New Transit Oriented Development project proposed for Corona Road and North McDowell

This notification sign has gone up at Corona Road and North McDowell Street. Across the railroad tracks from the new Brody Ranch Development and also the location for the East Petaluma SMART Station. Another 110 housing units in a mix of single family buildings and duplex townhomes all smushed close together. These units have two car garages each, 2 to 4 bedroom "entry level homes" previously thought to sell for around $600,000. As I wrote in March, "In the end, we are going to wind up with more housing sprawl that results in more car traffic on the roads or else we are going to create an East Petaluma Train station destination that is pedestrian friendly and (hopefully) provides less expensive housing. We are going to provide more housing in east Petaluma where people no longer need their cars and actually use the train or else we are going to have a suburban park and ride train station where people mostly drive to the Corona Road station. Which will it be? This is a huge opportunity for us in Petaluma to create a “sense of place” on the east side and to get people out of their cars and onto the train." This project proposal is, in my opinion, more of the same on the East Side. But it is consistent with the new Brody Ranch and it is also consistent with the Transit Oriented Development Master Plan approved by the City in 2013. Is that good enough for this site? This project is also complicated by the ongoing negotiations with the City to get the developer to build the parking lot for the Corona Road SMART Station on this same empty lot. Planning Commission hearing November 12th!