By Teri Shore
Sonoma Group, Conservation Committee
More than 100 community members spoke out with major concerns during a public hearing on Aug. 24 to review the proposed development at the Sonoma Developmental Center in Sonoma Valley.
Their concerns regarded increased climate emissions, wildfire risk and a proposal of 1,000 new houses that would be incurred if the plan to transform the current 945-acre property from predominantly open space to mixed use. In addition to the housing units, plans also include a hotel, restaurants, retail, and commercial offices on the 180-acre historic campus in the heart of rural Glen Ellen.
The hearing centered on the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) on the proposed Specific Plan for reuse of the closed SDC. Sonoma County’s plans this far has spurred protests and anger among Sonoma Valley residents, who say if it goes forward as projected, it will be like building a whole new small city that cannot be supported with our current and worsening climate and drought conditions. No one spoke in support.
Almost every speaker opposed a hotel and called for housing to be scaled back to a few hundred homes restricted as affordable to low-income families and individuals with developmental disabilities.
In an unusual approach to CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) that is confounding to many of us reviewing the documents, the DEIR does not provide any actual mitigations as usually spelled out in an EIR. Instead, the county planners decided that all environmental impacts could be reduced to insignificant through goals, policies and conditions of approval in the “self-mitigated” Specific Plan. The strength and legality of this approach under CEQA remains in question.
CLIMATE EMISSIONS AND VMTs
As proposed, the SDC Specific Plan will undermine local, regional and state policies and commitments to address the climate crisis as the DEIR found significant and unavoidable impacts in the areas of vehicle miles traveled (VMTs). That means that there is NO WAY to offset or mitigate the extra driving generated by all the new housing, retail, commercial development proposed at SDC.
The environmental review identified a number of other significant environmental impacts related to biological resources, the wildlife corridor, wildfire risk and historic preservation. The DEIR also found “significant and unavoidable” impacts to historic preservation. Yet the county seems intent on pushing forward to approve the large-scale urban development by year’s end.
In parallel, the state’s Department of General Services intends to sell off the historic campus separately from the open space also by year’s end. As yet, the planning process remains challenging and not very transparent to the public.
OPEN SPACE PRESERVATION
The DEIR and SDC Specific Plan states that the 745 acres of open space lands at SDC will be preserved in perpetuity and provides a general overlay map. However, it does not provide any specific information on exact open space boundaries or when or how the preservation will occur.
Environmental advocates are requesting that a timeline and approach for transferring and preserving the open space must be added to the DEIR and Specific Plan Conditions of Approval to ensure that the open space gets transferred to county parks, regional parks and/or a public conservation entity and does not get transferred to a developer or other private owner.
WILDFIRE
There are no conditions of approval for wildfire, and the goals and policies are based on a future Emergency Response Plan, which will be developed at some point. The Evacuation Time analysis seems unrealistic as it suggests that “added times” for travel during an evacuation range from 1 or 2 minutes to 37 minutes to get to Napa. In actuality, it took people HOURS to evacuate from Kenwood and Sonoma Valley during recent fires. Also, the DEIR calls for the “requirement” for a shelter-in-place facility at SDC after 200 homes are built. There is no proven rationale for sheltering in place particularly in a High Fire Risk Area. Many community members who experienced recent wildfires and evacuations said the DEIR and Self-Mitigating SDC Specific Plan do not eliminate risk or wildfire hazard to insignificant levels.
ALTERNATIVES
Sierra Club Sonoma Group plans to submit comments on the SDC DEIR and Specific Plan, calling for immediate protection of the open space lands and objecting to the climate emissions and scale of the development. Individual comments from Sierra Club members are also welcome. Every voice is needed to get the best outcome at SDC.
A second public hearing will be held at the Sonoma County Planning Commission on Sept. 15, and the public comment period ends Sept. 23.
You can watch a recording of the hearing here. https://youtu.be/LvE6dSvf9Yg
Review the EIR and Specific Plan here: https://www.sdcspecificplan.com/
Visit eldridgeforall.org https://eldridgeforall.org/ for information on how to contact your elected officials, sample letters, and ongoing updates about the SDC redevelopment process.