Dear Planning Commissioners,
The proposed 5.23 acre portion of the Corona Station
Residential Project ignores the fact that it is an integral portion of the adjacent
SMART train station. This proposal is more suburban (infill) sprawl. It is more
of the same.
What about this
residential development is Transit Oriented Development? Nothing.
These houses are more suburban sprawl with two car parking
garages each. These proposed houses will be sold to people who may or may not
ever use the train.
Point #1:
Why don’t we encourage several 4 to 5 story buildings with a much higher
density than that proposed? For comparison, what about several buildings like
the new Marina Crossing apartments with 92 units each?
Point #2:
There is no “there” there. As a rule, east side Petaluma suffers from a lack of
land use and architecture that grants a sense of place. Much of the east side
is drive by suburban housing tracts.
This proposal does nothing to celebrate the new train
station.
This proposal does nothing to anchor the major, important
intersection of North McDowell and Corona Road. How will you even know that
there is a new train station there? All you will see is a parking lot full of
cars on the corner.
I believe that this site provides a huge opportunity to do
the following two things:
Solution A:
Let’s create much more density (many more housing units) to provide some real
Transit Oriented Development at this site. Make these units smaller and
somewhat more “affordable”.
Solution B:
Make this project Stand Out as different from the monotony of residential
suburban sprawl. Provide an anchor for the intersection of North McDowell and
Corona Road. Let’s encourage the developer to create a sense of place at this intersection. Provide an anchor
with taller, bigger, more dense buildings.
This location deserves much better than more of the same.
Usually, the developer drives the overall vision and plan for the site. But the
conditional use permit puts the Planning Commission in the driver’s seat.
Ten years from now, when the new SMART corridor is fully
functional, what are we going to wish was at this residential site?
Yes, we need the park and ride parking lot. But we also need
some for real Transit Oriented Development housing next to it.