No parking in my neighborhood; affordable housing; and less hotel is more

Sonoma Overnight Support, the City’s defacto homeless shelter and service provider, will on September 19 once again ask the City Council for five parking spaces in which homeless people can sleep in their cars at night. The practice is working at several County locations without incident, but the initial pitch to the Council – that the cars would park in front of the shelter itself, located in the Police Station parking lot on First Street West – was rejected. The consensus was that Councilmembers wanted to study the issue further. Five monitored spaces in front of a homeless shelter in a police station parking lot for people with jobs and cars but no safe place to sleep. Seems simple, but the Council – likely bowing to the ‘there goes the neighborhood’ contingent – has asked for an alternate plan. The preference would be to throw the problem back at the County. But SOS, using the prevailing ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality, will instead propose using five other parking spots, usually unused, behind the police station itself.

The affordable housing issue – as in, there is none — extends to nonprofit groups as well. Higher rents often mean reduced services. SAY, for example, is currently seeking new office space for its grief services program in Sonoma. Its First Street West location has become prohibitively costly, and Caitlin Childs says the group would rather spend more donated dollars on services than rent. Wanted: about 2,500 sq. ft. with one private office, plus room for a reception/waiting area, and five other distinct spaces/offices. Any ideas? Email CEO Matt Martin at [email protected].

Meanwhile, the golden goose of tourism continues to lay record-breaking eggs. According to the Sonoma Tourism Improvement District, there has been a 26.9 percent increase in occupancy rates in the off-season representing a 62.3 percent increase in Transient Occupancy Taxes… Say, can people sleeping in cars be charged a bed tax?

Seems like only two years ago (actually, it was exactly two years ago) that Sonoma voters were divided over Measure B, which sought to limit new hotels to 24 rooms or smaller unless a citywide 80 percent occupancy threshold was met. That seems to be well in hand. The other argument against the rule was, hotels have to be big to make money. Not sure how he voted then, but Michael Marino disagrees now: he’s converted a vacation rental plan to a nine-room hotel on West Napa Street (page 2).

With the nice wide road (sorry, no parking), street lights, contiguous sidewalks and all-around fresh vibe, Highway 12 through the Springs is looking good. Phase 2, from Boyes Boulevard to Aqua Caliente, had its ribbon cutting on Saturday (page 20). Phase 1, on the southern end of the strip, was completed several years ago. It still suffers, though from “The Donald Gap.” Public Works explains: “Widening the existing bridge over Agua Caliente Creek on Hwy 12 near Donald Ave was a separate project from Phase 1 of the Highway 12 Corridor Improvement project. In 2008 it was discovered that the existing bridge has a scour problem, and Caltrans would be repairing or replacing this bridge.” At that point, local officials hoped they could make a deal with Caltrans to include widening for sidewalks in its bridge project. The answer for now: walk single file across the bridge and watch out for trucks.

–Val Robichaud

Send your tips and quips to [email protected]