City’s plan includes addressing affordable housing, renewable energy, updating parks
The city of Healdsburg’s ambitious strategic plan for the next five years addresses hot-button issues, such as affordable housing, economic diversity and environmental stewardship.
City staff unveiled the 2020-25 Strategic Plan draft at a special Healdsburg City Council work session on Dec. 2.
A strategic plan is a significant city document because it acts as a road map for what the city wants to address and accomplish within the next five years, based on community input.
City Manager David Mickaelian said the community input process started in May of 2019.
“Over the course of this process, we had 11 facilitated focus groups comprised of community members representing various interests. We had three specific topic speaker series. We had individuals present information for the community to really absorb,” Mickaelian said.
The city also conducted an economic study and public surveys and held pop-up information booths at various city events and public workshops conducted in English and Spanish.
As a result, the city came up with seven initiatives, each driven by their own set of goals, for the 2020-25 strategic plan.
Overall, councilmembers offered positive feedback on the lengthy plan; however, there was a lot of wordsmithing and discussion on how initiatives should be worded and what could be added to make them more well-rounded.
A closer look at initiatives
Strategic initiative No. 1, “Establish proactive land use policies to promote economic diversity and managed growth,” is supported by five goals:
• Complete South Area Entry Plan.
• Zoning and density study of downtown.
• Review policies for consistency.
• Promote economic diversity.
• Review city’s circulation and connectivity policies.
“The idea of this is to look at long-range planning documents that will be able to support economic development and increase the tax space. It also includes diversifying the business mix, and looking at programs that make the city very business friendly,” explained Healdsburg city staff.
Councilmember Evelyn Mitchell wanted to revisit the focus of the first initiative. She said she thought the idea of maintaining economic stability was lost and that it looked more like a land-use code initiative.
She said “promoting economic diversity and sustainability” would be better wording instead of “Establish Proactive Land Use Policies to Promote Economic Diversity and Managed Growth.”
Councilmember Shaun McCaffery agreed.
Vice Mayor Leah Gold pointed out that the point of the initiative is to focus on land use code and zoning — tools that can help further economic diversity.
“Zoning is a tool to achieve those goals,” Gold said.
Councilmember Joe Naujokas proposed new wording for the main proposed new wording for the main goal of initiative one, “The city shall explore policies, land use changes and programs to support these efforts.”
The wording for the initiative itself was also swapped to, “Establish proactive policies and programs to continue to promote economic diversity and sustainable growth.”
Strategic initiative No. 2, “Environmental Stewardship,” has five goals:
• Develop city policies to promote city fleet electrification.
• Exceed Senate Bill 100’s timeline for providing carbon-free and renewable energy sources.
• Prepare and design a city electric system for transportation electrification.
• Increase landfill diversion and implement zero waste initiatives as part of city operations.
• Continue to develop programs to prepare for climate change.
In regard to electrification and renewable energy, councilmembers said that it would be good to focus on incentivizing renewable energy technologies or offering subsidies when possible. They said the city should be aware that some people may not be able to be climate-forward because of associated costs.
Strategic initiative No. 3, “Address affordable housing,” has four goals:
• Implement housing action plan.
• Identify funding mechanisms.
• Preserve existing rental units.
• Evaluate options to amend the Growth Management Ordinance (GMO).
Gold asked if the GMO goal is even needed since council is already considering a GMO amendment. Mickaelian said this goal is listed because of the unknown development potential of the South Area Entry Plan.
With this initiative, councilmembers also wanted to add a sentence that noted that they would work on regional collaboration to help local homeless programs.
Strategic initiative No. 4, “Infrastructure and facilities,” has five goals:
• Implement capital improvement program.
• Develop a long-term capital replacement plan for public facilities.
• Address deferred maintenance of city infrastructure and facilities.
• Maximize efficiency of utility systems.
• Improve local streets and roads.
Strategic initiative No. 5, “Provide effective governance,” has six goals:
• Attract and retain an appropriately sized and skilled workforce.
• Maintain proactive communication with residents and businesses.
• Conduct community survey to gauge support for extending Measure V. (Editor’s note: Measure V is a half-cent sales tax that helps fund city services and programs.)
• Maintain transparent reporting and budgeting process.
• Develop staff wellness program.
• Develop staff succession plan.
Naujokas said the second goal in the initiative should be reworded to say, “Maintain proactive engagement and communication with residents and businesses.”
Strategic initiative No. 6, “Public safety,” has five goals:
• Maintain excellent police services.
• Ensure emergency preparedness.
• Explore technological enhancements.
• Maintain excellent fire services.
• Resources.
Strategic initiative No. 7, “Provide resident-driven community services,” has six goals:
• Complete design and construction of park at Montage Resort.
• Complete Badger Park redevelopment and access improvements for Fitch Mountain Park and Open Space Preserve.
• Improve access to the Russian River that reinforces it as a community asset.
• Support the outcomes of the Arts and Culture Master Planning Process to enhance the role of arts in the community.
• Continue to develop and enhance community-based multi-generational recreation programs, services and special events.
• Determine the future direction of the Healdsburg Community Center and ensure future funding of the center.
Naujokas asked about expanding volunteer and stewardship work opportunities as one of the initiatives’ goals and staff pointed out that the city did hire a volunteer coordinator, Donna O’Brien.
Resident feedback
There were several public comments during the work session, many of which focused on the importance of economic diversity and environmental stewardship.
Resident Deb Kravitz pointed out that a lot of the community businesses are related to tourism and the wine industry and urged the city to seek broader range of businesses.
“I think having viticulture related and hospitality related, they are really intertwined and are all part of the same basket. While it has been great for the community and continues to be great for the community, there is no guarantee that it will be. So if we want to have a long-term sustainable and resilient economy, we do need to explicitly and expressly continue to diversify beyond that to add to the economy,” she said.
She added that a greater diversity of businesses would have the added bonus of bringing in higher wage jobs.
Another resident, Richard Burg, spoke on the environment initiative. He said the second initiative, should really be labeled as a climate initiative.
“When we think of environmental stewardship we think of ‘Where does our storm water go?’ ‘What are we doing with our tree canopy?’ and ‘Are we protecting the river?’ But the focus of almost every one of those elements under environmental stewardship really is focused on issues related to climate change. It seems to me that that would be a positive step for the community to see that you are thinking about climate change. Relabeling that would be a powerful step,” Burg said.
In terms of community engagement Burg suggested a digital platform where residents could communicate with the city.
Resident Tim Unger agreed with Burg.
“Public outreach is more than just distributing information and yelling out the window, it is getting people down in the street to come and have a conversation,” Unger said.
Next step
Now that city staff has direction from council on what to change and edit in the draft, the next step will be to bring a more polished draft to a city council meeting this month.
“We have had a pretty significant process… the hope is at the next meeting we will be able to adopt these initiatives,” Mickaelian said.
The next Healdsburg City Council meeting is Dec. 16 at 6 p.m. at the City Hall Council Chamber, 401 Grove Street, in Healdsburg.
To view the draft strategic plan in its entirety, visit: http://healdsburgca.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1925&Inline=True.
