was engaged um in particular what's relevant tonight in master plans and downtown revitalization. And I found that uh art can be uh a great stimulus for economic development and in particular can bring young people and kids into town which is sorely needed. it can really address what's missing in Sonoma um and uh in the plaza in particular activities that uh uh are focused around the arts that will make uh Sonoma a destination for younger families uh and not to rely on wine tourism as the sole basis to visit. Art can really make Sonoma cool again. and uh to have visitors think of Sonoma as an arts destination will help to diversify the offerings and help support of of other art-based venues and events. My particular focus and interest is in uh reimagining and revitalizing the plaza. I think it's a huge opportunity and a missed one at this particular point and some of the ideas um is not necessarily just to focus on art like sculpture or murals but to integrate art into some of the improvements that could be made. I'll just give you a few examples. A water or splash park that incorporates innovative and artistic design in the plaza. A sculptural play structure that is unique and is attractive to adults as well as to children. introducing new signage and wayfinding uh which is colorful, artistic and attractive rather than just be functional. Adding

sculptural furniture such as chairs and benches which are artistic and make the experience uh staying in the in in the plaza more enjoyable. And lighting too can address not only security concerns but add an artistic uh flavor to the plaza as well. uh this all starts with having more uh arts focused vision and your financial and political support for this is key to its success. I found in my experience that the investment in arts will play huge dividends in the future and I urge you to support this initiative right now. Thank you very much.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Landon Le Moine and I'm a resident here in Sonoma. I'm speaking as a resident, lover of music and all things art is and is executive director of Vivo Youth Orchestras and the visual and performing arts lead for the Sonoma Valley Unified School District. Every day I see what the arts do for our children. I see confidence grow. I see belonging take root. I want to begin with appreciation for the arts and culture. Already two of your five annual goals are accomplished. The public art policy has been modernized. The Nexus fee study has been underway for two years. This feels like a hopeful new chapter for Sonoma. We're already a town shaped by art. We have the extraordinary Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, vibrant galleries, community center art shows, open studio weekends, even our plaza is a living gallery, 228 trees representing 44 species, and the rose garden so beautifully cared for by master artist of the natural world, Brian Rollins. We understand that beauty in the public space matters. Now imagine building upon that. Picture Broadway early in the morning, students walking to school, backpacks slung over their shoulders. They pass a sculpture on the corner, something bold, something unexpected, or a mural designed in part by youth from our own schools. Maybe they see the name of a friend listed as a contributing artist. Then maybe they think for a moment, my ideas could live out here, too. That moment matters. On Tuesday nights, when thousands gather on the plaza for the market, imagine sculpture rising from the lawn. Light installations glowing at dusk and art that reflects our agricultural heritage and the diversity of the families who live here. Communities in similar size to ours like Huelsburg, Napa, and Bend, Oregon, use percent for the art programs tied to new development, typically allocating just 1 to 2% of construction cost. Nationally, more than 10,000 communities use this model to sustainably fund public art and p and parks and civic spaces. That's a small percentage of the lasting impact. Snow is full of artists and musicians. The creative spirit already exists.

Sustainable funding simply brings it out into the open into our shared spaces where the entire community can see itself reflected. Thank you. Thank you very much.

I believe I'm number 11. My name is Jim Silverman. I live in Soma with Vicky Whiting, creator of Kids Scoop News. Um, I'm one of the voices for history in our community along with the historical society and the league. I produced a free Sonoma Plaza history walking tour where you can discover history through art, through the trees on the plaza, through the photographs in the Swiss hotel, uh, all for free. uh recently uh to drive traffic. I developed this into a stage show and filled Andrews Hall. Uh recently performed it at vintage uh at the vintage um vintage house. Thank you. And there were six tables of historical societies gathered with me to get the story going. I think what we're talking about is voices. I'm an advocate for tapping into the voices from the past. those people who've lived here before us. So that when kids walk to school and they pass the art, perhaps they also hear a story about one of the early wine makers or one of the tribal people who lived here or one of the remarkable women who made such a difference here in the town of Soma. So, I'm putting together a proposal for a marketing plan to promote our history, hoping to involve the city and state parks and the visitors bureau and nonprofits and businesses around the plaza. So, I will keep you informed. Thank you.

Thank you very much. All right. Uh seeing no more movement for number 10 according to my numbering uh I'll close this public portion and um we'll continue on with our hearing at this point. Do we have any dedications for this meeting? I see none. So we'll move on next to the reports and comments from my fellow council members regarding various events or attendees. So who would like to start?

I actually do not have any reports this evening. I know it's a brand new experience for you all. All right. Uh while he's Are you ready or Yeah. Go ahead. anywhere. So,

um I would just like to and I think she left the meeting. Um is Jamie Love still here anywhere? Anyway, I'd like to announce that as my appointment to the cultural arts um commission will be Jamie Love. And you already heard that she's a treasured artist and uh performing u performing theater artist. And um anyway, I'm pleased to appoint her. She'll be a great addition and provide some diversity in in the kinds of art that we're talking about.

Um just one report. First of all, my apologies for not being at the last meeting. Several people called me and said, "Where are you?" And I was uh I got food poisoning about an hour before I supposed to be here. So, I apologize. Honestly, it would take something like that to keep me from you. Trust me. So, my apologies for for being um not being here. Um I was uh today is a LAFCO meeting and um this is the organization that consolidates um different districts and um parts of cities and so forth. And for those of you who've been following along, our um we've been working very diligently regarding fire districts in Sonoma County. And today we um consolidated uh a fire district um in from Paluma basically through uh Roner Park and Katad area um which were separate fire districts will now be one fire district. um and under Santa Rosa. And it's been an amazing opportunity to to do these consolidations because this increases safety for our residents. Um because there's greater ability to provide not just fire prevention and firefighting but also emergency services because a lot of these very small fire districts throughout the county um are basically run on volunteer support don't have 247 operations and so that has been um a focus of LAFCO and then also um also tied fire. I am privileged to be on the measure H oversight committee. Um there was an article in the Press Democrat

about it and looking at how uh and Sonoma submitted their plan. We looked at every single fire district and how they're going to be using the Measure H funds um to greater uh support fire prevention emergency services throughout the county. So, um, a lot of lot of time with firefighters in the last week and some really great progress in the county thanks to the voters and thanks to the commission that has been um, doing great work. So, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, mayor. Uh, I have two meetings to report. The first one uh that is February the 19 Thursday I was attending zero weeks in Sonoma. Uh that meeting was the very and smaller than the meeting we just discussed about 2026 to 2027 the budget and the draft. So the that is a very good sign and for them prepared and the financials because right now in earlier in advance because a lot of the fundings and uh is on certainties especially from the federal fundings. So the uh when I look at the budget, I make the suggestion uh for them to try their best and keep a higher percentage for the reserve the fund and make a full use of each dollar and we got a grants, we got a tax income and also I suggest uh they shouldn't keep additional emergency reserve fund. For example, in the two months ago, we have the code creek and compost processing facilities. Excellent. And then the totto we have the 12 the members gather together a special meeting to the centrosa just for an approve and the you know temporary and budget. So that is unnecessary. So we suggest they can increase the more reserve and it's easy for them give them a little bit of more flexibility to run and processing in a day-to-day basis and also here I would like to uh make an advertisement for our local people e

ways to recycle and come back to Sonoma again that is April 10 to the April 12th. in the Sonoma community center and the TVs, the computers, printers, you can go online what is allowed, what is not allowed, you make sure the list prepared you can send over there and also uh this time they provide additional service they can and accepted for the and the mattress as well should be in the clean dry and last year I was there. Look at it. Hold a 40 inches container just only the one. I I hoping that this year we can collect the more. But anyway, and I'm the representative from our city to the county zero waste. I will keep my eyes open, keep my ears open for sure. Our services from county level will be in for field in the small town little bit far away from the highway 101. Uh second in the meeting that is the Sonoma County Mayor and the council member association legislative committee meeting. Uh that is the first meeting for this year. Uh first agenda item is the and selecting the chair and vice chair. I was selected the vice chair. I thank you council member Low give me an opportunity as the for and member for this very important committee for sure on a small town the voice could be heard from the state level the lawmakers and the number one number two each state and the representative

and the senator representative and give us summary for the last years and how many bills are they working on, how many passing, how many you know failed, how many are pending. I got a sheet maybe I can share with everyone from Cecilia agre total 37 bills. She offered nine passed, two failed, 26 pending. Assembly member Dan and Kennaly and total also is 37. 10 passed, seven failed and 20 pending. Chris Roger, he has 37 bills and in the past four fulfilled, 25 that are pending and Christopher Caban and total she has 36 bills passed, four failed, 33 not pending. So the on the next meeting we will look at the pending and the bills if any the inputs and if anybody the interest you know we can get on online and if any questions specific questions your concerns you can contact me contact with all the board member and the council member and for sure our voice could be heard when they in the making the new law that is my report. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, I have a real quick list. I'm going to start at the bottom. We had a meeting the other day to get an update on the exciting project called the TING, which is moving forward and u we're uh looking forward to it becoming a reality at some point in the near future. Uh the second item was on Saturday. I am sad to say that you all missed a tremendous opportunity to clean up the cemetery, the mountain cemetery. fun was had by all 13 participants and the good news is that there will be another opportunity to join us on uh improving uh what I call as a hidden treasure our mountain cemetery. There uh was a Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau meeting at the at the Fairmont Hotel last week and the focus was a speaker from the San Francisco tourist business and she was painting a relatively positive view of how San Francisco is coming back and we're going to take that as having a positive impact on Soma. Also uh as was expressed in the public comment, I did attend Jim Silverman's presentation at the vintage house and it was quite delightful and was once again reminded we live in a very rich historic town. Um the uh last two items. One is uh the chamber had asked me to participate in recognizing a gentleman by the name of Larry D uh Nadine who is the hospitality director for our local inclo michelin star restaurant. He came to us from that other little place called uh the French Laundry and uh it was just recognized that he has done a tremendous amount for uh both Napa and Sonoma Valley for

recognition and I hope that he'll continue to be around but he'll be uh no longer the official hospitality director at Include. And lastly, it's kind of a I want to give a a shout out. Uh we had a fairly tragic incident that took place uh recently on Broadway where there was a fatality and it's something we certainly don't like having that news related to our town, but it happened. But I wanted to commend our police chief and the Sonoma Sheriff's Department saying that they did an admirable job of response and came brought resources to the investigation that normally we would not have as a small town police station. And so even though I may grouse about our contract amount, uh I want you to know that we are uh benefiting from that very positive relationship and uh I want to thank you for that.

So with that, I will conclude our comments and I'll turn it over to our city manager.

Great. Thank you, mayor. And uh you stole my thunder on one item. did want to add my thank you to the volunteers that showed up to our Mount Cemetery last Saturday. As the mayor mentioned, there was 13 individuals that showed up, including our mayor. Um, many from St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church. Uh, as the mayor mentioned, we do have monthly opportunities now for cemeteries. And if you're interested in helping with our cemeteries, we have a web page that has information on it. You can also sign up for news alerts on when those opportunities will arise. Uh, so please visit our website. And then one other item I wanted to mention is that we have opened our discretionary funding applications. This is the third year uh that we've we've done this approach. So there are $3,000 grants for nonprofits within our community um that provide events, programs um for community focused events and programs throughout the valley um Soma Valley. So if you're interested, please visit our website. The deadline is April 3rd 3rd. So we want to make sure that you get the information. If you have questions, please give us a call. But a lot of information, application information is online. That's all I have. Thank you.

Very good. And now I turn to our attorney. No report this evening. Okay. Thank you. This evening we have two presentations. Oh, two proclamations and one presentation. So, so I would like to start with a first proclamation and that is uh the proclamation designating March 2026 as the American Red Cross month in the city of Sonoma. And I welcome uh that individual to come forward so you can speak first or you can hear the proclamation. What would you like?

Go ahead with the proclamation. Okay. Whereas in March, we celebrate American Red Cross Month by honoring our neighbors who make it its humanitarian mission possible in Soma. Every day their acts of kindness, change lives, bringing relief, comfort, and hope when help can't wait. This compassionate spirit runs deep in our community just as it has for 145 years through the American Red Cross. And whereas today those who serve with Northern California coastal region of the Red Cross light the way during emergencies, whether it's delivering shelter, food, and comfort after disasters, providing a safe, life-saving blood supply for patients facing conditions like cancer treatments, childbirth complications, and traumatic injuries, assisting military members, veterans, and their families with 247 global support or empowering individuals with skills like first aid and CPR that save lives. And whereas these collective efforts are a powerful reminder that the strength of our community lies in our shared commitment to one another. As we mark Red Cross Month, let's celebrate our local heroes and resolve to continue lifting each other up so no one so no one faces emergency alone. Now therefore, I, Ron Welllander, mayor of the city of Sonoma, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the laws of the city of Soma and the state of California, do hereby proclaim March 2026 as Red Cross Month, and I encourage all citizens of Soma to reach out and

support its humanitarian mission. Thank you.

Thank you. My name is Natalie Henry. I am the um external relations and emergency management agency coordinator for now Marin and Sonoma County. We have merged with Marin. Um we've not forgotten you out here. Um I've had the pleasure of participating in some of our signature sound the alarm events for everyone's um knowledge. We give anyone um free education on smoke detectors, emergency preparedness. We can help you uh plan your escape routes, put together a first aid kit. We do basic first aid training, handsonly CPR, um, and a lot of other free services. So, I just want to remind everybody that we have all these things. And this is a 98% volunteerrun organization. So, most of the people that you see, including all the way up in the EOCC's during emergency responses, are volunteers. Um, our volunteers that are local here in Sonoma County or Sonoma were not able to attend tonight. So, I'm so happy and proud to be accepting this on their behalf. It is a lot of work. It's a heavy lift. We are so happy to do it. We recognize there are so many more non-governmental partners out here and resources that you guys don't have. So, we're happy to fill in that gap. Please continue to remember us and utilize us. We're often seen out as a DAT team member responding with our fire departments because fires are the most likely thing that we're going to face in our homes. So, usually you'll see us out doing that. And that's one way that we use our donor dollars to really give back to our communities. We want to make sure that people know that we're here as a resource for them during non- disaster times or what we call blue skies. So, if anybody would like more information or like me to come in and do hands only CPR training or any other um trainings, it is all for free and I'm happy to do it. Again, my name is Natalie Henry and I am available for all of you. Thank you so much for recognizing us and all our hard work.

Thank you very much. All right. The second proclamation this evening is designating March 2026 as women's history month in the city of Sonoma. Whereas in the theme of for women's history month, leading the change, women shaping a sustainable future calls upon us to confront the wide range of overlapping global challenges including climate change, economic uncert uncertainty, healthc care disparities and threats to democratic participation. And whereas the story of women throughout America and in the city of Sonoma is the story of women of all ages, races, and cultural backgrounds who lead campaigns for equality and civil rights, advanced professional and educational opportunities, founded entirely new enterprises, and contributed significantly to the arts, sciences, and human humanistic causes. And whereas the women's history month provides an opportunity for communities and schools to expand appreciation for the diverse contributions of women who have led and are leading sustainability efforts across environmental, economic,

educational, and social justice movements and empower action toward sustainability. And whereas the women's history month highlights how these challenges are intertwined and how women particularly with marginalized communities even in Sonoma often experience their impact most acutely. Now therefore, I Ron Welllander, mayor on behalf of the city council of the city of Sonoma in recognition of the significant role played by women in leading the charge toward lasting sustainable solutions to these complex challenges, proclaimed the month of March 2026 as Women's History Month in Sonoma. And I would welcome Joanne to come forward. Despite the intense and complicated and lengthy proclamation, um I'm just very pleased that the city of Sonoma once more stands up for the women, not just in Sonoma, but in Sonoma County. And I want to invite all of you to attend our fourth hearing on the issues facing women in Sonoma County. And that's on April 9th. and you can attend in person in Santa Rosa or you can attend virtually. And this topic is the is the impact of the economy on aging women. This is the fourth in a series that we have engaged in this year. The first was the unhoused women and their silent voices. The second had to do with the emotional um impact of this economy and the society on young women. And the third which I led was the impact of ICE enforcement on women and their families. So each of these are translated now into a paper which is available for you to read in terms of not just the findings that we made as a commission but the real voices that these women brought to

the commission on status of women. So, I really hope that you can attend or participate or check in on April 9th at our fourth hearing. And um the I can't think right now in Sonoma County of a topic more direct and impactful in terms of this community. So, I want to thank on behalf of the Commission on Status of Women, I want to thank all of you again and I'm proud of being part of the city of Sonoma. Now we're moving to a presentation regarding a topic that we all care about and that's called water. So, at this point, I will turn it over to our public works director, Mr. Burgerer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Welander and council members. Thank you for hearing this item tonight. uh as part of our annual proposed budget rates for the water transmission system for the city of Sonoma fiscal year 2627. Jake Spalding, the division manager of financial services is here tonight with Sonoma County Water. And with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Jake. Thank you.

