The Redwood Chapter of the Sierra Club has sent the following letter to Tennis Wick of Permit Sonoma and the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors stating its opposition to Eldridge Renewal’s proposed development application for the former Sonoma Developmental Center.
Dear Mr. Wick and Mr. Lyons and Sonoma County Board of Supervisors,
In response to the 4th Resubmittal of the Eldridge Renewal LLC developmental application for the historic campus at the former Sonoma Developmental Center, Sierra Club remains opposed to the size and scale of the proposed development situated in a rural community in a high wildfire area far from public transit and services in the heart of the Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor.
In particular at this time, Sierra Club joins the historic preservation community in opposition to the revised proposed plan calling for demolition of the 1897 Sonoma House. This is a travesty to all who value historic preservation for this campus and ignores years of public input. This action reflects an ongoing pattern of neglecting public input by the developer, the county and the state, including for environmental issues such as failure to fully protect the Sonoma Valley wildlife corridor and open space.
In addition, Sierra Club is alarmed that the County of Sonoma failed to notify interested parties such as Sierra Club when Eldridge Renewal resubmitted its 4th resubmittal to address incompleteness findings on Feb. 4 at least as a courtesy if not required.
Sierra Club recognizes that the developer has attempted to address multiple concerns from the county including environmental impacts, protection of the wildlife corridor, phasing and housing affordability, water rights, sewage disposal, and other issues. However we remain concerned that this project continues to conflict with and undermine longstanding commitments at the county, regional, and state level to protect open space, prevent sprawl, and reduce climate changing emissions from transportation and other sources.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW AND COURT ORDER
It appears that Eldridge Renewal is claiming that its proposal is aligned with the decertified SDC Specific Plan and that it plans to revise the decertified SDC Specific Plan Environmental Impact Report (EIR) if and when its proposed project is deemed complete and begins the public review process. If so, Sierra Club urges the county and the developer to remember that the EIR was completely inadequate as determined by a judge and that extensive revisions to the proposal and the EIR will be required—and must go through a full public process and be reviewed by the courts before potential approval.
TREE ORDINANCE
In the latest resubmittal, Eldridge LLC does not plan to follow or implement Sonoma County’s recently revised Tree Protection Ordinance on the grounds that it was passed after the original submission of the development plan. While legally the developer is correct, doing so certainly demonstrates disregard for environmental protection and the desires of county residents and the community.
WATER AND WASTEWATER
Water and Wastewater are discussed in the developer’s completeness response. Both need further analysis and mitigation under CEQA.
Water rights will remain with the property and the developer provides several scenarios for how water supply will be managed. As stated in the resubmitted Project Description: “The applicant has obtained a conditional will serve letter from VOMWD to provide water service to the project and, as noted by Sonoma Water, VOMWD service is subject to a future negotiated agreement, LAFCO approval, and other conditions to the development and operation of this public water system. As part of the project’s environmental review, the potential impacts of service from VOMWD, or an alternative water purveyor, should both be evaluated.”
Similarly, additional analysis regarding disposal of wastewater will be required under CEQA, as stated in the resubmitted Project Description: “The project intends to utilize Sonoma Valley County Sanitation District (SVCSD) for sewer service. As noted in SVCSD’s referral agency comments, the dedication of any facilities and annexation of the site will be subject to future negotiated agreements and conditions of approval. As a project variant that will require environmental study under CEQA, the project may alternatively seek to develop a private sewage disposal system subject to approval and permitting by the Regional Water Quality Control Board and State Water Resources Control Board. As The current The conditional both of which require additional review under California Environmental Quality Act.”
Both of these key issues will require significant detail and determination before the project can be considered complete.
WILDFIRE EVACUATION
The revised Project Description promises to develop and emergency preparedness plan that seems to rely in large part on a “future emergency-use-only roadway connecting the project with Highway 12 to the East” and that “a site has been reserved on-site for the construction of a new fire station for the Kenwood Fire District.” Neither of these options are adequate as the potential roadway runs through wetlands and was never analyzed or approved under CEQA. The Kenwood fire station mentioned must be the CalFire carve-out of the open space that was done without any public or environmental review. Neither of these options are supported and the County should seek more detailed evacuation plans from the developer to deem the application “complete.”
New information from the community funded wildfire evacuation study also needs to be considered in environmental review if and when the project ever moves forward.
SONOMA VALLEY WILDLIFE CORRIDOR MAPPING AND PROTECTION
The full protection of the Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor is not addressed in the resubmittal or the decertified Specific Plan or EIR. To date we have not seen detailed maps of the wildlife incorporated into the proposed development or the decertified EIR and Specific Plan. An accurate and detailed mapping of the wildlife corridor is needed to reflect the ongoing and historic passage of wildlife through the SDC lands and the historic campus.
What we have seen is rough references to the wildlife corridor around the edges of the campus, when indeed the corridor goes right through the campus as mapping by several sources has indicated. See map recently published in Press Democrat; as well as mountain lion crossings that were submitted during the EIR public process by True Wild and Living with Lions.
