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.