Connecting the Dots ~ Fred Allebach

Fred Allebach Fred Allebach is a member of the City of Sonoma’s Community Services and Environmental Commission, and an Advisory Committee member of the Sonoma Valley Groundwater Sustainability Agency. Fred is a member of Sonoma Overlook Trail Stewards, as well as Sonoma Valley Housing Group and Transition Sonoma Valley.

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The persistent parking problem at Sonoma’s Best

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Fred Allebach

This piece is intended to sum up the last three years of a pet NIMBY project of mine.

buena-vista-station
1921 photo looking south on 8th Street East from Napa Street, former Buena Vista Station on left

Three years ago, in 9/13, I brought an unsafe traffic and parking situation to the attention of the county. Local residents might be familiar with the intersection in question: 8th Street East and Napa Street. In fact, whenever I mention this to anyone, they agree, yes, that intersection is a problem. As said one high ranking county employee: “Fred is not overstating the impact on 8th Street East and East Napa St. It really is very difficult to navigate, especially on a weekend.”

The cause of the problem is increased commercial traffic and a concomitant increased parking demand at Sonoma’s Best. The business has a permit from PRMD for 13 commercial parking spots and eight residential parking spots. Of the permitted commercial parking, three spaces are on-street in front of the store, and the rest are on-property to the west. The residential parking is out back by the rental units.

I guess the commercial/ employee parking is not enough, or their own parking lot is too inconvenient to access, as the whole intersection, on all sides, is frequently parked with Sonoma’s Best cars even if the on-site lot has open spaces. Two Sonoma’s Best employee cars routinely park off-property, in the worst part of the intersection for traffic visibility, in spite of the new owner being made aware of line of sight issues.

From what I understand, a use permit re: parking is supposed to allow for all the parking to be taken care of on-site. The city is pretty strict about a business being able to account for its parking needs.  In the case of Sonoma’s Best, overflow parking on the public right of way seems to be assumed by county Transportation as normal and acceptable. This business has been there a long time, originally as Von Sydow’s, see picture below.

von-sydows-copy
Former Von Sydow’s, now Sonoma’s Best

Initially I found that no agency seems to be responsible for public safety parking issues here. CA Highway Patrol, No; PRMD, No; County Parks, No; County Planning, No; Union Pacific Railroad Company, No; Transportation and Public Works? Maybe.

Sonoma County Building and Safety told me that traffic overflow is a CA Highway Patrol issue. CHP told me no, it is county. I told CHP; I told Building and Safety; I told them all, and at this point I can only conclude that these entities feel it is safe to pull half way out into the oncoming lane, for three years, to get a line of sight to make a turn. See picture below of car having to break the intersection half way into the traffic lane to see around parked cars.

8th-east-car
The corner of 8th Street East and Napa Street, where parked cars obstruct the view of drivers

In the absence of any clear guidelines or enforcement, Sonoma’s Best parking has taken over the whole intersection. This is a territorial grab, making facts on the ground; the longer they do it, the more it gets entrenched.

Two months after my initial complaint I was steered to the correct department. From 11/2013: “Dear Mr. Allebach, Thank you for writing our department in regards to the overflow of parking at Sonoma’s Best. Your concern has been forwarded on to the appropriate person. We will have someone go out and observe the situation and they will be in contact with you. Please note that it may take up to one week to hear from someone since it is an intermittent parking matter. Thank you. – County of Sonoma, Transportation and Public Works”

So here we are three years later and nothing has been done. There has been some turnover at Transportation and Public Works, but three years? Can a NIMBY get some respect?!

Let me enumerate the problems. The worst is that cars arriving northbound on 8th Street East, to turn left (west) onto Napa Street can’t get a line of sight past the cars and delivery trucks parked on the eastbound siding of Napa Street in front of the County Parks parking lot. Cars from 8th Street East heading west on Napa Street have to pull half way out into the oncoming lane to see past these parked cars. This is not normal; this is dangerous.