Good evening. Um thanks for having us here tonight. As uh Mike just said, uh my name is Jake Spalding. Uh I've been here before, but uh not in my new role as the financial services division manager. Um so really appreciate you taking the time to have us present to you today. Um I'm going to give you a real quick overview of our fiscal year 2627 proposed budget and rates for the water transmission system. Um so real quick a little bit about Sonoma Water. You know, we have several different functions, only one of which is uh being a wholesale water supplier, which is what I'm here to talk about tonight. Um we wholesale water to nine cities and water districts serving about 600,000 residents uh in Soma and Marin County. Um as as you can see on the slide, you know, we have a pretty robust system um that uh spans a good portion of the county. It includes things like tanks, collector wells, uh other wells, booster stations, treatment facilities, as well as pipelines. Um, and speaking of those pipelines, we have three main aqueducts. We have the Santa Rosa aqueduct, the Paluma aqueduct, and the Sonoma aqueduct. And each one of the water contractors is located on one of these and they pay the rate associated with that aqueduct. This community is obviously served from the Sonoma Aqueduct. Um and so I'll uh give you a little bit of history uh about how we got to the rates for that. Uh now um we do uh go through an annual budgeting process um and with the aim of meeting our operations, our maintenance, our capital needs as well as meeting any regulatory uh demands or requirements that we have. Um it is a transparent and collaborative process with all the water contractors. We first bring a draft budget to the TAC ad hoc budget subcommittee mid January and then we work with all the all the contractors uh before we finally bring the the uh budget and rates to our board uh for adoption in April. Um did want to thank Mike for his participation in the

subcommittee this year. Um and I'm also happy to report you know that the TAC did recommend this unanimously uh uh just uh on Monday. uh a little bit more about the the setup of the of the budget. Um it's not just one budget and rate. We actually have multiple funds and each one of these funds has its own budget and rates and then those are all combined to make the rates that the contractors pay. Um because uh of the terms of the restructured agreement, not everyone pays the exact same rate. So I just wanted to point that out. Um you know our system and we talked about this last year as well. We we are, you know, facing several challenges. Um they're not all unique to us. Um one is aging infrastructure. You know, as our system is aging, it costs more to operate and maintain it. We also have higher needs for uh capital improvements uh in order to replace some of the stuff that is uh approaching the end of its useful life. Um you know, the agency, we are taking steps to address this. You know, we are we've been implementing an asset management program. We're also working on a new comprehensive 20-year master plan that is going to help us better uh uh determine what the needs of the system is in the long term. Uh you know what it's going to cost and so then we can prioritize and sequence things to make it the most uh economical and the most affordable for everyone. Um oh sorry uh we also you know last couple years we've had rising operations and maintenance costs. uh it was you know amplified during the pandemic but you know we're still having some supply chain constraints uh you know we've been seeing increased labor costs increased regulation costs uh and so that is something that is affecting us and other people in our industry as well. Um and then lastly you know and we talk about this every year uh we have a little bit of a unique challenge in the sense that even though most of our costs are fixed we have a fully volutric rate and so that means when deliveries aren't uh increasing you know we have uh

additional pressure on the rates and the trend in our community has been that uh deliveries have actually been decreasing pretty steadily over the last 20 years. Um and then I guess I forgot to put it on this slide, but I'd be remiss not to mention we are vulnerable to natural hazards. Um particularly earthquakes, also flood and fire. Um and so we do a lot of work in order to make the system more resilient there. Um not everything is a challenge. We've been able to rise above those uh in many ways. I've put a couple of the high priority achievements and collaborations that we've we have been able to achieve the last couple years in collaboration with all the water contractors as well as uh with other partners. And I'm not going to go through all of these, but you know, some of the themes that you see here are drought resiliency, water resiliency, uh hazard mitigation, education for our the youth in our community, as well as complying with the biological opinion uh with the work that we do in the Russian River. Um and in all of this we're always seeking offsetting grant revenue and other sources of funding to try and reduce the impact on the rate payers. Um so you know after taking all of the the needs of the system into consideration and going through this collaborative process with all the water contractors we are proposing uh rate increases uh depending on which aqueduct people are served from between 8.21 and 8.97%. Um, you know, just want to mention, you know, the cost of a of a gallon of water delivered through the system still really low. It's about half a cent per um uh per gallon. Um, so I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the things that make up the budget. Um, our capital program, uh, this year we have 3.55 million proposed for hazard mitigation projects. Um, we have been very successful at getting offsetting revenue for these types of projects. We've gotten about $12.6

million the last couple years to implement uh projects such as these. Um, we are seeking additional funding. We've got two applications in right now that might bring additional revenue in and help offset some of the cost of these projects. The capital program is uh also includes some uh water resiliency projects um four of which you can see on this slide. Um, some of these projects are, you know, they're they're very large multi-year efforts. You know, one you see up there, the water treatment system modernization project. You know, that's a three-phase project that's going to take a decade to implement. But these are, you know, large projects that span multiple years, and we're just starting to fund some of the rightway and the design work that's going to go into them. Um, so when you combine those two, we're proposing a total capital project budget of about $10.9 million. On the operations and maintenance side, we're proposing about $ 48.75 million in projects. Um, I've listed some of the higher priority things that we're working on up here. You know, you'll see in there the the the planning effort that I mentioned for uh mapping out the the needs of the system. Um other things like our tank maintenance program and our tank rehabilitation program which is recoding all the tanks that uh hold the water that um uh help uh push it through the system as well as things like uh uh emergency inventory procurement. And this is an effort we've been taking for the last several years to procure all the pieces of pipe and the valves and all that stuff that if we do have a big seismic event, we would need to, you know, rapidly uh put out there so we can get water service back online. Uh the budget also includes what we call the subf funds. Uh there are four of them and they fund things like the biological opinion, our urban water management uh planning efforts as well as water conservation. Um this cost is going up slightly this year and that's

mainly a reflection of the fact that we did get issued a new 2025 biological opinion this past April. Um and so we have some new costs uh for complying with that that are coming into play while we're still uh settling some of the old uh requirements as well. Um on the conservation side, um we've been very successful with the Sonoma Marine Water Saving Partnership at securing outside funding uh to help implement programs. They continue to win awards and we you know we just continue to get offset offsetting revenue for that. So that's been a great success as well. So when you combine all these together, uh we have a total budget of about $78.4 million. You can see on the slide here that is about $3.6 million less than last year's budget. Um a couple things to note on this. You do see the capital projects uh line item has decreased quite significantly from the year before. That's not an indication that we're doing any less work in last. In fact, we've never been more uh never been busier. It's really just a reflection that some of these multi-year projects we had to get the money in the current fiscal year because we're going to be awarding contracts in March and uh June. Uh and so we don't need as much appropriation next year. Um that program is fully funded by grants uh fund balance and and bond proceeds. So it doesn't have as much of an effect on the rate. Uh which is why even though we're proposing a lower budget, you are seeing a rate increase. Uh real quick just to show you kind of how our costs hit the system. Operations and maintenance is our bi biggest expense this year. It's about 62%. Capital projects follows at about 14% and then the sub funds and debt served round out the rest of the pie. Um just a quick reminder of how our rate works and this animation always takes so long. Um what the restructured agreement for

water supply says is basically we take the cost of operating and maintaining our system and we divide that by the amount of water uh that's going to be delivered and for that amount of water delivered we have to use either the last 12 months of actual water deliveries or the last three years annual average whichever is less. uh this year that number is the 12 month actual figure which is that 41,776 acre feet and just to note that is actually 1.5% below what the number was last year. So that's another reason that we are seeing a rate increase this year. Um this slide just gives you a little bit more detailed look at the rate proposal um showing you the rates associated with each one of those funds that I mentioned. Um, one other note on this one is there is that discretionary charge line item. Um, this is a charge that the the uh customers elect to put on themselves to help fund and build up fund balance in the aqueduct capital funds. Kind of acts as a rate stabilization tool because you can build up funds for uh future projects. Uh, all of the uh contractors elected to keep those the same this year. So, there has been no change in it. And you'll see that Soma uh aqueduct is on the far right hand side there at $34.90 per acre foot. Um so what does the future hold? Um this slide shows you an example of what our long range financial plan is currently showing. There's a lot of assumptions built into this and it is meant to be kind of a guide. It's we're not saying that next year or the year after that rates are going to be 10% uh higher. Um, you know, we we assume a growth of only 1% which is uh a conservative number, but it it's kind of in line with what we've been seeing. Um, and uh we do have two bonds that are out in the future that are currently programmed into this. There is the potential that that second

bond will be pushed out farther um as we learn more about the systems needs and we can better sequence things. Um, but as you can see, they are very large bonds. We have a lot of infrastructure that is aging out and some of those projects I talked about like the water treatment system modernization program uh you know cost uh in the 80 to $100 million range. Um so lastly, you know, how do our rates compare to other wholesalers in the area? Um every system is different. They have different needs. They have different treatment uh uh processes and and requirements. Um, so it's very hard to make apples to apples comparisons, but on a straight dollar amount per acre foot, we are very, uh, we are still very low. We're on the far left hand side there. Um, and so, you know, relatively still an affordable, uh, product. So, um, couple key dates. I mentioned that the technical advisory committee voted unanimously to support the budget on Monday. Uh we're going to be taking this to the water advisory committee on April 6th and then we'll take it to our board for adoption on April 28th and we're hoping that you guys can give some direction to Mayor Wellander on on how you'd like him to vote.

Very good question. Yeah, Jake, I'm just curious who issues the biological opinion. So, the biological opinion uh is I wish I had my environmental guys here right now. Uh it's uh US Fish and Wildlife, I believe CDFW as well. And it is a document that that uh dictates how we and the core need to operate the system in order to uh maintain the Russian River flows. Um how often is it issued?

Uh that is a good question. I believe it it it's not always exactly the same amount. I believe the last one was like a 15-year document and I believe the new one is somewhere in the seven to eight year range, but I I could be wrong there, so don't hold me to that. Okay, thank you. Any more questions? Yes. My question related with your expenses showing that service. Can you explain have the that or pay interest or

Yes. So um we generally bond every three to five years um and uh we also occasionally get loans as well. Um but uh we use it to fund the capital program. Um to date we blast bonded in 2022. Um we have a requirement to keep a debt coverage ratio of 1.15%. We've consistently been uh well above that. So we do have capacity to bond more. Um, and so this next bond that we're planning on issuing in 2026 is about a $33 million bond uh to fund some of those projects that I mentioned. Um, and uh, we're also planning on refunding some of the 2015 bonds uh, as assuming things don't change in the next couple weeks uh, and we have some savings from doing that refunding.

Thank you. Any other questions? Just one quick one, which I will sound repetitive. Love the fact that we're using less water. Hate the fact that our rates are based on volume, but I guess uh given that one of the last uh charts that you did show relative to Northern California, we're still doing well in terms of the price. So, um thank you. I think that's it. Unless I just say, mayor, that um you will be voting on this as a WAC member. So, if you could just let your fellow council members know what your thoughts are, if there's any input from your fellow council members on how you're voting,

and I believe that's April 6, so you can cogitate and let me know. Very good. All right. Thank you very much. All right. We are now fast moving on to the consent calendar. These items are generally uh pretty straightforward and will be acted upon with one motion unless anyone wishes to pull something for further discussion and I am seeing precious little acknowledgement of change. So with that I would like I move the consent calendar. Do I have to open second

public comment please before we take the vote? Anyone would like to speak on anything on the consent calendar or raise any questions? Seeing not nothing, I'm going to then bring it back to the council. At this point, I would like to ask the clerk for roll call. Council member Gurnie, yes. Council member Ferrar Rivas, yes. Council member Ding, I. Vice Mayor Low, Mayor Willer, yes. Thank you. The motion carries unanimously.

Very good. Thank you. Um, my gut tells me this next item is going to be rather lengthy and I would like to suggest that we either have a deliberate midway break or start and take a break. Now, what what's the will of the council? Any So, I What's that? Uh, let's Okay, let's take a let's let's take a 10-minute break and we'll reconvene at 7. And six minute break. Five minute break. Five minute break. Thank you.

Are we close to five minutes? I think we're almost there. And before our community director speaks, I do want to make one clarity on this particular item. We are going to modify the sequence slightly and that is we'll have the presentation by our community development director and then there are a few people that are in the public that would like to make comments and so I'm going to allow that to come forward but it's it's just the first that that need to leave and then I'm going to close public comment and then I'm going to bring it back to the council for the opportunity to ask questions of staff. half and then after that we will open it back up for the public again to speak and then we'll be closing that and then we'll be bringing it back to the dis for discussion and possible u direction. So please uh

whoever I am. Hi Jennifer Gates, community development director. Um thank you mayor and city council. Tonight we are going to talk about the general plan update um process that is um currently in progress and where we're at status-wise. Talk a little bit about potential changes to densities and standards. um and also potential lounge use changes and then obviously at the very end what our next steps are in this process because it is ongoing. So why are we doing this? So this is going to be some of the things that we talked about um a while ago back in um October of 2024. So I'm just wanting to bring these back to your attention um in case you haven't seen some of the other presentations that have been done um more recently. So the general plan serves as the city's playbook for our future land use and planning decisions. So it's not just about land use itself, but it's also going to cover things like infrastructure, public services, as well as um conservation. Um you know, this is where we're going to talk also about historic preservation. So the general plan consists of multiple elements. So in May of last year, we started releasing the draft elements of the general plan. all have been released um to the public for comment as well as um introduced to the different planning commissions. Sorry, not planning commissions, different commissions including the planning commission. Um and um these are specifically which ones that we are having. Sustainability is incorporated into multiple elements but otherwise these are our elements that you see before you. What the general plan does again is going to set the policies and then we have implementation plans and that's where you see our use of our development

code that is an implementation of the general plan. Another would be um a parking management plan or the active transportation plan that we adopted in January of 2025. So there are three major project phases for this um pro u process for the general plan update. We are done with phase one. We have been in phase two for um the last year. We are finishing this up right now with the last element. Um public comments were due on March 2nd for the elements and um planning commission still needs to complete their review of the land use element as a group but otherwise all the other commissions um are done. We um also started the um environmental phase um last year with the um notice of preparation and initial study scoping meeting um that was completed last year. So the process has been started in there. So I wanted to touch on some of the u land use revisions. Um so we when we discussed this back in 2024, we summarized what the community had stated in the multiple community meetings. We had over 10 community meetings in different ways. Um and it included activities that we had at the table. We had stick note activities um different ways of collecting information and that information was summarized. And so in making the land use considerations based on that community input, um the feedback was to provide more options for diverse and affordable housing, revisiting our density ranges, allowing for a variety of housing typologies, and promoting multifamily development projects, expanding the local job space, and preserving and protecting our parks, open space, historical resources, and public gathering spaces.

