Dear City Council,
As currently designed, the Corona train station will become yet another automobile dependent land use in East Petaluma.
* If this were a transit oriented development site, we would build 3 or 4 stories of high density housing over the parking and utilize the entire 6.5 acres.
* It appears as if SMART negotiated to save themselves $3 million by building an open air parking lot instead of a parking garage. This landmark intersection of Corona Road and North McDowell will be defined by an open air parking lot. Is this the best we can do?
* The Corona Station housing development project is “packaged” as “multi-family” housing units. But actually there is an air gap between each housing unit. This project is really 116 single family houses.
* This property is 6.5 acres. SMART wants to remove 1.27 acres and throw away the buildable housing density. Yet still, there is 5.23 acres for the developer to work with.
* The North River Apartments will be 184 housing units plus 5,000 square feet of commercial on a total of 3.92 acres.
* Marina Crossing Apartments are 92 housing units on 2.17 acres.
* Haystack Pacifica at the downtown train station will be 178 housing units plus 24,855 square feet of ground floor commercial on a 4.1 acre parcel.
* East Petaluma could sorely use a sense of place defined by a prominent building at this major Corona Road intersection.
* Is this the best that we can do? One more suburban, automobile dependent single family housing subdivision conceived of and designed as if the new train station doesn’t even exist on site.
* The General Plan and the Zoning Regulations are outdated for this train station but it could easily be fixed with amendments right now.
I strongly urge a much higher housing density at the Corona train station. We can do much better here. Let’s create a real train station here with a strong sense of place, identity and functional transit oriented development.
Please take a look at this 2 ¾ minute video showing the automobile intensity of walking along North McDowell up to the train station project site. Let's create a walkable sense of having arrived at this major intersection and train station.
