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.
What flavor Kool-Aid for you?
Each building development project in Sonoma is like a chess game of for and against. Higher density and infill are part of good urban planning or they can be points of contention. Higher density can be good for affordable housing or downtowns, but bad for neighbors, residents or market rate housing.
As a general principle, a City of Sonoma build-out to 2050 of @500 units should be proportional to housing needs of the valley population. The city’s demographic should be representative of the regional population. Planners should keep an eye on how much market rate, and how much luxury housing, so it does not take up all the space and leave none for affordable housing, and Sonoma become too stilted demographically.
Actual Public Good vs. Trickle Down Kool Aid. When the First Street East (FSE) hotel project, and Satellite Affordable Housing Associates (SAHA) affordable housing project came on the scene simultaneously, the same general sets of issues were raised by neighbors and opponents. I was faced with a paradox. How on one hand could I support SAHA and be against FSE? I appeared to be making a two-faced argument, being for higher density on one hand and against it on the other.
As time went by, I came to see the critical difference. Do you want higher density of rich people or regular people? More tourists or more locals? A more representative demographic? Given that Sonoma already has enough rich people and tourists, SAHA addresses known residential and social equity needs. And, developers like SAHA are the only ones who can build actual, Area Median Income-based (AMI) affordable housing. FSE would bring even more rich people. SAHA is non-profit, purely for public good; FSE is mostly for private gain and as large investor returns as possible, all the while trying to spin this as a tax generating public good that funds police and fire. Both projects bring benefits, one measured by an inclusive community and diverse quality of life, the other measured in exclusivity and money.
At the end of the day it gets down to what kind of community we want? Do we endeavor to keep a diverse demographic in town, or one that allows Sonoma to keep tipping towards being an elite haven like Tiburon or Carmel? Whose interests are at stake in these different formulations of values? This is what the fight is about for many high-end projects. A fight to keep the density of rich people from getting any higher. A fight for affordability of all consumable products. A struggle to have the town be live-able for workforce citizens.
Plugging socio-economic diversity is the conscious creation of a just society. Projects that tip the socio-economic playing field more and more to the high end should be limited.
Market rate housing (substantially above the AMI range) has, and continues to out-build affordable housing by a large margin in Sonoma. Luxury homes and hotels get placed around town like a Monopoly game, sucking the life out of folks with one little green house on Baltic Avenue. As long as a tourism-fueled bonanza attracts flush home buyers and large investors with a promise of large returns, big money will keep up the pressure to cash in on Sonoma’s caché. As long as Sonoma is an attractive location, is in an area with high background wealth, and has an urban growth boundary where building must be contained inside two square miles, the cost of land and homes will go up and it will be a conscious struggle to keep the city demographically diverse.
Contrary to developer claims, extending the UGB is not likely to bring housing prices down but rather result in unsightly sprawl and more high priced housing, as has happened in the South Bay and southern peninsula.
When the market and supply and demand dominates values, society as a whole stands to lose. Rent-seeking behavior by players seeking to corner the market and raise prices has many negative costs for residents. The Plaza and the town itself are perfect examples of what an essentially uncontrolled market brings: a run-away monopoly of prices that serves only the richest and disenfranchises all the workers and lower AMI residents. The General Plan values socio-economic diversity and cites triple bottom line principles. That’s a Sonoma worth fighting for.
If town gets tipped too far to the wealthy, the council and commissions will be packed by wealth supporters and there will no longer be a “diversity” voice. Sonoma will have turned into Tiburon.
Some players have already drank the money values Kool Aid. We see this in annual county and city, Chamber-sponsored, state of the economy lectures where a paid consultant says how great everything is. Paid consultants draft slick development promotions, touting all the tax revenue and multiplier benefits from high-end projects. This is then framed by the Kool Aid drinkers as a pragmatic viewpoint. These players however, do not represent the Bernie Sanders/ Main Street wing of the electorate. They represent a Clintonesque embracing of Wall Street values, the exact same economic business-as-usual (BAU) gestalt that has destroyed the planet and left the 99% in the dust. And then we get climate plans, food plans, residential components of housing plans, and bunches of local non-profits trying to mitigate and pick up the pieces of this rosy, totally great economic system we have.
Folks, it is the so-called liberals who have done this; this is one of the main, look-in-the-mirror lessons of the last election.
Time for a different approach. Sure we need jobs and an economy, but we don’t need public planning to be ruled by insulated elites who adhere to fundamentally destructive business and labor practices. Freedom to exploit and destroy the environment, and the base of society, by a wealthy few, is the antithesis of pragmatic. To avoid the Tiburonization of Sonoma, Sonoma needs to be playing a more cooperative, carrying capacity-oriented game, not drinking more supply-side, BAU Kool Aid. Groups with common equity and justice interests need to de-silo and bring unified and concerted pressure on BAU forces; need to elect representatives to act for their interests.
To conclude, both the FSE and SAHA projects have an energized opposition from immediate neighbors. Yet the SAHA project enjoys widespread support, and the city as a whole is behind this project, as is the county. SAHA has wider support because they serve the development of a just society. Market rate and luxury hotel projects serve a much smaller slice of modern day aristocratic interests, a slice that is already over-represented here in town.
Will projects serve to make Sonoma representative of the county AMI or not? Public acceptance of local development projects ultimately boils down to what motivations drive the developer: are the projects seen by the public as inclusive or exclusive? To whom do the lion’s share of benefits from a project accrue? Are the benefits ultimately measured by money values or authentic community values? Does anyone have a right to massive profits if such behavior destroys the fabric of the community?
Anyone can use their rational facility and make justifications, but in a democracy, the majority should rule, not a few Princes and the outsize influence of money. The Princes talk about community and benefits, about preserving town character, about sustainability, but these formulations are highly calculated spin aimed at making critical staff allies and getting three votes from elected government personnel.
Unfortunately, we see the Princes and the money hold undue, undemocratic influence in our town, as more luxury and market rate projects keep on coming and keep having to be fought off. For benefits, where are the good paying jobs and the affordable homes? Why is the demographic becoming something not supported by the General Plan? Are we supposed to let a luxury free-for-all shape the flavor of our town? When the high rollers say how great everything is, and why such and such luxury project should be approved, my advice to government officials, check to make sure you are not drinking the BAU, trickle-down Kool Aid one more time. Try just society Kool Aid, it tastes better and allows for a better night’s sleep.
One thought on “What flavor Kool-Aid for you?”
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Well done Fred! Your Kool-Aid dichotomy regarding planning, fairness and pragmatism seems right on to me. Lets hope that our city planners have half as much vision as you express in your well written piece as they attempt to find the right balance for Sonoma!