I did want to bring this slide up just as a reminder of what the difference between a general plan and a development code is. So again, the general plan is where we set our vision, our goals, our policies. It's our long-term document. Um, ours are 20 years. I have seen other communities that they still have theirs from the 80s. Just saying. Um, zoning must be consistent with the general plan. And this answers the question of what should this area become in the future. That's the good question to kind of differentiate the two. While the development code is focus focused on the regulations and the enforcement of those land uses or other types of things. Um immediate and it's ongoing. Um it changes more often than a general plan would and it implements and conforms to the general plan being a key aspect of any zoning amendment. and it answers the question, what can I build here? That's where you see the um more spec specificity around what are the allowed and prohibited uses within a district, what are those building heights and setbacks for our community. We have different um setback requirements sometimes in different planning areas but for the same zone. So again, there's a different level of specificity that's provided. uh density, lot size, density is u contained within the general plan in ours um as well as um floor air ratio or F um and these get further refined again within the development code. So generalized in the general plan and then more standardized in a development code. So, I wanted to also provide an example of what density is just as a reminder as well as we talk through some um of those changes that we discussed. And density is going to refer to a minimum or maximum or both of dwelling units per

gross acre. And so, these images are kind of to help you uh understand what that kind of looks like. If that square is an acre across, then what's those different number of units and how does that fill that space? Um, as an example, because sometimes we're more visual, I know I am, um, that these are examples here in our community of what multifamily at that higher density mark, um, what that would look like. And so an example of that would be the KJIR senior living um which is 32 units per acre and then the Ultima affordable housing which is um one of our newest um affordable housing which is 24 units per acre. Um, I also back in um, 2024 did just a GISbased analysis as best as I could with the information that I had of what the existing residential density is within each zoning district. And these are those numbers on the right hand side. The the majority they are right there at our top um, numbers um, within our maximums. And then in some cases, the only real case that it's um exceeds it would be in our medium density residential. And this is partially seen because of the way that the community developed over time and also the use of planned unit developments. So um planned unit developments allowed for reduced um lot sizes and setbacks and things like that as subdivisions were created. Um also we changed our uh zoning in the early 2000s. Um proposed general plan residential densities that um were in uh discussion back again in 2024 and October 24 we

presented these numbers to you. So in the lowdensity residential and Sonoma residential staff is um did not propose any changes to the max units um per acre. However, per discussion um we talked about allowing um duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes um with development standards that would um make the homes look like single family homes. Um, and so how does that work on a site? And so those development standards would need to be made with that uh development code update. The medium density residential um looking to um bump up to the 15 units per acre, high density up to 25 and the housing opportunity zone to 30. Um also with commercial gateway commercial and mixed use, there are no minimum uh lot uh units per acre. looking at 11 as the minimum and then up to 25 which would be consistent with highdensity residential. The other change in this area was that we were making we recommended to make um in the commercial zone and gateway commercial the residential component as an optional aspect but still allow for standalone residential within those zones. Um also of note in the mixed use zone um residential component would still be required unless planning commission um approves otherwise. Um stand alone again would be allowed and then there is a commercial component required with mixed use zone unless planning commission um approves otherwise. Some additional land use changes um included to create the affordable housing overlay and apply it to key sites. Modifying a public facility definition uh to add outdoor commercial recreation and recreational facilities. U modifying land uses on um specific

parcels to reflect their historic ongoing existing use that'll help reduce our non-conformities. um talked a little bit about the allowing the duplexes and then also we looked at specific site requests um in that 2024 meeting. So with that um the consultant produced a land use map um for proposed changes. So the land use map is going to assign that designation um for such as um commercial or mixed use onto the site and that's where the colors come into play. So this is our existing one. Um so the land use designations will provide details related to allowed uses on every parcel within our city. It's very similar to a zoning map sometimes at a more general level of details. Ours are pretty consistent um between the two. So, um, with that, I wanted to jump into some of the, um, land use changes that were discussed at the planning commission on February 19th. So the first one is going to be the level valley request and the these are two parcels and it's about uh nine acres total and currently that zoning is agriculture which does allow one dwelling unit per 10 acres. The potential zone um per the request is rural residential at one dwelling unit per a half acre. We don't have anything in between the one dwelling per 10 acres and one dwelling per half acre. Um the concern that that was raised by the planning commission with this change was regarding that increase in density um which um is when it's adjacent. This is at the very end of our city and surrounded majority by uh the county and

then one parcel um next to it is this Sebastian Winery. So the other parcels to the north and to the south you see the ARB62 that's the county's zoning designation. So AR being agricultural residential um and their density allowance there is one unit per 2 acres. Um so it's the surrounding properties are one unit per two acres. Um so the next one is Soma Highway. So 1 1934 1 19360 Soma Highway is 1 acre um about the existing zone is housing opportunity and max 30 dwelling units per acre. The potential zone would be mixed use with at a max 25 dwelling units um per acre. This is a request from the Sonoma Community Health Center in partnership with the property owner of these two lots. um these lots um were not identified to meet our current arena in our housing element. And the reduction in that potential number of dwelling units that would be allowed on these two parcels um would um would not affect our overall numbers with the increase in our citywide density um as proposed in our journal plan update currently. So any reduction would be offset. Um planning commission felt that that land use change was consistent with adjacent land uses is surrounded on uh two sides by housing opportunity in that larger block section across the street on both sides is mixed use. And then the last change that was discussed at um the planning commission is in regards to um the Sebastiani

Winery properties. And in August of 2024, that change was requested and was discussed at the October 2024 meeting. And the proposal was for to allow for housing and commercial on this site. Um with that staff proposed a mixeduse zone that would allow both to occur um without identifying where which parcel would have what one at the housing or commercial. Um from that discussion in October 2024 um staff and the consultant moved forward with a draft land use map and draft element um with those changes. And that's what you see um on that map there. Um in January of 2026 um staff held a community meeting after the release of that draft element and draft um land use map to have more conversation around um that description as well as any what does that look like moving forward into the future? Um where would be the desired land uses? um where would a a commercial change or a residential change um be acceptable? So the results of these meetings were presented to the planning commission on um 219. This is the proposed land use um description that is in the um uh general plan uh land use element draft. So again the existing designation of the um Sebastian Wery properties include agricultural mixeduse and wine production. The proposal would be to create a new um mixed commercial use which would accommodate the agriculture, the commercial and the residential uses

on the site. Um it does have a proposed density that would allow for um anything from um a medium density to a high density project residentially and then also a dense um uh commercial. So with the January 14th presentation, these are some of the slides um I wanted to just present to you that would As part of that discussion and the feedback that was obtained, um we gave more information around what do neighboring developments look like as well as existing multif family and existing hotels within the city. Um to kind of provide context for what densities could look like um as well as F. So this is a neighboring developments um this one the Las Casita Court is immediately to the west. You can see that white building is the warehouse for the Sebastian Winery. Um so this is consists of duplexes and forplexes and um averages around 12 units per acre. Um Wilking Way is a single family um street and excuse me and it is around 4 and a half units per acre and this is directly north of the Sebastian Winery. These are just two other examples of multif family that are at that 20 unit per acre range. Um the firehouse village which is a 100% affordable project um next to the firehouse and then Alivo Apartments um which is also 20 units per acre. Um it is market rate um with our inclusionary affordable requirements. This is just a diagram to kind of uh

help understand what floor area ratio is and it just is about your building intensity that is non-residential that occurs on a site. Um and so this is kind of how that would lay out in different ways. Let's say it was a a 0.5 F. That's how five could be divided in different ways on that bottom row. So when we think of F, it's how we apply it to um buildings like a hotel. And so just for an example between the two um hotels um that are on the southern half or south of East MacArthur um we have the lodge which is around point4 F and 182 rooms. And then we have um 69 rooms at MacArthur Place which is around an F of 0.25. So um with that information and the feedback that were gathered from the community, the community was concerned about the preservation of agriculture um the historic Sebastian Winery itself. Uh the impacts of development um occurring in that area including noise um and traffic increases. Um and then also the unknown aspect of any future development that is to occur. Um with that planning commission we discussed options which I'm also going to talk to you about today. Um and pling commission through those options and those discussion um noted that it's important to get it right. Um and that they wanted either a separate planning process um for these um if uh if we need more time to go through and figure out what that is. Um or have an applicant

submit a project for consideration that could be u discussed and responded to. So our next steps um for this project include our discussion tonight and to proceed with any land use changes and that would include finalization of a draft EIR and general plan element. Once those are drafted they will be released for public comment from 45 to 60 days. During those that time frame, um staff intends to do a community meeting and then have bring these back to the different commissions as well as a city council meeting during that time frame. Um and then from that information gathered, um we'll have revisions for final drafts. I don't know why I had May in there. Sorry about that. revisions um for that final draft and then we'll present to the planning commission for recommendation and then present to city council for adoption. So that is our next steps. Um this is the general schedule um that we are looking to do that within. Um and that I have one more slide one more. So tonight the request is for uh direction and by direction I mean your thoughts your feelings on different paths to be taken on the la the draft land use element that you um had read or any of the elements but really focusing on the necessary land use changes in the map to make sure that we're getting the EIR correct. So again, you will have another chance to uh make decisions um one during the public comment period,

but also um before adoption or at adoption as well. So the three areas that I'm looking for direction in the sense of the lounge use changes is to proceed and final with what you've seen and finalize that draft EIR and the general plan elements. um modify the proposed land use changes um and then we'll finalize those uh the draft EIR and then lastly um don't make any or any of the specific ones that you don't want to make for those land exchanges. So those would not be part of the EIR. And so if a change later on was made, we would need to go back and do the EIR potentially depending on what that change is and start again potentially. So I wanted to make that. All right. With that, that concludes my presentation. So, I'm going to just look at our my fellow council members and as long as we can remember questions, I would like to go ahead and respect the request for opening up the for public comment for those uh that specifically asked. I think that u intent would be um the workers My name is Sonia Caribel uh and I'm withite here local 2 the hotel workers union for the Sonoma County and the Bay Area. Thank you so much for allowing us to uh make public comment before you guys get in your questions. Um we represent workers at the Hyatt Regency Santa Rosa AC Hotel Santa Rosa Pedaluma Sheratin and our newest union hotel who

are here tonight, the Fairmont Sonoma Mission In. Uh our sister local United here 49 represents workers at the Great and Casino and Resort and together we we represent around 1500 hospitality workers in Soma County. Our mission is to improve working conditions and build worker power in the hospitality industry. And today I urge you to carefully consider the impact of hotel development on the Sonoma Valley. Unite here has no problem with denser mixeduse development. Our members struggle to find affordable housing and we support building more housing, particularly when it is affordable to hotel workers. However, we are skeptical about permitting more hotels in the general plan. We are in a housing crisis, not a hotels crisis. A mixeduse development with housing and groundf flooror commercial could help to alleviate the housing crisis in Soma. A hotel could make the problem worse if it creates low-wage jobs without creating enough affordable housing to offset demand. Hotel jobs in the Soma Valley usually pay low wages, which means workers generally cannot afford decent housing nearby. Soma's economy is already very tourism focused, which has led to extreme inequality. We don't need more bad tourism jobs. We need more housing for workers. Thank you.

Oh, my name is Karina and I'm proud of be a member United Local 2. I work at the Ferman Sonoma Mission in at the benquin service. I be there for 23 years. I live in boy house spring. I hope fight for the first contract at the Ferman Sonoma mission last year. The most important thing uh the contract for me is my health insurance. Before the union contract, I pay $500 a month for health insurance. I have a one China zero G to pay $8,000 deductible. Of course, I will pay with $8,000 right away. I had to put on my credit card so that we'll keep and pay my rent. I feel like my whole paycheck went to the insurance and rent. With the union contract, I don't pay anything for the health insurance every month. We don't need another hotel with bad shop in the Sonoma Valley. There is not enough affordable house for the hotel workings. I've been stay in the same apartment for 20 years. Sometimes I want to move to a better place, but it look at the how Spencer is the market is me and my husband and my son we live together in twobedroom apartment. My son is 22 years old and he tried to move but he come back to live with me because the rent is so expensive in the area. Please don't make that worse by allowing a hotel the developer to bring more a low wage job to Sonoma. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Hi. It's a little too high for me. My name is Ta Caris and I'm a proud member of Unite here local too. I work at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and I've been working there as a massage therapist for over 26 years. I live here in Soma. I helped fight for the very first contract at Sonoma Mission in last year. The most important thing in the contract for me is support and protection of our jobs and our colleagues. Many employees have ongoing issues and I sat in on a uh a uh corporate meeting for about 55 hours to create the best contract ever. And that means I can now acrewue vacation time as a part-time employee. And I'm going to Europe this year. Yay. We don't need another hotel with bad jobs in Soma Valley. There is not enough affordable housing for hotel workers. My experience with housing is there are not enough affordable rentals for employees in this valley. Please do not make the housing crisis worse by allowing bad hotel developers to bring more low wages to Sonoma through this general plan. And I only have two more words to say, hotels and traffic. Hello, my name is Alex Treadwell and I'm a member of Unite Here Local 2. I work at the Sonoma Mission in as a massage therapist and I've been working there since 2000 and I live in Sonoma County. I help organize the union at Sonoma Mission. We won our first contract at the Sonoma Mission in last year. And the most important thing to me is

consistency and fairness. In the past, we've had issues with fair um favoritism. And now we're pushing to have equal treatment for everyone. The raises were also a huge win. Non-tipped workers make $3 more now than before. And there are regular raises in the contract. Before they had we had the union, we were getting 25 cent raises. I also appreciate that the contract will allow us to work three days a week and still qualify for the health insurance in the future. That's important to me because I have arthritis and my job as a massage therapist is very physical. I can't continue doing five days a week of massage for the next 10 years. We don't need another hotel with bad jobs in Sonoma County. There's not enough affordable housing for hotel workers. I had to live in Valleo for over seven years, driving back and forth for almost an hour each way until I could finally save up enough to be living in Glenn Ellen. Please don't make the housing crisis worse by allowing a bad hotel developer to bring more low-wage jobs to Soma at the Sebastian Winery. Thank you. unit here. Victoria

Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. I'm gonna translate for Nella if that's okay. Um, so, uh, my name is Nella and I'm a proud member of Unite Here Local 2. I work at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Innin as a housekeeper. I've been there for 21 years and I live in Soma. I was part of the fight for our very first contract last year and for me the most important victory of the contract was the health insurance. Uh now I'm able to have a little bit more of my check left over at the end of the month and I don't feel so pressured uh to pay my rent every month to be able to make the to make my rent on time every month. Uh we don't need another hotel with bad jobs in the Soma Valley. There's not enough affordable housing for workers in the hotel industry. Um in my experience, the uh housing market is very expensive and I don't have enough money to be able to buy a house here. Um so please don't make this crisis worse by allowing a bad hotel owner to bring more low-wage jobs to Soma. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay, with that, uh, I'm going to close the public comment phase one and stay tuned for phase two, but I want to come back to, uh, my fellow council members and for any questions to Jennifer, please. Can I just clarify because I heard Janet behind me say that's not true. So, I just wanted to look up something really quickly. Yeah. So, there one where did it go?

It's on that one. Okay. So, the lot where you see the to the north of Level Valley, it's just the cherry block on the left side of the road, that is agriculture. The one to the right and then around is agricultural residential. So 20 is up above on the left and then from the right corner around is the one per two acres. You're welcome. All right, questions. So my question is about the the um the distinction between doing one EIR versus waiting on a specific parcel. let's just name it the Spastiani parcel and you know do the rest of the general plan and then come back to do that and you mentioned something about um having to either redo the EIR or wouldn't be part of the EI. Can you just kind of get real granular about that so we can have a clear understanding of the implications behind that please?

Sure.

Thank you. Um so in the general plan itself um we are going to do um a programmatic EIR and that is an EIR that's going to look at our general plan as a whole. So all the changes as one change and how does that impact our community and we develop mitigation measures for that. Those mitigation measures are typically applied as policies as we do development. One of the findings that have to be made when we do discretionary approvals and development, we say is it consistent with the general plan. So that's part of that. So is it consistent? Um we take those policies, we make them conditions of approval. Um and so that's one aspect of that EIR looking at the big project as a whole. When we do that, if we release that draft, um, and then we say, "All right, we want to change, say we took out all the changes and said, "No, we're going back. We need to go back. We need to study it again and run those um different some of the different studies like traffic um and say, okay, and VMT, what does that look like um as the city?" And that's the EIR that would then support that general plan adoption with a project. What happens with this kind of EIR is it's called taring. And so some of the aspects, the mitigation measures and things like that with the project are already encompassed in our general plan. We've already looked at it. But then there's sight specific um activities happening because it's not going to take into consideration that there's a creek running through the property um or that it's historic. Um so we develop some um catches for that whether it's to do a historic resource evaluation so that we can know whether or not there's a potential environmental

impact with demolishing let's say a building. Um so that's where we we look to the general plan. It tells us kind of what to do and then we look at the site itself. Is anything else happening specifically that wasn't uh encompassed in the big picture uh general plan EIR? Um so that's that's the one aspect. If somebody came today and said I don't want this land use anymore or I want to do this development and that zoning district doesn't allow for it. We would need to do a land use map change. We would need to do a zoning district change. The idea being that those potentially already exist. Let's say that that land use commercial already exist and we want to apply it to this parcel and we know that that description still works and all these uses would still apply. So no change, right? We we already have the descriptions in place. Somebody could say, "All right, I want to do this." um then we would need to analyze not just the project and what is encompassed in the project but also that change on that site. Does that make sense? So the general plan's already analyzing the change of that use but the site specific with if but if I just came down with the project to change it I need to analyze that aspect too. So what's the difference in impact? And and honestly I I don't know if I understood that quite I'm gonna just frank about that.

Um so what would be the difference between doing waiting until you get a project to then decide whether or not you like the project and then change the land use zoning etc. or adopting something and then someone comes through and says, "I want to do a um uh a plan amendment or a change or whatever." Talk to me about why one is better or worse than the other in terms of you're you're going to get the you know, assuming you're going to get the same thing in the end.

