Many Healdsburg residents are up in arms over a proposed four-story 16-room hotel — called Hotel Healdsburg Residences — that would be segmented into three separate buildings at 400, 412 and 418 Healdsburg Avenue.
While residents and planning commissioners share some of the same concerns regarding the scale of the project and its proposed design elements, the main concern for several community members is the project in relation to the city’s hotel ordinance, which limits the amount of hotels built in the Plaza retail area and in the city’s Downtown Commercial District (CD) near Piper, Vine, East and Mill Streets.
The proposed hotel is being developed by Piazza Hospitality, the same group behind the Harmon Guest House, Hotel Healdsburg and H2 Hotel.
The idea is for the hotel to have 11 family suites and five multi-room cottages. There’s also a proposed public plaza area, which would take up three parking spots on Healdsburg Avenue, and 35 on-site parking spaces.
The first floor would have retail space and a restaurant and bar similar to the open-air eatery at H2 Hotel. The proposed design also includes a pool and a courtyard for hotel guests.
Project architect Brett Jones said proposed project materials include copper, textured concrete, zinc standing seam graphite and wood paneling.
The main design feature for the buildings is a proposed wire mesh system with climbing vines that would eventually cover the facade. The facade beneath the vines would be a water-proof membrane in shades of gray or black.
In terms of sustainability, Jones said they’re looking at implementing what is called the “living building challenge,” which is similar to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, but more stringent.
One of the elements of the living building challenge is to have net positive water use. Jones said this would involve using a rainwater catchment system and installing an on-site, lopped gray water system that recycles water from building use to be used for flushing toilets and showering.
“We are excited about this project because it is at the corner of Healdsburg Avenue and it is a prime location in Healdsburg,” said Paolo Petrone with Piazza Hospitality.
Rather than commenting on the design elements during the public comment portion of the workshop, many speakers expressed concern regarding the feasibility of the project and concern that the project is furthering the city’s transformation from a small and sleepy town to a place for tourists.
In December 2018, the Healdsburg City Council voted 4-1 approving the hotel ordinance. Bed and breakfasts and vacation rentals are exempt from the regulations.
The ordinance puts a strict limit on hotel development by prohibiting new hotel rooms from being built in the four-block radius of the Plaza Retail zoning district and by limiting new hotels in the CD zone to those that include no more than five rooms.
The CD zone limit also limits the number of rooms per city block-face to five and requires hotels to be located above or behind first floor retail space and prohibits hotels in the CD zone from fronting on streets that also front a residential area.
Prior to the ordinance, hotel regulations stated that hotels were permitted by right in the Plaza Retail and CD zones and were allowed in mixed-use zones with a conditional use permit (CUP).
CUPs provide a little more leeway for hotel development since they allow for a conditional use in a zoning district as long as certain standards, such as parking and hours of operation, are met.
With the ordinance, the current number of 67 hotel rooms would be allowed in the downtown Plaza area. Hotel Healdsburg currently has 55 rooms and Healdsburg Inn on the Plaza has 12, resulting in the 67-room total (How many hotels are in Healdsburg? SoCoNews did a rundown of hotels in 2019. The rundown included a list of current hotels, hotels that were under construction at the time, and hotels that were under review, Hotel Healdsburg Residences being one of them).
With zoning limits in mind, many residents were left wondering how the proposed hotel is even feasible.
According to Healdsburg Senior Planner Joel Galbraith, on Jan. 16, 2019, the Healdsburg City Council and planning commission were notified that the Hotel Healdsburg Residences project application had been deemed complete prior to the new ordinance becoming effective.
The language of the ordinance does allow for this. The ordinance language states, “Hotel projects for which an application has already been submitted and deemed complete by the Planning Department as of the effective date of this ordinance shall be exempt from the provisions of this ordinance.”
Because of this allowance in the ordinance, the Hotel Healdsburg Residences project does not need to obtain a CUP, the five-room restriction does not apply, the hotel rooms aren’t required to be located above or behind lobby/retail space and parking is not required by ordinance to be provided on site.
Still, multiple planning commissioners voiced during a Jan. 25 planning commission workshop for the project that the design and scope of the project is too out of scale with the surrounding architecture and should have more design elements that compliment the small-town feel of downtown.
Commissioner Phil Luks said his main concern with the project is the height of the building on the corner in relation to surrounding buildings and said he’d like to see the building set back. Regarding the public plaza idea, he said project elements such as this are often featureless blank spaces.
He added that it would be helpful if the applicant installed story poles, wooden 2x4s and 4x4s that are installed on proposed project sites in order to give people an idea of how the building would look and what its footprint would look like.
Commissioner Howard Brunner said he likes the project in general and what it could be, but is concerned about the vines. Since it would take time for the vines to grow on the building, he’d like to see some facade treatment in order to make the facades more attractive.
He also said the design of the buildings themselves seemed to be too “straight up and down,” and was not in favor of taking away the parking spaces for the proposed plaza area.
Commissioner Conor McKay agreed with much of what his colleagues said. The other two commissioners, Carrie Hunt and Jerry Eddinger, were absent.
Commission Vice Chair Vesna Breznikar said she thinks the project should be sized down to three stories and that the project does not follow certain design guidelines related to maintaining small-town character. She said while the design is beautiful and modern, it doesn’t fit with the design context of Healdsburg and is more befitting for a large city such as San Francisco.
“These (proposed) buildings look like towers and they look blocky and monolithic. The height and the design don’t reflect Healdsburg in any way. In terms of sustainability, I think the pool is sort of a slap in the face for us who’ve had to cut down our water usage by 40%,” Brezinkar said.
During public comment, community members emphasized that they believed the proposal is geared too much toward tourism.
“This is just another example of what I call carmelization of Healdsburg,” said Ronald Hodges, referring to the popular tourist destination Carmel-by-the-Sea. “The city is becoming a place for tourists and this (the hotel) is going to become an extension of that. It seems like it really doesn’t serve the community, except maybe the people that are extremely wealthy and want to go there.”
Resident Merrilyn Joyce echoed Hodges’ comments.
“Why do you think this is good for community? As a resident, the community I’m familiar with is shocked and outraged. We thought that the ordinance prohibited these kinds of hotels, but hours after that ordinance was signed this project was squeezed through,” Joyce said.
Resident Quincey Imhoff also had concerns about the project “being grandfathered in despite the ordinance,” and said many feel there are too many hotels in town.
Local business owner Katina Knapp said she is concerned about all of the city’s attention on tourists and not on the community and said we need to keep businesses local.
A few commenters such as Alan Cohen and Jonathan Pearlman said they did like the design of the hotel and how the project was broken down into three buildings.
Petrone said the development team will review all of the commissioner and resident comments. He said they hope to do some on-site public open houses and additional community events to garner more feedback and design input.
The item will return to the planning commission at a future date for further consideration by the commission.
