Housing exemptions cut from community separators

County planners recommend not allowing affordable housing projects in designated greenbelts
Sonoma County Planning Commissioners agreed to keep things simple for voters this November when the county’s community separator ballot measure comes up for renewal.
A proposed exemption to allow development of affordable housing projects on land designated as part of a rural community separator should be left off the ballot for now, said commissioners in their recommendations to County Supervisors.
“This is not the place for affordable housing development,” said Third District (Santa Rosa) Planning Commissioner Paula Cook at a June 30 hearing on what the proposed ballot measure should say.
Cook’s fellow commissioners agreed the proposal to allow affordable housing development on land that’s supposed to be protected as a buffer against urban sprawl would create confusion and might turn voters off to the whole community separator concept that overwhelmingly won approval in a vote 20 years ago.
County officials, open space protection activists, landowners and developers are now all keeping an eye on the evolution of the community separator policy voters approved in 1996. The measure requires voter approval for any land-use changes that increase “density or intensity” of development in the designated community separator areas around Sonoma County’s nine incorporated cities. Agricultural development is exempt.
Voters this November will be asked to reaffirm the existing protections and add nearly 50,000 acres to the community separator designation intended to prevent urban sprawl from spreading across the county’s scenic rural landscape.
The existing ordinance up for renewal in November “is intended to continue to give a higher level of assurance” that community separators in the Sonoma County General Plan will be maintained “and that their land use designations will not be changed to increase the allowed density or intensity of development,” says the ballot language recommended last week. “Community Separators implement a long-standing policy of the Sonoma County General Plan that the physical development of the county should be city-centered.”
Besides the affordable housing component recommended to be cut from the ballot measure, commissioners recommended against adding some parcels of land in Sonoma Valley and along the Highway 101 corridor into the community separator category — at least until further landowner outreach takes place.
They agreed with First District Commissioner Dick Fogg that November’s ballot measure should focus on renewing existing protections and not get sidetracked on adding areas where proposed changes may not have been adequately reviewed and could spark opposition particularly from agricultural landowners.
Fogg cautioned against alarming voters by “Adding something at the last minute that hasn’t been vetted.”
The idea of additional protections, mainly along the Highway 101 corridor near Petaluma, Cotati and Rohnert Park “needs more outreach,” to make sure property owners know what’s being proposed said Fogg.
“I don’t want to surprise people,” said Fogg. “I want to see this pass. I want to see it continue,” said Fogg regarding the county’s rural land protections.
“Nobody really wants urban sprawl,” agreed Fourth District Commissioner Willie Lamberson, who joined his fellow commissioners in recommending against asking voters in November to add community separator designations between Cotati and Penngrove and around the city of Rohnert Park until further study.
The commission’s recommendation to leave out the exemption for affordable housing drew a no vote from Fifth District Commissioner Tom Lynch, who said the affordable housing exemption would offer an added option for dealing with the county’s affordable housing crunch.
“I wanted to see affordable housing as a possibility” in the ballot measure, said Lynch, after the vote. The exemption for affordable residential housing to be developed next to existing city borders and served by city sewer and water facilities could provide a place to build some of the low-cost housing the county now desperately lacks, said Lynch.
“We’ve got to reinvent how we do housing,” said Lynch, a building contractor who ran unsuccessfully for Fifth District County Supervisor this year.
Lynch said he intended his no vote as a message to county supervisors, who will review the planning commission’s recommendation next Tuesday, July 19. “I did it to pressure the board,” to ease housing permit costs and allow flexibility for affordable options such as more second dwelling units in existing houses, said Lynch.
But by adding too many new components to the community separator ordinance on the ballot in November, Lynch agreed, “We could see the whole thing go down.”
The ballot measure now goes to the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on July 19 for approval. Voters are expected to support the community separator designations that would extend the existing protections for another 30 years.
Existing community separator borders are mapped out around Petaluma, Rohnert Park and Santa Rosa. They’re also in place between Sebastopol and Santa Rosa where the Laguna de Santa Rosa floodplain also serves as a natural barrier to suburban sprawl.
Windsor has a separator to distinguish it from Larkfield, and there is another between the town of Windsor and the city of Healdsburg. No separators exist or are proposed north of Healdsburg, although some lands south of Cloverdale are protected from development through their designation as a “Scenic Landscape Unit.”