So, I would never assume that I'm going to get the same thing in the end. Well, for my for my supposition, let's just play pretend.

The idea being that with a general plan amendment, you're stating this is what we want as a community and then with a development code being created around that or applied to it is we want to see this. This is our goal for this area. The other aspect is somebody's coming in and saying I want to do this here. That's the diff the main difference between that. The um it's still going to have an environmental review of some sort. Don't know what that looks like. It depends on the project itself and what the changes are. Um and there are costs associated with that as well on the the applicant. We're in the process right now of saying this is what we want to do to meet all these goals that we have over the next 20 years and if something was to happen this is kind of what we would like to see in this location. So that that's kind of what you're looking at is do we want to set the stage now or do we want to maybe modify what that stage looks like you know and have another discussion about it or um a little bits here and there now. Um, again, we're going to do a development code hopefully concurrently. Um, and then or just let's just wait and see what somebody submits and applies for. Would there be an impact on any of the other projects that we are wholesale in agreement of let's you know for example the overlay near the congregational church for example would that in any way be affected by action or non-action on adopting the general plan

peace meal as opposed to all of it at once. So the general plan, the things that are affecting timeline right now are going to be the release of that general plan and the EIR for that regulatory time frame. And so if we are still having discussions about what that looks like on the land use side in a general plan, that's that timing that then delays an EIR being released or we say in general sense this is what we want to see. Let's release the EIR and see what it says and then we can make decisions based on that or and or the development code to move it forward. The end goal being yes, it would time delay if there's other with other projects in play potentially with some of these different changes that would be occurring throughout the city as a whole. Um so this one aspect of it depending on how much time wants to be um placed in refining what that looks like in a general plan versus the development code. That's where that delay would come in. I'll have comments regarding this question

at the appropriate comment time. Thank you.

So let's go down this rabbit hole a little further unfortunately. So yeah, so that was my same question is around, you know, I'm want I'm trying to be clear about like what we could do tonight in regards to like for me thinking of like wanting to move housing forward for us to be able to do an err because I think housing is a priority and so how could we, you know, include a certain aspects of what you showed us on the map for Sebastiani. Maybe not all of them be able to get the EI on that. So that there's there's there that and then that moves forward, the general plan moves forward, the uh congregational church uh u development moves forward and then someone comes in and says down the road, okay, I want to do more than housing there. I want to do some commercial development there and then that would that would have to have a new EIR for that for that project but we would have moved ahead the general plan. I'm just doing a scenario that's is that correct how that would work.

That is a scenario. Yes. and then we wouldn't be I mean it's I'm just trying to look at this so that we understand what are the scenarios that we can do tonight to move things forward because I you know housing is very important to us and to getting more housing in the community but we want to be able to do that to be conscientious about what is h what the concerns are in regards to uh that property because if we did an EIR and let's say you know at least we'd get the picture let's say we just looked at it for a as as a certain parts of it or all of it of a housing made it make it housing of one of one of the housing elements then we could find out through the EIR all of the other things around that that we would mitigate and that would help I think could potentially help answer questions for people Because after we get the ER back, then we're going to know these are the issues that are coming up from the ERR. So this level of housing is going to cause this, this, and this for traffic, for water, for, you know, flood flooding and watershed and all of that, right?

So we'd get some information.

You wouldn't necessarily get to a a refined level like especially around storm water or anything like that. It's going to be project based and sight specific. You will get general aspects of change over different kind of subsets depending on what we're looking at. So I just want to preface that is that you are looking at an overall city impact in an EIR and we do call out like if there's an increase in the number of units in an area we'll say okay and generally in this area we'll need improvements and then we look to see oh does that project when it comes through actually trigger that need for that improvement. Okay. Did I So hopefully that was a little helpful in regards to that question. Not not helpful at all.

Can I just reiterate one thing that Jennifer said that I think is really important is that um the EI is going to evaluate the impact of what proposed land use. That impact when you see it come back and review it. You can always reduce that impact before you adopt it. But you can't add things at the last minute. And that's when she referred to you have to redo the EI if you increase the impact. So I think just to clarify what Jennifer was saying is that whatever you direction we get tonight that's going to be the bar and you can't go above that once we're done with the ER unless we redo the ER based on additional impacts. I think might getting to what vice may

so so let me ask a question because I think it's parallel with this and and consistent with that. The scenario this evening if we went ahead and we looked at all the options as far as land designations and we choose to come up with a definition of Sonoma mixed use and we say this is what we'd like to see based upon the council's goals and priorities and that gives you clarity to go back to planning commission and then ultimately go back to Denovo our consultant and say please continue with the EI to include this subsequent to that we realize that maybe that isn't the direction we want to go and we come back and it's the consensus of the council to say no we're going to take a more conservative approach and we will let a project drive the future changes there if you extract that out the EIR that was written was based upon I thought worst case scenarios so Please clarify. We would not have to start from scratch again. I would like to think that's a subtraction that says this impact is no longer under consideration. The balance of the EIR is legitimate and still stands and therefore we're not holding up the big picture.

It shouldn't hold up the big picture. It will have to be amended to reflect that change. Just going to give you one example. high density housing has a lower VMT than a low density residential. So we're that's like one aspect that's the it's really the the main one that is affected when we start changing with densities. Um so I'm just showing that as an example. It will trigger a change to that EIR. The amount of change from what we study to where we end up determines how much of that EIR needs to be restudied or rewritten.

But just in simplistic terms, right now the Sebastian property has a density of based on wine production and limited residential and agriculture. So the vehicle thing there is pretty nominal, pretty low. We come back and we say no, we'd like to give consideration to this designation that would include X, Y, and Z. We know that that's going to include the additional vehicle miles. So with that, the ER is written. And so that's a scenario that would say here's the impact. But if you extract that, then to me, we're you know, in essence, we're not we're lessening the impact. I'd like to think that the EIR does not need to be substantially changed other than this gets deleted. We know that this was an impact. We no longer have an impact relative to this parcel. Therefore, the majority of the EIR still holds true. Is that at all close to your professional?

I'm not I'm not going to make an assumption that a majority or anything like that. I'm just saying like with change comes potential change. So, if it's substantive, then we need to make a substantive change. If it's not, and that's when based on the studies and everything, the results, if we have to look at certain things, then that's what we'll need to do. Timing wise, it doesn't necessarily mean we're starting all over again with another 60-day comment period on the EIR or anything like that. We'll we'll tell you at that point and let you know, hey, okay, this is what that looks like, and if we change it, this is what that means. Is it would be would it be fair to say that it's proportionate? In other words, minor change would suggest limited modification

potentially. It just depends on the what? Okay. Okay. Yeah. Do you have a question? I have another one.

Go ahead. Uh my question you mentioned a partial you know when we carried out or when we not doing EI and what kind of method we can use if we subtract a certain parts out of the general plan how we can measure what kind of the and impact in some way to affect that area as a So when we uh do a land use change, obviously those changes in that area are going to affect that area, but we look at it as a whole in the general plan because we're looking at a city-wide document versus a project on this parcel. And the change that's happening is very specific and we're going to look at that separate from a general plan. That's why we look at it as a whole. There are components that are looked at in an area of so level of specificity I don't know if I want to go into but an example would be what's called a TAZ. It is where we start looking at traffic and specifically BMT in an area. It's a different type of artificial boundary and we look at those. Um so that's where I was going. big city picture and then depending on what we're looking at the IR sometimes there's a different uh um area that we're looking at.

Okay. Okay.

Thank you. So my question also is in regarding our brea numbers because my understanding that I could be wrong but correct me if I am that the uh the new zoning for Sebastiani of this Sonoma mixed use that was not in our housing element as as as a project that would be you know and so so we so we're looking at a number of different areas to meet our arena numbers but at the same time having more areas to maybe this I might be asking this might be too you might not be comfortable answering this but having more areas that we have designated that could be housing is going to increase the possibility of our meeting our arena numbers because one of the things I'm concerned about is if we don't meet our reena numbers and then the state comes in and says you know we're going to do this for you and you no longer because there's this whole control issue, but that's a control issue too.

So, so their um housing element, we're not touching it hopefully. Um the housing element itself gets updated every eight years.

This site um is not identified in our housing element to re meet the RENA requirements. So we have identified a list and all the addresses and APNs associated with that and their potential development is um we track we track to see what's what's happening are we meeting those numbers and then planning commission when they approve projects are understanding if it's not and if we're at a we're entering into a deficit or or something like that. But the idea behind when you identify the list is that you identify more than you need. So that's that project. There are some on there that we have used multiple times um or have now been developed or are in the process. So um those will be taken off when we do this again which our housing element we will start doing again in 2028. So yay. And so we have two more years. What happens during that process is yes, we identify like you guys did with this previous housing element all the sites that are needed to meet that arena. With that, we have to make sure that they are specially available to low income and very low income. Um, and if they need to be reszoned to meet that need for us in the housing element, we have three years to do that from adoption. So in a sense, anything developed in regards to low housing for a housing element at Sebastian would be for future reena members and not for the current ones

unless unless something was adopted and was approved. So every building permit that we issue in the city counts towards our arena regardless if it's on our sites list. Oh, okay. The sites list has to be done as by by the requirements of the housing element. We have to identify these sites and track them. But every building permit we issue, we track. Every ADU we say, all right, that's a new unit. And under the AVAC study, we can say that 30% of them meet our moderate income. And so we check that box and you'll see that on March 18th, you'll see all that. All right. Okay. Question.

All right. Thank you. Following this question also I want to know what is the consequence a legal consequence if we are not compliant to meet the arena numbers and what is our current numbers arena number for uh next I think we are carried out in eight years

um I will give you that number on March 18th uh my staff is working on that to get the numbers going so we're finalizing that staff report and we'll get that to you. Um, and we can talk more about what the penalties are for not being compliant, but we're fine right now. Um, we don't know what happens at the end of the eight-year cycle of what you don't meet. We we're not quite sure what that looks like yet, but we're going to look San Diego because they'll be first to deal with that. Any more questions, John?

Just to make sure I understand. Um, if the zoning, hypothetically, if the zoning remained agricultural in the Sebastian property and somebody wanted to take a shot at developing it down the road, they would submit an application. Um, it would have to go, I presume, to planning. At some point they would have to do their own EIR at their expense and um and there'd have to be a reasonzoning if they wanted to make that do a hotel.

It would go to planning commission and city council. Okay. All right. But it could be done. Changing the changing the general plan which you can do four times a year. Okay. is a legislative decision that's in the council's discretion. All right. And then along with that, you would change the zoning ordinance, which is also legislation that requires council. Okay. So there and as you know, changing an ordinance that takes two readings. So there's additional time involved for those types of projects. Okay. Thank you.

So just a summary in the end. Then what it ends up being is time and money. for the developer if I'm correct.

Well, I think at this point uh we can go back and open up public comment round two and then we can always bring back uh Jennifer later if we have more questions. So, at this point, uh, we welcome you to step forward. You have two minutes. Please state your name and we'll go from there.

Okay. I I wrote this in two minutes, but I've had a few notes. So, one thing to notice, water usage is down. So, the housing element we're trying to build for that's going to change in 2031. Who knows what that's going to be? Um, and I agree. Developer pays for the ERRI, let them pay for it. Okay, back to my speech. Sorry. Uh good evening mayor and city council members. My name is Janet Bole. I want to reinforce the recommendation that came forward from the planning commission that was in the agenda. They they recommended uh slow it down. Um sorry I didn't eat dinner. I got to quit coming to these things without me. uh commissioners uh clearly recognized the significance of this land use decision and expressed a preference for either a separate planning process or even better waiting to consider any land use change in con conjunction with an actual and specific development proposal. This is a prudent and thoughtful approach. The property that the Spastian property is made up of 19 parcels. While that may not be the most efficient approach to manage them individually, it is the most reason responsible approach to for our city. Good planning is not about efficiency alone. And it's about precision. There are seven seven of the 19 parcels that total 10 acres. Four are agricultural, two are lowdensity housing, and one has the historic tasting room. These parcels already have appropriate designations. Um they contribute to the agricultural character, established neighborhoods, and historic fabric of our community. There has been no demonstrated need to alter them. Those seven, there is no urgency that compels the city to apply a blanket land use change across all 19 parcels. In in fact, absence of a specific proposal, there's no requirement to change any of them. By adopting a broad uh design uh designation, the city would be setting development expectations before knowing exactly what is being proposed. Once those expectations are established, flexibility is reduced or essentially eliminated. Reference the the city um mayor of St. Helina just last couple weeks ago was deeply disappointed that he had to approve something because that

did not meet the city needs because it exceeded the housing element. Uh, sorry, I just need 15 more seconds. Um, and Jennifer said at the at the last planning meeting that unlimited concessions and waiverss and could be could be given to a developer and a 50% density increase, which means you could go from 25 to 37 and a half units per acre and we wouldn't even be able to review it or or uh or edit it or decline it. Okay, sorry. I'm going to keep going. Um, uh, let's see. Okay, this is not about resisting thoughtful development. It's about applying thoughtful planning. I respectfully urge you to follow the planning committee commission's guidance and refrain from refrain from imposing a blanket land use change across all 19 parcels. Thank you.

Good evening. Hi, Mayor Willer and council. My name is Becky Sager. I live on Wilking Way and I'm going to be a little disjointed too because listening to this has made me think uh about a few things. Um like Janet, I was at the planning commission meeting and have been involved over the last year or so with a group of us who are very concerned about reasonable development on this space, not no development. We know something's going to go there. But the big concern now is that Sonoma mixuse is just too broad. It seeds control. It seeds the city's control over what happens there. You could have highdensity housing across the board and state law imposed on top of it. There's no it just because there's a nice proposal somewhere on the table doesn't mean that's what's going to happen and five years down the road anything could happen. Um and I think that really resonated when I listened to the planning commission. It doesn't provide adequate guard rails for the city. Um, one broad designation doesn't address the priorities that have been repeatedly voiced by the community. And in the meeting on January 14th, every single concern that we've had came out in the table exercises that they did with the community, we talk about what the community wants and that and what this property will look like. Well, um, you know, when when you look at a wideopen designation, it doesn't take into account a lot of risks. Fire evacuation and safety. The safety uh study that was rec most recently done that you all looked at, again, it was programmatic. It didn't look specifically at Sebastiani, but almost every choke point was right there. When was the last time you tried to drive over the Fourth Street Bridge? you put 25 or 37 and a half units per acre on that property, people will die trying to get out of there, the water use, the the sewage capacity, um the the loss of agriculture and green and and historic buildings. um to take six acres that's currently v

historic vineyards and green space and and let them be Sonoma mixed use. Every single person that turned in from the community that turned in a plan wanted to keep that green space. So what we're saying is please consider options. I understand that the EIR might might create a process issue, but let's not let that take away from this brilliant place that Sonoma has and making sure that we do it right. I'm not a planning expert, but lots of people have said, let's consider a special planning area designation that provides options and guard rails and lets you look at parts of the parcel separately. Um let's look at um what at a minimum keep those two parcels green. Every single community member asked for that. The maximum density instead of 25, let's make it 15. So at least you can say we have some control over what goes on. And the minimum, let's make it two. Just let's make it low density. Um and let's provide a specific definition of mixed use. Over 1,400 people now have signed the petition that you can get to if you go to safesoma.org. our little website. It lays these things out very clearly and link to the petition and look at what people are are agreeing with. They're saying, "Please stop and listen to the community and let's do this in a sane way." And that's what I would ask us to do. Figure out a way to make this work. Good evening, mayor, city council members. My name is Amy Altterman and I live on Wilking Way. I've participated in a lot of meetings with the planning session as well as the January 14th community outreach session uh regarding Sebastiani. I appreciate the significant work that has gone into this update because this general plan will guide Soma through

2045. The land use decisions we make today will have a profound and lasting impact. Regarding the Sebastiani winery parcel, I respectfully urge the council not to apply a single Soma mixed juice designation across the 20 entire 20 plus acres. Not now or anytime in the future. This property consists of distinct sections, each serving vital community functions. The vineyard south of the bike path and west of Fourth Street East provides critical agricultural open space, strengthens our community's climate resilience, and preserves the integrity of a key pedestrian and bike corridor. Arbor Park and Loville Valley Edge supply valuable tree canopy and represent the only park access for that neighborhood. The planning commission recognized the site significance and recommended either a dedicated planning process or consideration of specific project proposal before any land use designation changes. I support this approach as there's no demonstrated community need or justification for a broad one-sizefits-all designation. Furthermore, assigning a blanket mixeduse designation could have unintended consequences, including the loss of agricultural land, historical vineyards and buildings, open space, as well as increased development intensity without project level analysis of water supply, groundwater recharge, traffic, and emergency evacuation capacity. I urge you to ensure the general plan retains the agricultural designation of the vineyard and maintains the park designation for the arbor park to provide enduring protection for these crucial community resources. Thank you

for your time and consideration and for your service to our community. There's uh I would just uh replicate what she said because she said it so eloquently. So, I'll make this as short as I can. Um, my concern is name. I'm sorry. Name? My name is Jean Olivy. Thank you. And I live on Brazil Street.