Then there is illegal wrong-way parking in front of Sonoma’s Best, vehicles doing U-turns right in the intersection, cars parked on 8th East southbound in a blind spot for cars making the turn south, and line of sight issues from parking on the siding on the southeast corner of the intersection. Cars also park on the railroad siding farther south on 8th Street East and block access to the residence there.

With all the tourist advertising, and an east side, luxury home remodel boom, 8th Street East has become a major entry point to Sonoma, with a dearth of vehicles: cars, buses, vans, limos, and all manner of trucks. This is the same exact scenario suffered by many in rural Sonoma County now. A no-limits tourism bonanza has quickly outstripped the capacity of rural roads, and county government’s ability to respond. Now, Sonoma’s Best is basically one more tasting room and endless event that is happy to, and intends to, ramp up its use. And like other wine-tourism related traffic problems, the traffic and parking are a nuisance. This can’t possibly be how a busy intersection gets managed.

An agenda item was in front of the Board of Supervisors in the Spring of 2014, to put in a No Parking sign to address the worst line of sight problem, in front of the new County Parks dedicated bike path parking lot. The item got pulled. In the Spring of 2016 I got an explanation why from Transportation: “The item was pulled from the Board agenda in order to allow additional coordination between the Parks Department and Public Works. The person coordinating here at PW left a few months later for another job opportunity. I don’t think the coordination was reassigned. PW is in contact with Supervisor Gorin’s staff to determine how we move this forward. In part, it is contingent on the availability of the parking lot (emphasis mine), so we need to reopen the discussion with Park’s staff.”

I guess a clearly needed, and almost approved No Parking sign can easily fall off the bureaucratic radar. They were ready to do it! But, the county is a big place with lots of issues. Ni modo, stuff happens. Yet it is not unreasonable to feel the worst of this traffic safety problem could have been fixed a long time ago. We do see from the above communication, however, that the County Parks public parking lot appears to be slated for private, commercial use, and/or that matter is under some negotiation. From a Sonoma’s Best perspective, to be able to use a brand new empty lot in the exact right location, would be understandable.

At one point, under the previous ownership (sponsorship?), there was even a citizen effort for Parks to open the lot for Sonoma’s Best use. That did not fly.

From what I understand, Ken Mattson, Sonoma’s Best new owner, who loves to ride bikes and run, is determined to have an active part in completing the bike path section from 7th Street East to Napa Street. The bike path will be a good thing. In perhaps a quid pro quo for Ken’s good works, the County Parks lot would be opened, as the bike path would be functional and connected from Maxwell Park to the new parking lot area at 8th East and Napa Street.

If Sonoma’s Best patrons could use the County Parks lot, that would take pressure off the on-street intersection parking. Will County Parks allow commercial use of a public access, dedicated-for-recreation parking lot? If not, how would no commercial parking be enforced? If the bike path is completed and the lot opened, presumably at that time the county will put crosswalks, full stop signs, and No Parking signage on the sidings. Then the on-street parking, line of sight and pedestrian safety issues will be resolved. Maybe Transportation and County Parks are trying to save money and do everything at once. As Supervisor Gorin said, the county is taking a “holistic approach” to this intersection, which is understandable.

The upshot is that the public has had to bear the nuisance and safety hazard cost of Sonoma’s Best’s inability to park its patrons on its own property for years.

The realpolitik explanation as I see it, is that a No Parking sign now, would interfere with Sonoma’s Best traffic flow and profits.  While we wait for a holistic solution, business interests trump public safety. If my realpolitik thesis is wrong, why not put in a No Parking sign ASAP? What are we waiting for? C’mon.

