Making up the rules
People have a love-hate relationship with rules; they love them when they apply to others, but hate them when they apply to themselves. Rules, however, are essential. Every functioning society, no matter how simple or sophisticated, has rules.
Rules become laws and regulations when important matters of freedom, individual or property rights, and social interaction are at stake. Our modern framework of jurisprudence, though inordinately complicated, is intended to promote the orderly functioning of society. Orderly functioning is not equal to justice, however, and the push-pull of legislation and related regulation is society’s way of responding to constant changes in the world.
Here in Sonoma, we have laws and regulations commonly found across America but we also have our own, which pertain, for example, to how land can be used. Though property rights in general are well established, the particular uses to which property in Sonoma can be put are governed by the City’s General Plan, its Development Code and zoning regulations. These documents comprise our own set of rules established over time by our locally elected government.
The General Plan takes the long view, a 20-year vision for the community identifying specific goals and policies to support them, as well as implementation measures to bring the goals to fruition. Together with the shorter-term Development Code, the General Plan establishes the legal framework upon which Planning Commission and City Council land use and permitting decisions are based. Court challenges to land use decisions often turn on whether the city’s regulatory decisions are in conformance with its own set of rules.
Our concern is that lately the City allows too many property owners, from single-residence homeowners to huge corporate commercial interests, to ignore our rules.
Illegal use of property for vacation rentals, for example, is one way in which some homeowners are thumbing their noses at rules specifically designed to protect the character of our residential neighborhoods. Despite unambiguous language prohibiting the commercial use of residentially-zoned property, some property owners (many of whom don’t live here) are conspiring with Airbnb to break the law. At the other end of the spectrum, the $7-billion Williams-Sonoma Corporation decided to ignore the provisions of its use permit and make up its own rules about how to use their commercial property on Broadway. Recent approvals by the Planning Commission to allow large events and valet parking at Williams-Sonoma risks establishing unsettling new precedents.
The problem is Sonoma city government’s inability – or deliberate refusal — to follow and enforce its own rules which are, after all, our rules. Enforcement of and compliance with land use decisions should not be a matter of deciding who is “liked” and who is “not” or who wields influence and who does not, but whether land use permits are granted in accordance with the rules. These rules do not change depending upon the applicant, at least they shouldn’t. If they do, the city risks losing in court on expensive legal challenges to its land use and permitting decisions.
The city, including its commissions and Council itself, must be rigorously even-handed in following and enforcing its rules. This matter of enforcement, or rather the lack thereof, has become so serious that we will focus on it in a subsequent editorial.
— The Sun Editorial Board
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Those who voted to allow William Sonoma Corporation are teaching future generations of Sonoma that is just fine and acceptable to lie, cheat and even steal to get what you want. To quote Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, “greed is good”, and in Wall Street ,Money Never Sleeps, ” greed is not only good, apparently it’s legal”.
It’s hard to imagine that Chuck Williams slpet here at the new “not charming” store.