And I'll mention that the specific concern in addition that I haven't heard yet. So, I just want to add on to what everybody's comments are so far is that um in this particular area, it's also bordered by county and that is the sphere of influence. And we haven't really discussed that. But by setting a precedence of of reszoning what is in the city, we are completely adjacent to Cherry Block Vineyards, which is county and nobody's discussing that, but they are owned by the same person. So now, if you're going to change everything at the city level and reszone, if I were that owner, the next thing I would do is come to you and say, "You already set a precedent on half of my property. Why wouldn't you do it on the other half?" And they would go to county. And I have a feeling we're not we're not looking at the whole city and county proposal here. We're just we're just addressing city here. And I would urge us to look at the sphere of in influence which is the adjacent Foley Sebastian properties that are next to the ones that we are considering reszoning. Let's not set a precedent that is so restrictive that we fall into having to resone those as well. Thank you. Hello, my name is Julie King and I live on Seventh Street. Uh, so I'm just on the other side of the city limit. So, I'm the county, but um I echo the comments that I've heard from the community uh in in the past few minutes. I missed the planning commission meeting. So I was coming here thinking positively that maybe their recommendations which I believe were uh

to delay um you know the discussion of this this property and then either drive the uh zoning and the density from a project basis or do do something that that makes more sense for this what we've called heritage property. Um and and so I favor that approach, but it's kind of not what I'm hearing certainly from Jennifer and I'm not necessarily hearing in in this meeting. So I just want to emphasize a couple things. So, I was living where I'm living uh during the fires when they came through and and it was horrendous and it's a major artery for fire trucks, all the equipment trying to move up into the hills to keep the fires from coming down into the town. And our house is kind of on the corner and we could see the fire trucks driving up into the hills and it was it was it was intense. So to add more housing, even higher density on that property really concerns me. And I'm also very concerned about the um you know, I presume I guess this would be city uh water. Um but I do see the aquifers being affected out in our area. We've had new wells all the way down the block, including ours, and we see the water levels dropping. So, I I just think there's a lot of impact and if a developer comes in and they have a plan that that you know makes sense based on the input and and what's appropriate for that area, then so be it. And if they have to do an EIR and that's part of what their cost is, I I think that's the best approach. So, I just want to put in my comments and uh my point of view on that. Thank you very much.

Robert Demler, First Street West, Sonoma, uh, Mayor Wellendinger, Vice Mayor Low and Council Member, city staff, everyone here. Start start smiling for a change. Um, I am speaking for the Sonoma League tonight. I often do not, but and reference it, but I am speaking. We discussed this issue at a board meeting recently and they are as confused as I am about this project. They they don't understand why if housing is such an issue with uh Sonoma that the proposed reasonzoning is not residential at some level instead of mixed use. And secondly, they say, well, there's no project being offered at this point, so why do we need a reasonzoning of mixed use? And I think I said this once before in the city council meeting, God yellow already. Um, I had a Chinese boss once in my ch in my career, banking career, and his philosophy was if there is no solution, there is no problem. Well, we don't have a solution. There's no problem right now at this this point. And I think the the the league says, why don't you just leave it like it is and let be it be the new term for me, project driven, uh, and deal with it in the future. Otherwise, I mean, this is you're sort of opening the can or or paving this the the highway for people to come in and say, "Oh, good. This is mixed juice. So, I wouldn't do that. Thank you very much. Whoops.

All right. Wrestling with my Good evening. My name is Jeannie ShraMM. I live on Geroke Road. Much of what I wrote here to say has been said by other people admirably extemporaneously I might add. So I'd like to just give the headlines for those considerations and also to point out that at the planning commission meeting all the planning commissioners were in agreement to not proceed and going ahead with this. And so I I do want to call your attention to that. Um, number one, to use city finance reports in the state county designations to prioritize fire and evacuation safety. This property is located in a designated very high fire uh zone. Number one. Number two, four of the eight roads identified as choke points border or are the only evacuation means available to all of the hundreds of residents who live north of this property, of which I am one. Our safety is directly impacted by the additional foot traffic and obstacles to emergency vehicles being able to come and help us. We would literally be toast as we sit in our cars not being able to get down our road. The second thing I'd like to urge you to do is recognize that the winery property and this was said earlier. Though it's the biggest one in the in Soma, it is going to set a precedent for the rest of Sonoma County and everybody's going to be looking at what we do with this property and wanting to do that throughout the county. Number three, I'd urge you to honor the key points that are identified in both

the formal city planning documents and the community survey that was conducted to preserve Soma's character and spirit. That's what brings people here to live. It's what brings people here as tourists. The only housing that we feel might be appropriate would be low density cottage style senior housing that could address not only the interests of the community but many of the residents who live nearby who could downsize and still be able to stay in their neighborhoods. And I might add that market housing is going to produce just like we've had on Garrick Road speculators who come in, they're going to buy it or they're going to be vacation homes. It's not going to do a lot to increase the available housing at any level really to existing residents. Consider the future of tourism, not the past of tourism. Any economic decisions need to reflect what drives the next generation of visitors to Soma. And the research reports that the trends are in experience-based travel, cultural authenticity, local interaction, and nature integrated designations. And finally, I'd like to encourage you to foster a creative visioning around this property there. I I don't know if you've listened to the reports of that meeting last month, but there were some very exciting ideas um as well as little known hidden impacts that were presented by experts in our community and just plain old ordinary residents as well. Soma and the Bay Area is fortunate to have successful creative financing

models that are already operating here in town and in the Bay Area at large. We have philanthropy, philanthropist sponsorships and public private partnerships that are worth exploring. One of the ideas that was also proposed was a communitybased task force of such experts that could have community input and be more of a liaison with representing the community's ideas. So those are a few examples that would enable both financial sustainability and community engagement. Thank you very much.

As you can see, I'm not very good at counting to two, but I'm pretty good at counting to three. So please respect that. Victor Confori uh retired architect. I think after listening to this I I uh have focused a little more on a very simple solution which you've mentioned already and that is to take the Sonoma mixed use uh proposed zoning and just remove it entirely from the uh this land use analysis. I think as others as others have said this is very complicated uh condition that we have it's a very uh historic special place and to to rush into I should say rush but to move forward into a process that's going to you know tie your hands would be much better just to not have it there and allow allow a developer to bring forward a project where we can really examine it carefully and if if it's going to cause some problems with the uh with the impact report as you know the applicant pays for all of that and the general plan can can be a overview that I don't think would be create any problem for our general Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Wellender, Vice Mayor Low, Council Staff, Mike Meny, Church Street. I'm on the other side of town. Um, I'm just going to give you a couple of my opinions. I don't personally think this town needs this valley needs any more hotels. Um, we can't possibly put a bed in town or the valley for that matter for everyone around the world that wants to come here. There's a reason they want to come here. And if we put a bed here for every one of those, there wouldn't be a reason to come here anymore. True. As I said a couple of meetings ago, my father was instrumental in saving the two fields in front of Lao's home. The state was very close to selling out the contractors during a state budget crisis. Imagine what that would that side of town would look like if those were two and threetory condominiums right now. That's what could happen on this side of town. Streets can't handle additional traffic. We have one reservoir in the county. We're we're going to have some problems 10 years down the road if we allow this stuff to keep going in. So anyway, that's just me. That's Mike Manip on the soap box. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Andrea Foreman. I live on Garrick Road. I really can't add to what so many people said, but I guess I want to bring in the feeling of it. I went to almost every um public meeting that was offered including the recent planning commission meeting and it always well let's start with the last one at the planning commission meeting as someone said I left so um enlivened because it felt like for the first time we were hearing from the officials what we've been what I have heard 99.999% of the community saying in the past two years of meetings and here it was being reflected back it was a significant ificant like outbreath. Um, what concerned me the most was the unintended consequences of state regulations coming in where we would have no control. I'm not sure I'm going to remember the phrase, but developer concessions that I guess are part of that state that at the planning commission were acknowledged like that's probably going to happen, but it's not really put out in front there. So I do think there's going to be some regret if the designation is changed. Having the 19 parcels, some of which nobody wants changed to change them. It just there was a lot of to me it doesn't make common sense. And the final thing is if there is a reworking of the EIR and the developer has to pay for it, that doesn't seem like a big consideration for the city to have to consider with all the other considerations of why it's good to pause, to stop, to think. And the last comment I'll make is the planning commission voiced that coming forward with uh plan specific proposals is quite common. So it doesn't seem like this is an outlier. It seems like that happens and maybe it's happened here. It certainly happens in other towns. So I still after all this time there's no

checks in the favor in my mind of why you would just blanketly put a new Soma designation. I don't really know the backstory, but it seems like the only reason that's being proposed is because the developer wants it. So like if if there was some internal Synoma talk about something, I might change my mind, but I don't know. It feels like a developer usually has these things for their profit. I'm not against people making a profit, but that's certainly their consideration and I don't think it's yours and it's not ours. So, thank you very much. Hello. Good evening. Uh Carrie Gerster. I'm a Sonoma resident and I don't have much to add actually to what everyone has already said and so I had a pre-prepared remark but everyone has already made these points very eloquently. I think I'll briefly highlight two things. Um the first one is that uh writing uh 7 to 25 housing units per acre in the general plan seems very ill advised. Um it's effectively pre-approving a very dense outcome. Uh and with state law uh with density bonus laws and things like that, it can push it even higher as several have mentioned. Um I do understand we need housing. I totally support more housing. I have no problem with that. Um, second, uh, Sebastiani is not a like a blank infill parcel. It is a very complex site and I I feel like we are losing sight of that as part of this process. Um, it's historic. It's on the municipal edge. Um, most of the stuff around it is agriculture. Uh, it borders existing

homes. um ton of natural constraints that have been discussed about um extremely high fire risk, evac, water, etc. And so the blanket density range just doesn't seem to respect any of that. Um I am not a planner but based on the options in front of us I am tending to prefer the one that has been mentioned of just leave it and let the uh developers uh spend their time and money when they want to bring a proposal forward. Um, but I believe uh based on the planning commission input uh that there are lots of other um tools that could be used as well for a site um that is this sensitive and large. Thank you very much.

Good evening. I'm Claudia Robbins. I live on the east side of uh no the west side of town. Sorry, very far from this property. But I'm definitely opposed as a resident of Soma to a hotel. I'm not a hotel worker, but I'm opposed to a hotel on that property. And I'm definitely in favor of housing. We do need housing and housing that's affordable. Not, as someone mentioned, housing that um is purchased for speculation or by people out of town. We need, and you all know, we need affordable housing. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Ray Shik and just one uh additional comment along with what everyone else has been saying is that uh you know along with a general plan or a land use plan which is a long-term planning strategy should be an economic analysis of the plan and the proposed uses on that plan. you know, the strategy of where commercial should be is a citywide decision and and consideration, not just a local site consideration. If you think about some of the challenges we're having in the downtown area of driving enough commerce to keep stores open or uh adjacent hotels to the downtown, which would drive foot count. uh it's a consideration of economic uh uh viability for the city overall and should be considered as an economic analysis along with the AIR analysis and the historic analysis. So I think the idea of maybe stretching out the process to do the right kind of analysis would be the right approach. Thank you.

Uh my name is Mitchell Price. um resident here in Sonoma. Uh good evening uh mayor and uh council members. I'm an architectural designer and a lifelong Sonoma resident. Over the past couple weeks, I've spent some time studying the Sebastian property, speaking with other community members about the role this site could play in Sonoma's long-term future. Tonight's discussion about the general plan and the future land use map is important because you know as everyone's previously mentioned the general plan ultimately sets the policy framework and that future that projects uh will rely on large centrally located uh sites like the Sebastian property. They'll evolve over time but the direction we establish in the general plan determines how that evolution happens. uh for sites embedded within the established residential fabric, those decisions would uh should reflect the physical realities of circulation capacity uh evacuation planning and the human scale character that Sonoma is known for. I also think that it's important to recognize that simply allowing more housing or even commercial or hotel uh it doesn't always produce housing that serves the local residents like myself. Um, in the general plan that should focus on aligning the land use policy with the actual housing needs or other needs of the community. Um, I'll skip over that. Uh, for uh, for this reason, I encourage the council to not predetermine the future of Sebastiani uh, parcels through the general plan land use map. Instead, consider a separate planning process or a project specific proposal so that the real impacts, intensity, circulation, housing mix, and historic preservation commitments can be or those commitments can be evaluated transparently. Um, Sonoa's character was not created by

accident. It was shaped by deliberate decisions about scale, stewardship, and restraint. Oh, one second left. the general plan uh and the land use decisions we make today will determine what ultimately gets built here. Thanks. Appreciate your time. Thank you.

My name is Diane Duval and I have nothing further to add. We've had a lot of fine voices. I just want to thank you for taking the time to listen and to consider voices from your community. Good evening, Michael Woods. My office is at 846 Broadway and I live a few doors down from Robert on First Street West. Um, I agree with his comments and the leagues and Vic's comments this evening. The the couple couple of quick points. So, I I know you've seen the letter that I sent you. The the the concern that I had was that if you adopt a high density figure in the Sonoma mixed commercial designation for the Sebastian property, you could end up in a circumstance where with density bonuses and state law provisions, a project would come through at a very high density, ministerial rather than discretionary and exempt from SQA. And that's my concern and my client's concern is that you could put yourselves in that position by ultimately adopting a high density residential designation for that property. There's nothing at all unusual about a developerdriven project applicant driven EIR funded by the developer with an application for a general plan amendment and a zone change happens all the time for your consideration. And finally, I I'm I represent First Congregational Church. I'm not authorized to say anything on their behalf this evening. So, this is just from from my observation. I don't see any reason why if you carved out the Sebastiani property from a general plan land use change, you wouldn't just be able to proceed with your general plan adoption regardless of that. And I don't see why it would slow down an affordable housing project on our site at all. Thank you.

Okay, waiting to the very last.

Have a lot of comments. My name is Joe Coonio. Uh, live on Level Valley Road. Have comments about Sebastian property, but um limited on time, so I'm going to talk about 577 Level Valley Road. Um, I'm the applicant for that property. Um, I got the feedback from the commission a couple weeks ago. uh that halfacre lots aren't were a big concern of theirs. I don't want halfacre lots there. My objective of the whole uh application was to uh split the seven acres into three equal parcels. Um the challenge that I had is we saw that with the zoning code there is a a which is one for 10 and then it goes to rural residential which is one for a half an acre. So that's why I'd like to propose a new zoning code called Soma Agricultural Residential or call it whatever you want. Unlike Soma mixed uh mixed commercial, um which is very unclear and vague and we don't know what it means and there's 1500 opinions on what it should be. Um I would I would like agricultural residential to be identical to rural residential. Word for word, every bit, just cut and paste. The only difference would be instead of a halfacre parcel, it could be a 2acre parcel. The reason I think the city should consider this is that five of the six surrounding parcels with the exception of cherry block are already zoned that way. One house for two acres. It also would give the city a tool for future upzoning for possibly agricultural parcels in the city limits or there's a lot of talk about annexing um stuff south of town and uh this would be an option for that. uh wanted to address some of the planning commission's concerns with the re uh rural residential and how I think keeping this new zoning in mind um with look at things a little differently. Sewer and water. Uh it's there. Water's right at the at the street. Sewer is down at Wilking uh way. Um pretty easy.

