How the County describes the Jan. 25 Supervisors meeting on the fate of the SDC
Permit Sonoma, Sonoma County’s planning agency, presented the “project description framework to guide the redevelopment of Sonoma Developmental Center” — item 44 on the agenda — to the Board of Supervisors on January 25. Here’s how the County described that meeting in a subsequent press release:
“The proposed framework incorporated aspects of the three alternatives previously presented to the public on Nov. 1, 2021, as well as feedback from two community workshops with over 250 participants, five community meetings and an online survey with over 720 entries.
“There is a lot of passion for the direction of this project with good reason,” said James Gore, chair of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. “A strong framework was presented and we have reason to be hopeful that it will continue to get better by ongoing community participation in this process.”
“The proposed framework advances the following critical components:
- Expansion of the wildlife and riparian corridors, including preservation of more than 700 acres of open space.
- Increased distance of development from the wildland-urban interface for defensible space and vegetation management.
- Construction of between 900 and 1,000 housing units, including 250 units of deed-restricted affordable housing.
- Enhanced and better-connected inner campus green spaces and preservation of historic landmarks, including Eldridge Cemetery, the Main Building and Sonoma House.
- Creation of approximately 1,000 new jobs from local-serving retail, office and visitor-serving uses.
- Coordinated mobility system, including an emphasis on non-auto travel and a new vehicular connection to extend Harney Drive to Highway 12.
“Permit Sonoma staff will continue to refine the project description and conduct community engagement through the environmental review process. A draft Environmental Impact Report is expected to be available for public review in June 2022. The Planning Commission will hold two public hearings in July and August 2022 to receive public comment on the draft EIR and potentially adopt a resolution recommending that the Board of Supervisors certify a final EIR and adopt a final Specific Plan in September 2022.
“In 2019, the County was charged by the State of California, which owns the site, to allow local input in charting the future of the property. It’s three-year planning period expires at the end of 2022.”
End of statement.
Read The Sun report by Teri Shore
4 thoughts on “How the County describes the Jan. 25 Supervisors meeting on the fate of the SDC”
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Usual B.S. from the county. Ignoring everything from public and even at least one supervisor who said to reduce, revise, update the SDC plan. Build baby build. We shall overcome.
Teri is spot on this is BS. As far as the survey is concerned it did not even give you the option to state none of the above. And the county refused to take the survey down, even after they were told it did not meet the basic requirements for for Survey Monkey for being a honest survey. It was created to give them the results they wanted. A later privately created survey was accurate, as it was designed to give real community input, as opposed to the BS survey created by the county.
What happened to Gorin’s recommendations of 400-700 units, or the climate change research center, just to name a few? The county is doing everything it can to convince everyone that there are only two ways to fund SDC redevelopment, market-rate housing and a big hotel. There are other options.
The EIR will not contain wildfire evacuation routes as stated in their FAQ’s. The most critical, life threatening issue will not be discussed.