SONOMA VALLEY WILDLIFE CORRIDOR PROTECTION
The proposed development with 1,000 homes, a hotel, commercial space and about 3,000 cars with associated greenhouse gas emissions would occur in the middle of the Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor. Doing so will cause irreparable harm to the functionality of the wildlife corridor, as described in multiple public comments by Sierra Club and others.
The courts found that the EIR was woefully inadequate in attempting to mitigate the multiple harms to the wildlife corridor, Sonoma Creek and other riparian areas, wetlands, and sensitive species and plants.
Sierra Club does not believe that such harm can be adequately mitigated given the size and scale of the proposed development. We will continue to follow the public process and provide the science and data that supports this conclusion.
ESTIMATE PUBLIC INVESTMENTS IN SONOMA VALLEY WILDLIFE CORRIDOR
The state and the county must also account for and report on the full extent of public and private investments in and around the historic campus and SDC lands to determine how much of those investments will be lost and/or degraded if large development goes forward.
Many millions of dollars of private and public funds have been invested in protecting the Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor to date. With a quick google search, we were able to estimate that over the last 10 to 15 years alone, at least $ 4 million dollars of public and private monies have been invested in studying the wildlife corridor, restoring sections of Sonoma Creek and Stuart Creek, and conserving land through acquisition and conservation easements. As existing maps show, almost all the land around the historic campus is protected as a result of these longstanding efforts.
The funds have come from multiple sources including the California Wildlife Conservation Board, California Coastal Conservancy and other state granting entities; Sonoma County Resource Conservation District, Sonoma County Agricultural and Open Space District and other county granting entities; and private funders including the Moore Foundation, Sonoma Community Foundation, Impact 100 and the Catalyst Fund.
In Sonoma Valley, Sonoma Land Trust and the Sonoma Ecology Center received significant public and private funds for studying and restoring Sonoma Creek and the Wildlife Corridor.
The total investment needs to be reviewed and made public. Investments date back many decades at least to the 1990s when the historic orchard was transferred to state parks. The county and state must review and analyze how these public investments will be impacted by urbanizing the historic SDC campus.
SOME EXAMPLES OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE FUNDING FOR PRESERVATION IN AND AROUND SDC
These are random examples found with a simple google search from recent years; much more funding has been invested through various entities beyond those listed here.
- The Sonoma Land Trust received a $2.1 million grant in 2016 from the Moore Foundation a few years ago to study the Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor. SLT has restored nearby Stuart Creek and constructed a wildlife passage under Highway 12.
- SLT received a $1.8 million grant from the Moore Foundation in 2012 for protection of the Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor.
- In 2019 SLT received a $700,000 grant to protect critical open space land at Sonoma Developmental Center.
- In 2015 SLT received $600,000 in grant funding from the Community Foundation of Sonoma County for any necessary acquisition costs for the SDC Addition property , (in coordination with Ag + Open Space), and to rehabilitate, restore, and improve the property’s trail system.
- Next week (Feb. 25. 2025) SLT and the SEC are slated to receive $200,000 to contribute to a study “the impacts on wildlife and habitat from the redevelopment plans for the core campus submitted to Sonoma County, the proposed siting of a new regional headquarters and fire station for CAL FIRE, and addition of portions of the property to Jack London State Historic Park.”
- March 2019 – Sonoma Ecology Center (SEC) has received a grant from California Department of Fish and Wildlife to commission Environmental Science Associates (ESA), a restoration design and engineering firm with local ties to the community, to develop a restoration vision for upper Sonoma Creek. The project extent is along Sonoma Creek from Madrone Road to Adobe Canyon. One of the more local projects is the Upper Sonoma Creek Restoration Demonstration Project at Morton’s Warm Springs ($873,948 to Sonoma Ecology Center).
- 2016 four Sonoma Valley vineyards that have qualified for a total of $250,000 in grants funded by the Coastal Conservancy aimed at improving water quality in Sonoma Creek.
BUILDERS REMEDY
Lastly, Sierra Club urges the county to reject the Builder’s Remedy as the solution for the historic campus at SDC. As Sierra Club stated in a letter dated September 3, 2024, the Eldridge Renewal proposed project does not meet the requirements for a Builder’s Remedy project.
Sierra Club will continue to press for answers from the County of Sonoma and the State of California as to why the long promised 750 acres of open space was cut by 100 acres for a new CalFire facility without any public knowledge; and when the 650 remaining acres transferred to state parks will be designated under the 30 X 30 state lands conservation initiative as promised by the Senator Mike McGuire and Secretary of Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot.
Lack of accurate mapping of the Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor and the open space has been an obstacle to adding the 650 acres transferred to state parks from designation under 30 X 30.
Thank you for your consideration and please advise if you would like to discuss further.
Sincerely yours,
Sonoma Group Executive Committee
Shirley Johnson, Chair; Teri Shore, Dan Mayhew
CC: Senator Mike McGuire, Secretary Wade Crowfoot, Assemblymember Damon Connolly, Senator Christopher Cabaldon
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