Drainage. There's a solution that already exists. There is a covert that's buried at Geroke Road and Level Valley Road. It's a very dangerous spot when it rains for people, pedestrians, cyclists. That could be pretty easily freed and water would work its way down the north end of Level Valley Road. Um the aquifer recharging of wells. Um, this worst case scenario would be three houses that we're talking about being built on very large lots. They're over two two acres. Uh, they would be required to hook up to city water. So, I don't think that'd be a big issue. Edge condition. Um, all the surrounding parcels would already be zoned the same. And actually, if you go further east, they're all halfacre lots on Nutree and Apple Valley and Apple. Well, I'm missing somebody, but they're all halfacre. Um, and then agricultural concerns. uh losing agriculture. The other again like it I have no intention of you know having the agriculture removed from the property. It may not be grapes forever. Um may go back to being sheep or cherry trees. But as long as I'm alive, that's my intent. I don't want houses there. U but I could die. Worst case scenario, who knows? You know, my wife would probably sell it and move to Miami with a guy half my age. I don't know if she's watching. I'm just kidding, honey. Um, but even if that happened, worst case scenario, it would look like Grape Stone, which I think is a lovely development. I was just there this afternoon. Grape has a bunch of grape, old grape vines. So, anyways, I think this would tie in with the rest of the neighborhood. I really appreciate you giving me more some more time. Be a good tool. And uh yeah, that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, um, city council members and mayor. My name is Pat Summers. I

live on Geroke Road. I am a member of a board member of the Geroke Road Fire Safe Council and of course have all of the concerns that other members of the community have expressed about evacuation and so forth. Um, I want to applaud everyone who spoke here tonight on behalf of this project. I agree with everyone that the mixed use should be nixed. I'm wondering I just have a question how that ever even got on the agenda. I feel like it was a little bit of a push and people didn't know how to react and the community members that were very involved for a long time did not feel like they were being heard. So I just feel that um we need to be very careful with this community being such a incredibly valuable place on earth about how we develop it and not to let it be overdeveloped. It is a beautiful place and of course we need housing but we do not need any more hotels. Occupancy is under 60%. I'm in the hospitality business. Uh, you know, there are big changes in the in visitor um directions and you know, it's something that we have to deal with and it's not an easy fix and it's it's something very important to our community, our tourism. But, uh, building more hotels is completely unnecessary in my opinion. Uh, we already have one approved right off the plaza there, um, Darius Anderson's place. I don't exactly know what's happening with it, but I feel that that would be complete overkill to have another hotel and it definitely not at the bottom of my road where we would never be able to get out of there and if we needed to be evacuated and had a hotel full of people plus a lot of new

residents. Let's be sensible. We also, in my opinion, do not need any commercial unknown commercial places. Uh, who knows what they would be? Burger King. I don't who knows? We don't need that in our rural area. We need to keep it beautiful and charming and conducive to both our residents and our visitors. So, thank you very much for your consideration. Thank you.

I'm Connie K. I've lived in Sonoma most of my life on and on Garoke Road for 48 years. And um I attended the January 24th meeting hosted by the Sonoma Planning Commission C um planning commission uh regarding this. And we were asked at that meeting with no warning or opportunity to plan or prepare to color code maps of the property indicating what we wanted. And some people who participated didn't even realize that this develop was development was not a done deal. um and felt that they were required to include all of the elements including hotel, commercial, residential, open space, parks, agricultural. A representative was at each table to facil facilitate the project and they were to remain neutral, but some unfortunately used their influence to encourage the inclusion of a hotel and commercial businesses on the on the maps, indicating that is what everyone wanted. I've heard from some attendees who felt that they were strongly influenced and that including the hotel was pretty much insisted upon. So I and some others who attended the meeting feel that asking the Cinema Valley residents to put their preferences on a map even though no rozzoning or any part of this project had been approved was misleading and indicated support of this extensive aggressive and inappropriate plan for overdevelopment in our rural historic fires sensitive area. I encourage everyone to enjoy to u join the fight against this development and the efforts to um especially against the hotel. Building a hotel and adding commercial businesses on the Sebastian property is of particular concern. With the annual lodging which was just mentioned down and empty storefronts on the plaza, the heart of the of the

valley, our community does not need additional short-term lodging or commercial space spreading out on the west rural east side of town. Um anyway, I felt I left that meeting feeling that submitting those maps was a big mistake. um was concerned that they would use to promote the development of the property and and indicating that that's what the community wants. So um thank you and thank you.

Well, I do not see any more movement at this point. So with that in mind, I will close the public se uh session and bring it back to the dis for questions back to staff and then from that possible discussions on where we go from here. Can I jump in and ask uh you a few questions for clarity purposes? Um, if there was if if is it not the responsibility of our consultant uh who has been charged with looking at the update of the general plan to look at the entire 2.34 acres of our city as far as what is currently there, what could be there, etc., etc. Uh so in other words, if if an individual hadn't come up with a an aspirational concept that seemingly has been seen as driving part of this, would not the consultant been expected to look at the Sebastian property as it is and given his personal his perspective professionally of okay, this is what it currently is. Here are some options or I I just need clarity on whether or not that would have happened regardless. Okay. So, what a consultant with the general plan update process does is rely on first the visioning and what we talked about what our goals are and then relies on direction from planning commission and city council of what that what that looks like as change. So, if we said you know what we really want to look at where we could put a hotel, then yes, that's what he's going to look to do. um and look at um land that's underutilized, etc. That's what we do

with the housing element. We look at underutilized um lots and or lots that could be changed due to what's going on maybe economically or or whatnot. So, or vacant, right? Um, and so that's what we looked at too with some of these um other aspects of like where to put affordable housing overlay and the Staples lot was because if it's um Staples and extended over because it's an underutilized section um and has development potential and so what do we want to see there? If we want to see more affordable housing, we're going to stick that there. So,

okay, my next question is to get clarity from a comment that came from the public. Um the cherry block is in county and the cherry block is not within our sphere of influence I don't believe. And so the suggestion was that should we set a precedent then we're going to be vulnerable to see something that's very historic and cherished by many including the man speaking into the microphone right now that it all of a sudden would become high potential for development. Could you tell me what the process would be if somebody I believe it was suggested that the current owner might feel because a precedent had been set that he might want to jump to the next zone. What would be that process in order for him to say turn it into housing?

Um same as same as ours in general in the sense that they to do a a general plan land use change. They're they're undergoing their general plan process right now, which is probably going to take 10 years to be honest, probably. Um, sorry. Um, but you know, that's Santa Rosa took five. So, I'm just being realistic. Um, and and then boys, we haven't even finished their specific plan. So,

what um what happens is through that process is we have opportunity just like they do to respond to our changes. We respond to theirs as well in their environmental documents and we bring up concerns. We have in our general plan also um policies around 8th Street, not in our community, but we do have a desire for 8th Street um to still maintain its economic vitality. Um so we any changes that would happen in 8 Street, I have the knowledge based on our general plan at how I would respond in a comment letter on something like that. So they're going to go through the same steps. they would still have an EIR to analyze that change. The difference is in our city, we have our water, right, and we have our urban growth boundary. And so that is one key difference in outside of our boundaries is how that water distribution. I don't remember exactly how that water works right there. Um that would be a public works water question of how that water works, but my understanding is um unless it's like 100% affordable, we would not take it on and serve it water.

So it would have to be annexed into the city. Correct. to be served water. I'm not going to speak, but I know that we do have a couple of grandfathered areas of the community, outside of our community to the east that are part of our water system. Um, but my understanding is any change of that um would require um 100% affordable project. Okay. Yeah. I think with the urban growth boundary that the voters approved through 2040 um there are exceptions for when we can provide out of area water services for the Thornsberry district.

Um so those wouldn't necessarily need to be annexed if they fit within the limited exceptions to providing water under urban growth. So conceivably that could be that could be developed in housing and not annexed into the city and just be a county development. Is that correct? I think there's some potential, but it's very, very small. Okay. Okay. Um, I've got more questions, but I'll let my fellow councilman ask. So, I don't have any questions. I'm just going to wait for discussion. Okay. You have questions?

Yeah. My question is because this process uh seems like little bit complicated and people need to have the time to fully understand and I think right now uh we send out not a correct you know message to our community for example today we see the hotel and workers and came because you know they were thinking oh this is a dumb deal actually not So the I think a community and the feeling is important. We need a time to to to to educate the people and then fully understand and then we can gather together you know the in this way in the future if whatever we made a decision and resoning or not resoning or support developer have the new project and it's easy for us and and also Uh I feel today I felt very encourages today you know all the community uh they are very reasonable educated and uh make the comments and they support housing that is our city council's goal. Excuse me, Jack. Do you have questions at this point? Because this is where we haven't quite opened up discussion. So the question

my question is, you know, how you know we can, you know, gather more time, you know, let the community understand not just let our city council made this difficult and decision. I believe commissioner in the planning commission they have the more knowledge than I do but they couldn't made any decision and then let us you know I really really feel comfortable so that's the reason uh we need studied more and then how if we have this kind of you know suggestion and this kind of the plan how you can you know work

sorry you know But that's okay. Um, my question goes back to one of the greatest concerns I've had listening but not being able to comment for the last year and a half about the the the community's fears is one is the the the the density and uh the the the what elevates that fear is the apparently the reality that Sacramento has allowed for there to be density bonuses. So, as I look at what has been proposed and I look at if we want to change it to mixed use and we know that there's a an opportunity for a housing component there, I I'm very nervous about the idea of the proposed seven units to 25 because as again, as I understand it, based upon these new draconian laws that if a developer comes in and offers 100% affordable that he can literally double it. So that would take it from the worst case scenario of 25 to 50. So I would not be in a position tonight to even want to consider anything like that. If I'm going to consider anything as far as this designation, I would want to bring that density number down significantly. So that if it was a worst case scenario where it's taken out of our hands, I'm talking about I could probably have a discussion about 10 and then if it could be double to 20. to me I you know again it speaks to our need of housing. The um the other thing that I'm struggling with and I don't know again we we're dealing with land rights versus history but uh Sebastiani the name is synonymous with Sonoma. It's you say Sonoma, you think Sebastiani or you think Valo and I haven't heard about any asurances that we would have that if we were to change this mixed use to Sonoma mixuse that we

would have the ability to um to uh preserve the the tasting room that does have tremendous history and it's something that I think as I speak often about our rich historic fabric. That's a very significant thread that I'd hate to see go away. So, uh, that is a a concern that I have and I guess the question I'm sorry, the question. So, the I'll go back to that. Um, is it possible to lower the densities to something that is much more palatable in my mind and do it with the assurance that it truly is going to offer us uh more security and less vulnerability to what the state wants?

Okay. Um, was that for a long-winded question?

It's fine. I'll break it up. Can we amend this? Yes. Can it can we change it? Yes. Because we we haven't studied. We really this is the editing time. This is why we brought it forward to planning commission as part of the land use element changes. It's why we had the community meeting now that we had the the draft element and those components. So density yes f yes description yes these this is the the land use element section to be determined is the development code and those more specific things but yes this can change um the um so it's open um I would say the historic part of your question um was in regards when we do anything that is sight specific we are going to look at historic I we are doing a citywide historic resource inventory right now. Um it is going to look at every site within our city to determine eligibility. Um that eligibility is based on criteria that's set right. So that will determine eligibility and listing and there's a process for that. Are there exemptions under state law that if something's not listed and you're doing a housing project? Yes, there is. Um, is density bonus an option to housing developments and some specific mixeduse developments of certain percentages? Yes, the 50% comes into play with if you do 15% very low in your housing development project, you can have 50% to density bonus. And then that tracks depending on if you do low, it's a different percentage to get the 50% density bonus. Um, you do get unlimited waiverss and concessions if

those are what changes need to be made in order to financially pay those then the affordable housing aspect of it. Um, I think that grabbed all your you did. So, let me go back then. You said 50%. Am I wrong then? There isn't an opportunity for a very aggressive developer to get a uh to double it. It's 50%. It's not a double. It's not a double. It's 50%. Um there's a 100 There is 100%. What is that one? I don't recall. Yeah, it's like it's like senior or you know student housing or something. It's it's some it's a very obscure.

It's not a market development. So the so another question came uh in my mind is that is there any value in folding in this parcel of land into a historic district or creating a Sebastiani historic district. So that is what is going to be part of that um survey. The citywide survey will look at potential districts within our community not just there potentially with the expansion of the Sebastian district but also um in residential districts or commercial districts. So, we have a lot of commercial districts already identified. So, I don't think we're going to get that. Um, but

but in terms of gaining any assurances that we if we go a particular direction with a a a land use change, uh, we're a year out for that. Correct. And so, right now, if we wanted to have some sort of consideration of what again the the value of protection we would gain from that, we can't state it. is that I mean I can't give you a specific assurance. Again, it's always dependent upon the project itself. Okay.

Um but um if it is a mixeduse development project, we are going to look at it because that exemption though that I'm specifically referencing that's about listing. It's about if you demolish something that is listed, then you can't apply this exemption to a housing project. if we're talking about a mixeduse development project, that's different. And then there's also um AB130 doesn't apply if it has um a hotel associated with it. So each one is very specific to the type.

Okay. And I believe it's the question is also just a verification that because of the rather unusual configuration of these 17 lots, the idea of being more specific with a a more definitive land use uh designation rather than having it all general is right next to impossible is the question because well that may not be fair but remind me what what it would take. So, um, right now what you're looking at is and what we is good practice is that your parcel lines match up with your land use or zoning because those are artificial lines, right? And so when they match up, that is easier to take stepbacks and and identify what the standards are for that area. when you So, what we're looking at on this map in front of you right now, there's two little lots at the top that have a mixed use and then there's the A which has some funky lines and then you look at the other parcels, they are all kind of cut in different ways.

We do not allow anymore for buildings to be placed over lines. Um so you do would with this project if something was to come forward would more than likely require um a complete new map of either merging lots or reubdividing or rem you know doing a lot line adjustments um to create different lots. As you can see there's a the old railroad corridor goes through. So that's a very skinny section. Um, and then also there's looks like a an old road potentially, a paper road that's back behind two of the single family lot parcels. Um, so those come into play when you're saying, "Okay, I'm going to do that lot this use and that lot this use." It it could be done. You just need to identify what that looks like. So if it's the west side and not this lot, those are the types of things. So that allows the ability for them to merge or lot line adjust.

Okay. Thank you. I u will cease some questions at this point and open up an opportunity for discussion here at the dis.

Can I can I say one thing before? Absolutely. Thanks. So remember there's three lots or three three uh land use discussions in front of you. So, I just want to make sure that we when you provide your your thoughts is that if you want to take it one at a time, that's fine. Or if you want to give them all, just be specific about which one you're talking about so I can take notes. Let's do it one at a time. And let's start with the simple ones. Okay. So, what simple one would we like to talk about? Mobile Valley.

Okay. Please. I'm good with subdividing that as the uh owner would like. Now, land use change. Land use change. Thank you. Yeah, he said something. I'm also good with that. I think that's fine. Go ahead. Uh yes, I support because we can see in the more houses. Yeah, I'm also good with that.

Okay. So then the question, sorry. Um, my boss reminded me um the rural residential or the proposed brand new type that u Mr. Cudio presented to you. What which one were you thinking about? That's the question. I was thinking of the type that he presented and I don't know what we would call that. It's fine. You don't need whatever that is like the new let's call it the new the for now the co recommen we can just match we can match the county agricultural residential is what they call it two acres the two acres okay

one per two acres so I I certainly support my fellow uh council members so that's enough direction because we're actually taking motion on it correct correct let us go now. Oh, there doesn't need to be public. So, we've had that. So, uh now let's the other simple one and that's the one on West Napa. Um the community health.

So, any comments? Any thoughts? Oh, can we put that one up, too? The one on um Oh, there it is. Oh my goodness. It's right in front of me. I mean, this seems to me like a reasonable request. I mean, especially since it's we're able to deal with we're lowering the housing element, but they're going to be doing other aspects there. That's going to be community health benefits. So, I would I think that this makes sense to approve this as well. Concur.

Absolutely. Thank Thank them for doing this. This is awesome. Yeah, given the value that the community health uh center provides right now, anything to strengthen that fully support. So, no more new no more easy ones.

Okay, back to the Sebastianic property. So just to make things not more complicated, but you know like if I had my own way, I would get rid of all those parcels and take a look at the whole place and look at how do we have you know housing that provides some mixed housing which would include affordable housing. How do we have maintain open space and how do we protect the uh the Sebastiani building? you know, I mean, if I had my way, that's what I would do because I do think that one of the things that the open space is really important there. Um, it's um it it's another another park um you know, which is on provides a place I mean people walk here all the time, but more open space for people to have go and have activities. You know, there's that one little strip where you can have anyway. So, I would like to see more space. Um, but I would like to see I would like to see housing there. But I the issue I have right now is the timing of this. I would like us to be able to have a zoning proposal so that it could go through an EIR so that we would know the implications not because once we have the EIR then we can mitigate what the issues are. So this is where you know it's kind of like the timing of what happens when becomes a little complicated for me but I you know and if that's a later er uh and that's the developer um I mean the other thing to take into consideration someone does own this land and we can't just go in and tell them what to do with this land right a developer has to come and say make a recommendation we can't go and say well we want you to do this So

we're you know but if so I'm saying if I what kind of zoning would allow that you know that to happen and for us to be able to get do the EIR so we know all the mitigation issues because I do drive over the that bridge on Fourth Street all the time too and I think about that when you drive down Fourth Street you generally in that area if another car is coming towards you you have to find a place to pull over. You can't actually two cars generally, you know, because there's cars parked there. So there's there's elements of you know kind of taking into consideration like what is the appropriate amount of housing that I don't know we have the information to be able to for me like do we just make it not snowman mixed use but mixed use so there's no commercial but it's housing mixed use and then someone can come back and make a proposal that could be another direction that we could go but I don't know can we do that I mean someone owns this land They they of course that wouldn't change till they sold it then if I'm correct. Right. We could reszone.

