This November, we have the chance to advance the most important greenbelt policy protections in Sonoma County in 20 years!
By Teri Shore, Sonoma Group ExCom
The most important green measure in Sonoma County this year is the renewal of voter protections for “community separators”—the greenbelt lands in between the county’s cities and towns. They expire this year after 20 years preventing sprawl in our rural and agricultural lands.
The Sierra Club is joining with Greenbelt Alliance and Sonoma County Conservation Action to mobilize voters to say “Yes to Community Separators.”
Now that the Board of Supervisors have finalized a ballot measure, a new campaign ballot measure committee has formed to take the community separators to the finish line!
Keep Our Community Separators is the name of the new campaign committee that is bringing together the environmental, housing and agricultural community to pass the ballot measure.
Not only will the ballot measure protect the 17,000 acres of existing community separators, but they will also build on this legacy to prevent another 50,000 acres of rural and farm lands from being converted to housing tracts or strip malls! Thanks to your letters and turn-out, we convinced the county supervisors to designate new community separators between Healdsburg and Cloverdale, around Penngrove and in priority greenbelts across the county.
For more than a year, we marked maps, wrote letters, spoke up at public hearings and gathered together to organize and plan. Several hundred people turned out for public workshops held by the county planning department in Santa Rosa, Kenwood, Cloverdale, and Petaluma.
We built strong and steady support across the county from residents, cities, elected officials, organizations, farm groups, business and the cities of Petaluma, Windsor, Sebastopol, Cotati, Cloverdale, and Healdsburg.
While Sonoma County residents are strong supporters of open space protection, we recognize that we may face opposition from those who would rather profit by paving over our agricultural and rural lands for housing subdivisions, strip malls and commercial centers.
Others may want to break the community separators and UGBs in the name of affordable housing. But we don’t need to do this. There is plenty of land within our existing cities and communities to provide for housing for all. More than 10,000 units of housing have been approved but never built in Sonoma County. Sierra Club is committed to supporting our elected officials as they tackle the housing crunch.
We all need both: protected greenbelts to prevent sprawl and pollution and attainable housing in neighborhoods near transit, shops, schools and businesses where we can live, work and play.
Greenbelts are goldmines for our environment, people and economy.
We need you with us to get endorsements, table at public events, and donate to the community separator campaign ballot measure. We’ll need to send mailers, make signs, hold events and be ready to combat any opposition. Watch for a festive event in one of the most beautiful community separators during the harvest season in late September!
Stay engaged and up to date on the new Facebook page, facebook.com/communityseparators/
To get involved, contact Teri Shore at tshore@greenbelt.org or 707 575 3661