One cost of the increased traffic and commercial activity is the loss of rural character. NIMBYs always cry about loss of character and I might as well chime in too. Full stop signs and crosswalks makes this area into town, not country. But heck, when the four McMansions go in across the street, on the former lot of Ernst Rufus, a Vallejo era German immigrant who at one time owned two thirds of the Sonoma Coast, and managed John Sutter’s Indian brigade in Sacramento, well, who will care about rural character anyway? Rural character will have become a rural commodity. See character shot of Ernst Rufus’s dog below.

ernst-rufus-dog
Photo captioned: The dog of Ernst Rufus, the pioneer who trained Gen. Sutter’s soldiers

A previous Sun article about “commercial creep” on East Spain Street adjacent to downtown captures how this type of situation unfolds, business pushes boundaries, and what is at first a nuisance for the older zoned uses then gets altered by attrition and then incrementally rezoned and accepted as normal. Commercial creep at the county level is also illustrated by Larry Davis’ history of the Maxwell Park bridge alignment. https://maxwellparksonoma.wordpress.com/2015/06/12/subjugation-of-ruths-protest/

The east side here used to be a lot of immigrant mixed ag and orchards, and residential; now it’s industrial, boutique wine and luxury homes with electronic gates. Things done changed; residents in the arc of time get swamped by one change after another. I guess they call that evolution. Below, Schuhmann Hotel with railroad in 1960s, lots of character.

schuhmann-hotel
Schuhmann Hotel on 8th Street East in the 1960s…railroad tracks visible at the property frontage

Sonoma’s Best does have a legal non-conforming use in a mixed use area, yet in my opinion, they don’t have a right to use all sorts of public space on a busy intersection as their defacto private parking. If we are talking rights and preferences, the public has a right to safe thoroughfares, to not get T-boned just for going downtown.

It seems the way evolution of land use works is that business pushes the edge, and breaks rules, the lumbering giant of government allows it, and gradually, the new edge becomes normal. Recall the fly fishing guy. Then if residents push back, business cries, “we can’t make a profit.” Hence my realpolitik thesis: profit is more highly valued than residential tranquility or safety.

That the county has allowed this traffic dysfunction for so long is similar and analogous to other wine tourism traffic takeovers of Valley rural spaces: Kenwood, Glen Ellen, up and down Hwy 12 etc. I don’t see this as intentional malfeasance by the county; we have just been overrun by a tide of rampant hospitality. Trigger warning: mixed metaphors ahead. The wine-hospitality-tourism tide is created by the gravity of amorphous business forces, driven by a hidden but pervasive dark energy of money. This is not easily managed or controlled by a diffuse, lumbering and multi-tentacled bureaucratic entity. It is taking some time to develop the gumption and wherewithal for the public and government to push back against this tide. What at first unquestioningly seemed pure benefit, is now revealed to have multiple negative costs, one of which just happens to be out-of-control traffic and parking, in my back yard.

Where do things stand now? As of 3/16, Supervisor Gorin met with the new deputy director of Transportation and “requested he revive this issue and find resolution ASAP.” Supervisor Gorin’s staff Jennifer Gray Thompson and Pat Gilardi have been very responsive and helpful. Jennifer even gave me a great academic book on Bureaucracy to help me understand how the county works. Now I know why it is so hard to put one sign in! Kudos to Jennifer for engaging me at a high level. And that’s the update, we’re waiting to see if a No Parking sign, to reduce a known safety hazard, can get put up ASAP as of six months ago.

PS

Questions for the future of this current semi-rural intersection: is Sonoma’s Best in or out of the vacation rental overlay area and will adjacent Mattson-owned property generate more traffic from vacation rentals? When the UGB comes up in 2020, it may be in Sonoma’s Best’s interests to lobby to extend the sphere and boundary to 8th Street East, and get on city water and sewer. Maybe then the quaint former Von Sydow’s store and cottage complex morphs into a restaurant and a hotel? Maybe the vineyard at the end of Napa Street gets its tasting room. One thing is for sure, if no neighbors push back, business will fill the void.

Photo credit: Buena Vista Station, Ernst Rufus’s dog and Schuhmann hotel photos from Bob Parmelee collection. Von Sydow’s photo from Sonoma Valley Historical Society.

 

 



4 thoughts on “The persistent parking problem at Sonoma’s Best

  1. This has been a problem for a long time. I can’t understand why this unsafe situation can’t be taken care of!

  2. Despite what you said about stop signs, wouldn’t a stop sign on Napa St.resolve the issue? I mean there isn’t THAT much traffic ALL the time.

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