Yeah. The the the uses that they are currently being used for would be lawful uses that could continue as long as they continue.

Great. Okay. Got it. Well, um along those lines, um uh just a couple just general thoughts about um what the planning commission did and and all of this sort of thing. You know, um it really is it really is up to us. I I hate to say that because it's so such a heavy burden in a lot of ways to make these decisions. And I'm someone who would rather have the ball than kick it off, you know, just that's who I am, right? So, I'm thinking um if if we don't do anything and someone comes in with a project and we absolutely hate it, then we just we're in a big fight over everything. um as opposed to taking for example your thoughts and saying this is what we think would look would be great there and then if they want to build a an art museum where the building is the historic building then they apply for it and we do a you know a general plan amendment whatever it's called based on on that. But if we say nothing, you know, we're gonna it's we're just kicking the can down the road. And I think in a lot of ways we're sherking our responsibility. And I feel very strongly about that. Um we have two things, two policy things that are that weigh heavily on me. One is the urban growth boundary and the other is our goals that we set which was you know housing being number one. I it's hard for me to look at property and then go well you know let's just see

what they come up with when we know we don't have any other property that is going to you know pro provide us possibly with the kind of housing that we need. So I think that we should um you know find a that sweet spot in terms of you know I don't want this you know housing bonus scenario. We've got to work with that. And on the other hand I'd like to keep the parcels that are zoned agricultural agricultural. Um, I don't see anything wrong with keeping them agricultural and working within the rest of the property to uh recommend that there's housing. And then if there is some commercial aspect that the developer decides would go there and would then it's up to us to say no, we don't like that and then we can turn that down. But um It it seems like when are we going to have an opportunity to say there's a place for housing? We'd like to have some housing there, please. And to not say that, I I just have a problem with that because we need housing and we need it desperately. And there it's there's housing in that area. It's not like we're putting housing where there's no housing. There's housing. So, we have to find the right number. I get that. And we don't want it to be um you know, come back to bite us. But also, I don't think just saying nothing is is what we were elected to do and just let somebody else come forward and then be in a constant battle. No, I don't like that. Change

that. You know, put that there. I mean, in the meantime, there's there's people that could be housed. Um, I think that, um, you know, there was commercial business there. Uh, very, you know, when I first moved to Sonoma, it was very busy around that part of town. So, it's not like it's out of the question. I'm not saying I would not want that, but that's the piece they have to come back with. I think the housing we have to say we want, and if they want to add some economic generator there of some kind. Um then then it's up to us to decide if that's appropriate for that area. And I'm not partial to having a hotel in that area. I think there's other things. I would love to see something that um fits with community and provides um some economic incentive to the area that people would like. But I I just can't say nothing. I can't say okay you know whatever let's see what they have to say. I think we should say it's housing and agriculture and come up with the right the right number. And as far as the all of the the issues that have been brought up, all relevant good issues, fire, transportation, all of that, that's what the EIR will tell us, right? Um, and if we But I want an EIR based on what we think we need, right? Not an EI based on what someone else comes up with and then we hate it. Uh, I think we it's better for us to be in control of it than than not. So, I'd like to see agriculture. I'd like to see housing in the area. And I don't, you know, that's my two cents.

Yeah. And when we have difficult time, yeah, we should review our history here. I'd like to share with everyone our fundamental that is 2020 measure W and UGB proved by 79% for for our local residents and because we support more housing more construction and within the city within the BGB boundary and Then for exchange we got approved UGB extended for 20 years. So at that time I was volunteer I was the you know the and for and so citizen approved the UGB. So the I talk with hundreds hundreds of people I said don't worry and housing and if we build up the UGB for another 20 years we still support and housing so right now it's the time I don't mean oh we need to build an owner housing or in the properties in in the Sebastian property I don't mean but we should try each possibilities this is so political compact we agreeing everybody and voted almost 80% we should and you know keep this kind of commitment for ourselves so the yeah I don't think you know all these kind of the planning and including the hotels we not these kind of hotels not a fit for our community however and maybe we have a

more and uh you know owner changing mind oh here I want to build a park or museum or playgrounds so we shouldn't keep the more opportunities more flexibilities and also don't scare other than the people and here we have the more traffic more and you know mass and heat that is my thoughts so our information from on the local city government is very important right now I think it's a little bit of misunderstanding thank you okay so a couple of um just comments I want to make number one I watched the planning commission meetings from from the beginning to the end. And um I thought there was some excellent excellent dialogue that took place. Um unfortunately I I felt that um there were some decisions that could have been made and and they weren't. Um and there was a desire to continue the conversation and and that you know I call kicking the can down the road. Um, I believe in property owner rights. You know, if you own a piece of property, you should be able to develop it within the the the law, whatever the code might be. So, as I looked at this issue and and have studied it now, I see for me there are three different ways to look at this. And one is to continue with the mixed use resoning. Um but clearly there are some problems with

that. Um and um and does the entire area need to be reszoned under mixed use? Um the city council's goals for the three years I've been on the council has been housing number one. I think housing is an appropriate use for this. I understand the density issues um associated with the builder whatever it is remedy

remedy and um and so anything that we you know a builder is going to want density if we want it to be more affordable it's got to be dense um and so I'm not sure that's really what this parcel calls for or parcels um and so So I struggle with that and quite honestly I keep coming back to we're doing a lot of work for a project that doesn't exist and I don't know that I have a problem with keeping this agricultural winery and um letting specific projects come forward and respecting the process of the planning commission to do their job and work with developers on projects so that we can achieve some of our goals. Um and um so I I'm landing on leaving this zoned agriculture and look forward to specific projects moving forward.

Yeah. So, I would say I'm comfortable with the two agricultural plots um or and but I would like to see us look at a portion of this for zoning for housing and us making some decisions around what's the what's the appropriate level of housing that should be there. That's I would that would be make me happy to come out of here is that we're actually moving forward on that. and then the ERR ER would take that into consideration so we can and then we can mitigate that whatever the mitigation needs are. Um, so yeah, I I'm not comfortable with I like the idea. I agree with uh council member Bo of us looking at this and putting in it what we're trying to achieve versus looking at a project that comes to us later down the road and and it'll be the same thing all over again where you know they'll be you know people aren't you know aren't going to want what the project because the the issue we have is we have what we want our ideas of what we want but developers will come and they have to meet financial goals. They have to have a project that works and what we It's not like we say we want this and the developer is going to go out there and bring what we want unless we say we really want to have a certain portion of the zone for housing and so then we can get the EI work on it and then keep the um keep the agricultural. So was this because this hasn't all Okay. So the only one that was the two that were agricultural, keep them agricultural. I would agree with that to doing that. But then can we look at what we can do with what's else is there in regards to a

housing designation, a land use housing designation? Can we bring up those the changes that we have now from the different housing designations we have or create our own housing designation? adjust one of them. Do we want to finish taking comments and figuring out if we're somewhat on the same page first? Yeah, let's let's do that first. Thank you, Jennifer.

Um, don't go away though because unfortunately my comments have a question. Is it reasonable to think that this evening we can look at this designation description and say right now we're uncomfortable with it but based upon comments that we've heard both from the community but probably equally as important from the the council members recognizing that we are goals one is housing and another goal that we cannot put our head in the sand is economic sustainability given our limited ways that we generate money for the general fund. Uh, is there a way that we can modify that description and and and get it to a point where we could at least take it to the EIR level? Again, it's not finalizing, we're not adopting it. We still have an opportunity to change it, but um, so that's the question. Um

so the question the answer to the question is that and like I said earlier that that can be modified I think the question that I've heard from the other comments is just the housing is priority so and what that density is so that's would be part of what that conversation would be if if that's the direction or the consensus that we can discuss finish discussing tonight and then make those modifications in that land use element um description that would then get um studied in the EIR.

Well, certainly the density is an issue that I have that I feel uncomfortable with, but I do support the idea of a housing component. But I also given the history of this parcel, I have no problem with the consideration of an appropriate size hotel, boutique, hotel, whatever you want to call it. I I I don't. But uh here again the way it is kind of laid out and because of of trying to minimize what I would call the manipulation from someone coming in that doesn't particularly care about the best interest of Sonoma coming in and taking advantage of whatever rights that are being generated from Sacramento for developers. So um longwinded question again or a long drawn out question but can I mean is this something that we want to even entertain? I've heard uh leave as is. I've heard keep the two a parcels that I guess are definitive parcels, correct? Those two that have been ID. So those in essence could stay. So then we're talking about the balance and I've heard both the idea of of u making determinations so we have some influence on how it goes rather than waiting. And I've heard the desire to have uh definitely the housing component there. Um, so I'm open to continuing down this line.

So before we go down this line, why don't we get a a a poll on the hotel or no hotel and see if we're just talking about housing and egg or if that's a component of this or economic development, whatever we're looking at that. Oh, absolutely.

Okay. I I hear what everybody is saying and I I appreciate the fact that housing we would love to have housing there. What I have a problem with is for us defining specifically the housing that goes there and the density when a project may not even pencil out for a developer. So why would they even bother? So we're essentially eliminating the opportunity for housing. And so my point is if we have people who have a project, whether it's a hotel, whether it's housing, if they have to come in and look at the zoning and have it reszoned and go through the process of the EIR, all of a sudden, you know, they're making the decision about the project and we're guiding it as a city. Um, I'm sure when they sit down with Jennifer, Jennifer say, "Well, the council's adamant that some housing element needs to be in there." So, you know, somebody could come in with a very high density small project that makes sense. Um, why would we want to limit that by defining specifically the number of housing?

I agree with you. So the right now we just only have the one developer and the interest propose something they the paperwork uh they the suggestions yeah we keep as is and then we are waiting for and more projects they are interested see if they are the fit for needs so I you know that's my design I want to see those kind developer they use the all the units and really help out the local um people. Yes, Mr. Mayor,

if I it just to just um uh riff off of um John's statement that um I I hear what you're saying, but um I think that Jennifer will absolutely relate. you know, they like housing, they want low-inccome housing as part of it, has to be part of our goals, blah blah blah. They may come back and say, "Well, the only way we'll do that is to have a hotel." And so, if we don't want a hotel, um or um that's kind of where I was going with this by saying if we put it all housing and they say, "Well, in order for us, you know, won't Unless we have this, then at least the ball's kind of in their court to come back back with either, you know, we've got to do this much market rate or, you know, something else, then we can have a conversation about it. I just feel like if we leave it too open, they'll say, "Great, we'll do housing and we'll have a hotel and then we'll sort of defeat the whole purpose of of what I think

people were were talking about when they were saying, "Well, let them come back with a project. They're going to come back with a project that is not going to be acceptable." And, you know, I think it would be better to modify the housing part of it than have to have the bitter pill of saying, "Yeah, we'll do it, but we have to have a hotel." So, I was trying to get past that. And um but you know, but with the recognition that they could say, you know, we heard loud and clear, you don't want a hotel there, but we have something else that we could put there that would be economically viable, and you know, take a look at that. I don't know what that is. I I said museum because everyone was talking about art tonight and I was uh I thought museum would be a beautiful thing to be put in that old Sebastiani building but um they may come back with something that is viable for the area and less dense obviously and so that's where I was think I think it's very difficult I think if we do nothing then we just kind of we're going to be back and forth forever and if we do something we're gonna, you know, we're definitely going to piss off somebody, but at least we're going to say what we think should, you know, would be helpful to the community. In which case, in my mind, it's housing. So, that's all. But I I I hear your point, John, and I I don't necessarily disagree with it. I just think that we'll end up back in the same position we're in right now.

Yeah. And I I understand John your uh council member Gurnie your point as well. I mean it it really I mean it definitely we understand that we you know their developers are have their constraints of what they can do and what they're willing to do and we we can't we have to think of putting something out that actually is potentially going to be viable for something for housing in the future. Right? That would be my that would be my goal. So that is it possible like for for us to say let's keep we want to keep a couple parcels agriculture with the hope there end up being kind of open space. That's kind of my hope. They're either like ornamental agriculture but partially open space where people can they can be a part parks or other activities for people to participate in. Is there a way to do that around those? I mean the someone could come and request that but then let's look at the rest of it of like what would be an appropriate because we have a number of different housing designations. What would be an appropriate designation to put out that then we could run through an EI. So is it you know and because I would like I think it would be good to have when I think of mixed use housing because I prefer mixed use than all affordable. I think ities are stronger when you have people living in communities that are of different income levels and that that there would be a necessity to potentially have some areas that would be higher density that you could go two stories so that you're actually not it may not look at the character of what you see but you're actually keeping the open space by going up versus going having single unit houses uh covering space. Um, I want to

see as much open space in there for trees and walkways and bikeways as as possible. So, if we looked at the land use designations that might help anyway, that's what I asked before. So, we're back to you want us to get to a point that we agree. So, right, I appreciate this. What my concern is and and I'm not married to this aspirational uh uh concept that was thrown out that basically gener has generated this past year and a half worth of dialogue that suggests that that was a supposedly some sort of viable mix from a developer standpoint

and it did provide I can't tell you how much housing and I can't tell you exactly the density because I didn't spend that much time looking at it because I was looking But my point is that I uh if we make this all housing, you know, that's fine. May or may not ever happen. We happen to have a an owner that particularly is not into housing. Not to say that he couldn't sell it to somebody that wanted to do all housing, but uh I am right now in a position where my thought is I would I would feel at least more comfortable going through an exercise of changing this designation to a description that captures a multitude of things. open space, agriculture, some sort of uh of commercial whether you know I would rather have a hotel because at least imagery wise we kind of know what that might be rather than broadening it to open-ended quote commercial let alone and then again we have the housing component. So that's, you know, and I what I'm and I don't know, I haven't got an answer from staff whether or not we can tweak it down such as the densities can bring it down to something that is a little bit more palatable. Would that be enough housing if we change it? I do support the idea of having a variety of housing. I I I think that to me makes a rich setting. It makes a a much greater community than to go with all one style. That's where I would think a good developer would look at this and say, "Well, I want so many uh uh houses of this type, town houses, duplexes, forplexes, whatever. A threetory. We know they can go up, I believe right now, to threetory." So, we need to keep that in mind with the dialogue that we could be talking about a threetory housing complex of some sort

or 36 feet or whatever our height limitation is. But, um, again, I'm that's what I kind of was going was that if if we gave a a new definition of the Sonoma mixed use where it it it it minimized some of the concerns the a the EIR is written on that and that still doesn't obligate us to accept it that just it just says if it was to go in this direction this is the the potential impact that would either have to be mitigated or would not

uh be elevated up to a point where require that at least we would know. But again, this is a dialogue, not a dictatorship.

So, and and I will say the only thing I would say about the project or whatever I I see that that's an idea. It's I don't really I've never seen it as like really a development project that someone's presented to us. It's just it's an ideal,

right? So there's there is nothing that says this is possible. Okay. I know you couldn't help yourself. Yeah, it's okay. When it's when it's after 9:00, things happen. So I know

Yeah, I hear all I was going to say I I I don't hear a consensus here. I hear I hear a a lot of pieces that people agree on. Um but I think as far as the way to go, there's there's the don't do anything. Let's let's see what they come up with and then we push back on that versus let's tell them what we want and see if they if that works for, you know. So I think we're, you know, we've got people that are on the dis who are okay with hotels, people are uncomfortable with them. We've got open space, we've got agric, we're we're kind of all over the board a little bit, which is interesting, but not very helpful for you, Jennifer, or any but I don't know. I'm trying to cobble it together and see if there's a a next step that works. Um, but I mean, you've certainly heard from all of us. Is it possible for a cobbling of this to get like something brought back to us again that that so we're not because I don't think we want to word smith this tonight.

