How can the public give meaningful input to the developer for a large development project?

After being closely involved with the proposed Corona Station Development project for a full year, I was left feeling like my input made no difference at all to the developer. How can we do a better job of improving interactions between the public and the developer especially so as to avoid these repeated marathon City Council meetings that continue well past midnight?

A fit of desperation

Another marathon post-midnight City Council meeting Monday to determine the fate of new housing at the east side Corona Train Station. Couple of observations and things learned along the way. Earlier in the meeting, PEP Housing said that its latest “affordable housing” project on Petaluma Blvd will cost $540,000. per apartment to build.

My interests in the Corona Train Station project were originally for providing high density housing, a sense of place and a train station for the future. Affordable housing wasn’t really something I knew anything about. But I now realize that if you don’t build affordable housing within walking distance to public transit and shopping then it isn’t affordable housing because you need a car to get around. But low income folks are the ones who can least afford to also own and drive a car.

As part of the marathon Monday night meeting, the City Council not only approved the developer’s proposal for Corona Station, but also the developer’s scheme for a new 5 story building with roughly 400 market rate housing units on the empty SMART parcel next door to the downtown train station. Recall that the City Council had passed a resolution a couple of years back requiring that “inclusionary affordable housing” must be built by the developer on site in new housing projects. But Monday night, again, our City said “just kidding” and approved a plan for the developer to pay an in-lieu fee of $860,000 to the city and donate a 2.5 acre lot instead of building the approximately 50 required affordable housing units at the downtown train station. See above. It costs 50 x $540,000 = $27 million to build 50 affordable units.

Confused? I am. These are confusing times. My sympathy for our City Council members as, once again, a somewhat angry mob stood up to speak up at the podium in favor of higher density housing, more affordable housing, building a walkable neighborhood, and the possibility of inclusion of some lower income folks into our increasingly wealthy exclusive Petaluma population.

A slim majority of the City Council voted Monday night to approve a development project at the Corona Station that no one but the developer likes mostly because of the threat that, otherwise, a SMART station might not get built at all in east Petaluma anytime soon. At Corona this will be 110 single family houses with 17 of them designated affordable. Also the Council approved a 5 story building concept for the downtown train station that has had no public review process and will not have inclusionary affordable housing.

I am not one to point the finger of shame and blame. No doubt each City Council member made the best decision that they each thought they could make given the myriad of seemingly conflicting opportunities, problems and supposed solutions presented. I will say though that the process I have closely observed over the past 12 months did get narrowly approved Monday night in a fit of desperation more so than with any sense of building a positive inclusive vision for our future. The developer walked out with exactly what he wanted. Maybe this leads to the second train station getting built sometime soon.

whatever the developer walks in the door with

Monday night will be the final decision by the City Council for the Corona Train Station development. Snuck into this decision will also be a contractual nod of approval for the 5 story development contemplated for the empty lot at the downtown train station. If I understand correctly, some of the City Council members (possibly a majority) will waive the requirement for inclusionary affordable housing rules at both locations which will be very good for the developer but not good for anyone else. Probably, Corona Station will become a 110 unit single family housing subdivision. To accomplish this, the City Council will have to give the developer another “deal” and downzone the property from mixed use to single family. Again, this will be very good for the developer. Having been an observer of Petaluma land use development for 5 solid years now, it appears to me that most often whatever a developer walks in the door with is what gets built in Petaluma. But I’m open to hearing otherwise. When the general public is ready to take over the steering wheel in our town, we will realize that the days of building new single family houses and adding more cars to our streets are over. Time to build affordable housing near transit for people who will use transit.

Walking for a walkable community

At the January 27, 2020 City Council meeting, one of the Council Members stated that there was no need for either a coffee shop or a small corner grocery store at the proposed Corona Train station development because anyone could simply walk to either "Beyond the Glory" or to "Safeway." (That would be a 1.1 mile or 1.8 mile walk one way, respectively.)

This community walk, on the morning of February 1, 2020, was organized by Brian Barnacle. We walked the 1.1 mile from the Corona Train Station project to Beyond the Glory. Contrary to what a City Council Member stated, this is not a "walkable" trip. By definition, "walkable" is under 1/2 of a mile and has sidewalks the entire way.

 A livable community is one in which at least some trips can be made on foot. For the past 70 years we have been building out east Petaluma as a suburban sprawl bedroom community and, for many residents, every trip everywhere anytime is an automobile trip. This is a failed land use planning model. But even today we continue to build more automobile dependent single family housing.

7 Principles for Building Better Cities

Ted Talk: 7 Principles for Building Better Cities

Peter Calthorpe is a San Francisco based architect, urban designer and urban planner. He developed the concept of Transit Oriented Development in the early 1990’s. His clients include China which has some city blocks with 5,000 residents each and also the State of California which anticipates a population growth of 10 million more by 2050.

(Someday soon, Petaluma will have a population of 100,000 people. The “town” we are building today will be a city tomorrow.)

Summary of the TedTalk:

1) Preserve the natural environment, the history and the agriculture.

2) Mixed use. Create mixed use and mixed-income neighborhoods.

         Mixed incomes, mixed age groups, as well as mixed land use.

3) Walk. Design walkable streets and human scale neighborhoods.

4) Bike. Prioritize bicycle networks and auto-free streets.

5) Connect. Build street networks that provide many routes and many kinds of routes. Many kinds of streets instead of just one.

6) Ride. We have to invest more in transit.

7) Focus. Match density and mix to the transit capacity. Build the hierarchy of the city based on transit rather than on freeways. It’s a big paradigm shift.

“Walking, biking and transit are the way cities and communities thrive.”