We have general plans schedu but I think that that but I think that what we're trying to do tonight is not just kick the can down the road and say leave it as it is. I think we're all are we all in agreement with that? Almost all. Yeah, I believe we had two two of you wanted agon housing. Two I had heard were okay with leaving as is and the mayor was interested in word smithing this mixed commercial

or at least coming up with whatever tweaks would allow us to go forward with the next step without any obligation that we have to you know accept it or approve it. there's still the opportunity to request change and and I'm open to addressing housing. I mean, I've said that, but I don't think the way to do it is by defining it in the general plan, but having projects come to us. However, if the majority of the council wants some housing piece in there, um, depending what that looks like,

it's and it's worth remembering that the reason why Jennifer is here asking for direction is because we are trying to help our consultant focus on what they're going to be evaluating in the EIR. And so once that draft e comes back at that point you're still going to have the opportunity to to to make some changes. She's talked about how that can add time but um obviously it's going to involve more time if you go from doing nothing to wanting to now analyze housing at a density of you know you know 15 residential units per acre. that that's going to cause more significant uh a more significant time crunch um for the for the consultant as opposed to the other way around which is I think with um the city manager. So that's just something to think about when you guys are trying

what is the other way around where you say no why don't you analyze the all of these impacts now in the EIR and then later if you decide wow those impacts are are immense and that's that's not really the way we want to go. Um let's decide not to move forward with the uh with the proposed new land use for the final general plan. And so now consultant go back and revise it essentially kind of down zoning essentially back to what it

and I would be comfortable with that if indeed we change that density. I don't want an evaluation of 25 give the potential for a bonus. So I would at least feel comfort that was modified to 7 to 15 max and then have an opportunity to see what does that end up looking like in terms of from an EI standpoint. Yes,

just for clarification. So essentially what you're suggesting in the first comment that that you made um by going with the mixed use is that you're you're taking the worst case scenario and evaluating that and then you can always back off that. Correct. Thank you. And I think there's a happy there's there's a step below that which is if there's consensus that you don't want to go to the worst case scenario regardless you can come up with something that you think would be kind of the further end just to evaluate so you have that information and go through the so Jennifer does need some direction so we can get the moving and so I'm just going to reiterate what I'm hearing as well is the no change I've heard that there's housing only um it could be similar to to densities in that neighborhood you can apply that across cost and just see what that impact is um with the eggs parcels remaining. Um and then I heard a slight modification of this to say let's evaluate housing at some density could be medium it could be whatever in that which is around there plus a hotel and open exit

or or whatever it was it's mixed commercial I mean whatever that means it it's more than u other visitor serving uses.

Sure. So yeah, and I think that if there's I don't know if there's a way to kind of walk through each of those and see if there's any consensus on either of those options that would give Jennifer enough information to at least move forward and evaluate what those potential impacts are. And as David just mentioned and Jennifer mentioned, this is going to come back. This is not a final decision. Come back, see what those impacts are, and then you can evaluate, do you want to do that or pull back at that point? I um as there's two things with the housing. One is yes, you know, the same in the area, but I would look at like um the the street that's the closest street. I always las Citus. Yeah.

Um you know, so I would want to look at like what would that look like? um because that's the closest street and that that's a beautiful street um um would be good. But then I also like um what the mayor said about having different areas, you know, on the on the property which, you know, makes it doesn't look all the same. You know, that's kind of the beauty of Soma. It's like you you know, I always talk about in in my neighborhood Curtain Lane. And I love that street because there's everything on that street. There's apartments, there's single family homes, there's flag lots, there's everything. And it's got lots of trees and it's just a a great neighborhood. Um, so I I I like that as well. So I don't I'm not married to like it's all got to look like Lacita court because I don't think you want me si, you know. Um, but so I would be okay with different levels, but very mindful of everybody's concern about this density bonus, whatever. I mean, somehow we got to get to the bottom of that because I've heard all different things tonight about that. And I don't want to be scared about something I shouldn't be scared about. I'm scared about enough already. So, I So, I'd really like to get to the bottom of of that. and if there is a way to inoculate ourselves against it in any way, you know, whether it's an overlay of some kind or something like that. So, I think everybody has said we don't want that. So, uh, if we do want to do the way that was just suggested by the city manager, then we could pick it apart and go across as long as to start everybody's in

agreement for the most part or majority to analyze something on this site. Yes.

Okay. One other just comment that I want to share is is that right now good, bad or indifferent, it has historically been the Sebastian Winery has been a destination. There's people going back and forth and I don't want to dilute the need for housing. But if it comes be just straight housing, I don't see that other than the residents that live in the house that was necessarily uh going to be a destination. and and not saying that that's a mandate, but that's that energizes that part of town to some degree. You see people uh moving up and down East Spain Street, and so that's where I think there's still viability or worthy consideration to have something other than just housing.

I I totally agree. Yeah. So the I always thinking about you know on a big project and the UGB then 15 years later we need to uh renew made another extension at that time and I wonder and you know volunteer will tell the people hey you said you want to support within city's housing what do you do so we should do something and protect UGB

okay so can I break it apart. All right. So, the first one is obviously going to be around the agriculture. We have two agricultural lots. One that actually is conly being used as a vineyard. Another one is um I would say 34 or third is dirt and then another third of it is that green space. Um and that's the one to the right. Is that the first two/3s was what? It's it's basically dirt. dirt. Okay. Yeah. Well, the park is in the along,

but that is not that is across multiple parcels. It's not just contained into an agricultural lot. So, I'm just putting that out there. So, agriculture, I definitely heard at least two. Yes. Let's keep agriculture. Agriculture. So, agriculture. Agriculture. Well, I'm I'm I'm good with the idea of keeping agriculture, but once again, we're we're we're chopping it up into saying this needs to never change. I'm thinking that we can still have the agricultural look. We can still save the vineyards that are along the on the path pathway, but if you need to do something different than dirt and it and something requires to be used in a different I I wish there was a way that we could in in the description, you know, maintain some element of open space, but whether that's something that can be develop in the development code that can give us that, I don't know. But I I'm not overly excited about just uh you and Larry just identifying these spaces. I value the vineyard. I value the walkway. I mean the the trail, but I'm not sure the necessity of of keeping dirt dirt.

That's the other lot. So, we have one lot that's a vineyard. So, I'm hearing definitely that one. So, I've now heard a third of that one. Okay. Next. Agriculture. Do you want to keep it agriculture or do you want to look at its potential for development? Really? It's fine. Yeah, it's hard. Patricia, sorry. So, I wanted to be egg slash open space on that one. That's a a downgrade of use. So, we would Oh, we' keep the agriculture.

Okay. So, someone could though do something else there that would use. So the agriculture is it um if you start saying okay it's going to be a park or something like that you're taking away a use potential. So agriculture has a set of uses that we want to maintain or but someone I understand that but someone could say we're going to develop this and we're going to take this a space and it's going to be and we're going to make it a park. Yep. Okay. So that's totally correct. So then what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fine. I'm I'm good with that. So, I'm good there. You're you're good with changing that.

I think they should both stay agriculture. Okay. And if then someone wants to do that, then they can reszone it. Okay. Oh, I heard majority. Yeah.

Okay. Um and then we have two different uses. we have wine production and mixed use. Um and those are those areas that we were looking at um then comes into this play. So the first question everybody sounded consensus on housing. So we can start there and then we'll throw in the commercial after. Okay. So housing this is the neighboring development. So Lasitas is around 12 units. It depends on what you look at, but that is taking into consideration all the duplexes and the quads as one grouping. So that's what that looks like. Um, and I'm go back to here. This is where we proposed.

So medium density residential is 7 to 15 um is what's being proposed. And that sounds kind of like in line with what you all were discussing. They're your comments. Is that consensus? Shaking heads. Yeah. If we're gonna study something. Okay. All right. So, I heard 715. I heard keep a a um and then um so description.

Can we just do one other easy thing? Can we do one other? Yeah, I have another I think it's an easy question is in regards to the Sebastiani uh testing room the building that what we're you know I mean my hope is that stays there right but then I know I knew I was going to make it difficult for you. I thought it was an easy one, but you know, I can't tell somebody what to do,

right? But when the EIR comes back, historical review, that'll be report determines whether or not something is historic or not. There's a different there's triggers for other things. So, we have a demolition permit requirement. If something is going to demolish something that's determined eligible or is listed on our historic resources list, we have a dem permit requirement that's discretionary. Um, so there are triggers that come into play with discretionary projects if something is determined to be historic. I'm not saying there's not things there that are, it's just we don't have that document in hand and I can't say that building has to stay. I thought you'd tell me that uh right now it's that a lot of the issues is purely age at 55 years or 45 years and we know that building's more than 45 years.

You know that I did not say age. Well, historically I remember on other projects that all of a sudden something's fast approaching this, oh we're going to have to do an H. So we do an HRE based on age to determine eligibility. The eligibility is determined based on whether it's the architecture or somebody important to our history lived there. And then the key aspect of that is does it have integrity? Does it still look and represent that architectural style? Does it look like that p when that person lived there? Okay. So it triggers it triggers the HRE but the HR it's not a guarantee that it's got historic significance. Exactly. Okay.

Majority of the ones that we do right now are not historic. They're not finding historic resources. FYI. All right. So, I heard um different things around the commercial. So, I'm just going to keep it general in the sense of commercial. Yay or nay and then we can get into unless you want to get into the specifics of commercial. Commercial if X you can state as well. Commercial. No commercial. I like the I like the the description right now. hotel visiting serving uses such as tasting rooms, retail or restaurants seems pretty innocuous at this point for this EI review. That would be my recommendation.

Can you see again? I couldn't follow. It's right here. Okay. Just maintain evaluation

which means So when I'm talking about commercial, thank you for reminding me. We're talking about future commercial potential um it is described in here that we would maintain the wine production uses and its use as wine related agriculture. So all the things that currently exist, we would maintain that um as part of this. That way we're not creating nonconformities on a large parcel. we can continue its use and potential expansion through use permits etc. if that is what is desired. If somebody wants to come forward with something new, that's what we're really asking a question. Um through the mayor, if I may. Absolutely.

Um

the only thing I have a you know, I think it's fine. We should do the EIR on it. I, you know, at some point we're going to say yay or nay to if it comes back a hotel. I'm not going to be happy with that. But if you, you know, for the sake of this this description and it's in there, one thing I I do have problem with though is that the phrase and other visitor serving uses. I think it should this there could be something there that is for local people, not necessarily for visitor serving uses. And um and in fact the things that uh the places that the local people use in addition to our visitors um are are the things that do well, you know. Um so we want something for the community and and so I think it has to have it has to have some something for the local community as well, not just for vis. Can you get that phrase in there? Um, well, if if there's a Okay, I won't say museum again. I know you guys are sick of that. Um, if there's a a coffee shop.

So, that's So, by the term visitor serving, I don't necessarily mean tourist serving. I just mean like retail, restaurants, those types of where you But you don't have to be a visitor to to to go to those things. It's just that it implies that that The only thing that we're looking at is something that's going to be related to tourism. I think it means like visiting as opposed to office, right? Which is nobody, you know, you don't usually you go to the office to work, but it's not like you're inviting the public to come partake of your coffee or I just Okay. I I said what

I could say commercial uses such as those things. Commercial. Yeah, that's good. or visitor center. Oh, no. Visitor center community.

Next. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I heard you. Okay. Council member De. And yeah, and you'll change the density number. the density will change to the seven to the 15 and then once I finish getting through I'm going to ask you an F question. 7 to 15. That's good. Well, this is this is the one I have the most problem with because I definitely don't want to see a hotel. And I do think that

there could, you know, I I that I like the idea of there being the opportunity for some commercial like a coffee shop or, you know, or a museum or, you know, like the building that is being used for wine production or was wine production. Could someone come in there and be utilizing that for this is where it goes against the visitor survey? I think is could that building continue be used for some other kind of economic production you know so that's where but the you know the idea that it's I think this is this is the problem this is so broad and I realize what that means it gives us a good sense on the EIR but I just have a difficulty but if people want to go with that I can be not happy with that part

oh we still have the chance to change It's not I mean this is just kind of like a baseline evaluation and we can contate and discuss and think about it. You know you may be right there maybe a a better way to fill that commercial component and um and what I'm looking for is something that is is you know even though I want it to be successful but is within the character of Soma of the type of commercial things that work within those type of developments. So what I'm I'm hearing these things too and so remember also we can study this in the EIR but I'm also working with the planning commission ad hoc to I would do the development standards which also includes your land use table which was one of those exercises at that January to kind of narrow down what those actual actual uses are because general plans again are general in the sense of commercial is like this and then the whole long list is done with the development.

Yeah. So if that comes because we know it's not going to be a McDonald's, there's not going to be a strip mall in there. We'll have to put that in the code. That is not going to happen, right? But there can be some services that are there for people that are not it's not an office space. Although the one thing that I had difficulty with is with people that didn't want work live spaces because I think work live spaces actually could be very beneficial to a community as long as like someone's not building it. They're now just they're just called live spaces. Live spaces now. That's right. That you work for. Sorry. All right. So that's right. Okay.

So as long as the other one is becomes like when we're looking at the character of what type of businesses that we're Yes. And then again like we talked about if hotel hotel versus a big hotel and we do have those differences in definitions of B&B versus a hotel. Yeah, they're different definition and just I'm stating for me I would prefer there not being a hotel but you know we we got Yeah, I understand that. And then at the end of the day be considered and not excluded at this point. Right. Right. Don't

I'll be sure to bring that back at that next conversation once they we release that draft document. come for adoption because I don't All right, last question. F I uh we looked at kind of a higher than what we've seen in town. I'm hearing keep it lower, have more open space. So I just want to make sure I'm understanding that. So F, this is the example again. So a 0.5 you're you're basically doing a quarter of whatever that lot is right as a development and that takes in and this would only be for the commercial correct component. No res. So we're only talking commercial.

It's talking about the commercial. But with with your desire for open space so this is I know I'm not I just I'm showing you hotel because I know you all can fit into these places. So you know what that looks like. Um because I don't have an actual shopping center for you or little commercial centers. Um so that's what 0.25 Miss MacArthur Place and 04 is um is the lodge. So does it have to be definitive or can it be a range like?

Yeah, it's a range typically. So that one's a little bit on the higher end that was proposed. um if the if it's to bring it down and have open space but to keep it lower because we do have height restrictions too. So that also plays into the box. Um but how much of the lot do you want to be able to fill? It seems like 50% again it gets back down to how well it's designed.5 would be not too constraining and yet would not be too suffocating. And I think that a good design team would create.

So I think our our norm around commercial is to um about 75 um maybe even one in commercial gateway. Um so just letting you know that's what our typical F is if we want to match or be less. So I'm I've heard a little bit on the less side five. Okay. Sounds good. I think I have all my answers. Did I miss anything? Anybody gonna catch me? All right. So, what's going to happen is I'm going to take those and I am going to redline this for part of um and get it all put together along with planning commission's additional um comments on the whole land use element as well. and then we'll give that back to the consultant and then you'll hear from me again when we release it.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. And I'm very happy now to turn over to our city clerk for item 9.2, please. We do need a vote in order to proceed since it's after 9:00. Oh, to continue. Yes. Do we have one other short item that will be handled in a flash compared to I move we continue with the short item that'll be handled in a flash? I second. All in favor? I Yes. Yes. Oh, already open. Already closed.

Well, wait a second. I want to finish. We're going to we're finish the regular items and we have another second phase of the public. Well, I'm having a difficult a little bit because we we we didn't have 10 um speakers. No, the count the count was as I was saying it was complete. We did nine. There was nine. There was nine, right? And these were items on not appearing on the agenda. So, I think that opportunity to express it was there. That's correct. This was additional commentary regarding what we just spent the last two hours on. I'm not interested. So, I'd like to

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I'll make this very brief. The item before you tonight is the um with the resignation of Commissioner Donna Donach on the Sonoma Valley Community Advisory Commission. Um we've had a request from the alternate Adam Ross to be moved into that position. Um and this is the position that we're looking at. We've had no other applications um for serving on the um commission. So before you tonight is the um decision whether to go back out do more intensive advertising. We still will have an alternate spot. We have an emeritus spot. Um or go ahead and move Adam Ross into the full position and then search for the alternate.

I move that we move Adam Ross into the permanent position and go out for alternate. Second. Oh no. Is there a second? Second. Second. I'm sorry. And my only and my only discussion point is that when I was there at the C SVCAC and saw him. I was overall pleased with his level of participation as the alternate that day because they were short. So I think this was a good decision. All right. Public comment. Seeing none, uh let's just All in favor I opposed. Welcome. Thank you,

Mr. Ross. So if there's nothing else uh I would love to adjourn this meeting.