By Jon Eisenberg
Measure O, which will be on the Nov. 5 ballot, would ease restrictions on new housing construction imposed by Healdsburg’s Growth Management Ordinance (GMO) by creating zones of exclusion from the GMO. But that’s not the whole story.
Separate and apart from Measure O, the City Council intends to increase the city zoning code’s existing density limits once Measure O passes. This density boost—which won’t require voter approval—could expose the city’s downtown core to future construction of up to 404 dwelling units in a part of downtown where multi-family housing developers are already acquiring properties.
The city’s March 2024 Downtown Housing Capacity Study, which carries the names of all five City Councilmembers, recommends a fourfold density boost from 16 to 65 dwelling-units-per-acre in the city’s Downtown Commercial district. On June 3, Councilmember Chris Herrod said the City Council views such density increases as “an important auxiliary” to Measure O—a “priority” that “we’re hoping to tackle and it may take a year or whatever.”
Since then, four council members have refused to commit to rejecting or substantially reducing the recommended 65-dwelling-units-per-acre. Only Councilmember Ariel Kelley has made that commitment. Those refusals speak louder than empty talking points like “barely possible,” “worst-case scenario” and “extremely unlikely.” Plainly this recommendation remains on the table, notwithstanding noncommittal reassurances that it has not—which could just mean not yet—been “adopted” or “accepted.”
Added Acres
During the June 3 City Council meeting, the council quickly seized on a last-minute proposal by soon-to-be Planning Commissioner Jonathan Pearlman to add the block bounded by Center, Piper, East and North streets to Measure O’s Healdsburg Avenue North exclusion zone.
Oddly, there was no discussion of the potential consequences of this action. No council member asked city staff to analyze potential consequences, and nobody on city staff offered to do so.
A 65-dwelling-units-per-acre density boost would yield a capacity of 220 dwelling units at 415-455 Center St. (the Mitchell Center buildings, from CVS to the former Raven Film Center), 125 dwelling units at 424-450 Center St. (where Casa de Mole and Shelton’s are) and 59 dwelling units at 409-441 East St. (including Redwood Family Dermatology and other businesses)—for a total of 404 dwelling units. Imagine the potential for afflicting the city’s downtown core with overdevelopment and a resulting street-parking crunch.
High-density developers have already acquired portions of a nearly three-acre swath of contiguous properties east of Center Street. San Francisco multi-family housing developer Urban Green Investments, which is part of a larger conglomerate called Cornerstone Holdings, has purchased the parcel at 436-440 Center St. A San Francisco developer with the opaque moniker “Jo Noe LLC” has purchased the parcel at 450 Center St. Other parcels in that swath have been held for decades by aging local residents and are ripe for the picking.
The Campaign
Meanwhile, Measure O is being touted by a campaign committee called “Yes on O.” Planning Commissioner Alex Wood, whose father is Assemblymember Jim Wood, is assistant treasurer of Yes on O. On Aug. 8, Yes on O received $5,000 from a campaign committee that Assemblymember Wood uses to finance ballot measure campaigns.
That committee, in turn, is largely funded by the California Apartment Association (CAA), which has contributed $43,500 to Assemblymember Wood’s committee since 2020.
The CAA represents developers of, and investors in, multi-family housing—on whom Measure O and the recommended density boost would bestow lucrative business opportunities. In just the past two years, the CAA has spent $64 million statewide on ballot measures that support its agenda.
At the same time, the city has signed a $62,000 contract with public relations firm CliffordMoss to “deliver winning results” by “building the right strategy” for Measure O, including “a listening strategy for opinion leader engagement,” “talking points,” and an expenditure of “up to $30,000” for “two mailers to all voter households” and “digital graphics for City online social media use.”
Look for a coming blitz of city-funded and CAA-backed campaign materials on Measure O.
This measure will completely destroy any remaining “small town charm” or historic character in the downtown area, not to mention making an already fraught parking situation even more impossible. There is no guarantee that any of this housing will be “affordable”, especially considering the corporate backers who have already created havoc in other towns and have several lawsuits pending for non-payment to trades.
When will our City Council begin having some concern for the full time citizens of Healdsburg and their families and small businesses?
Agree
The answer to your final question is, “Not today.”
Notice that there is no one taking credit for the Lower Your Water Bill with Measure O sign. The City Council who put Measure O on the ballot aren’t talking. It would seem odd that the same Council that just voted for a huge rate increase would have the audacity to claim rates would go down with Measure O when we are looking at their approved 33% increase over the next two years. The only way our rates could go down is if we use less water due to rationing from Measure O unlimited building. You cannot trust the backers of Measure O. Please Vote No.
Agree. Our aging infrastructure and lack of water and sewage to supply new homes should be carefully analyzed before approving any new projects in Healdsburg. How soon people forget about the water rationing we endured a couple of years ago. Also, with that being said, no provisions were made for seniors or low income families to have discounted rates when the water rate hikes were approved. Our City Council needs to protect our citizens and city so it doesn’t become a tourist mecca for the rich. We can never go back once the new development here begins. Protect Healdsburg and vote for those who will protect it.
My name is Jim Brush and I paid for the Lower Your Water Bill signs all with my own money. No outside support. There is a good reason why the 5 City Council members all voted to support Measure O after very many hours of public input. It is because it makes good sense. They were voted in by the citizens of Healdsburg because they reflect the values of our City, not outside influences. Vote YES On O, it makes sense and will reduce your water bill, and sewer, and fit in nicely into our town. Read more at the City of Healdsburg website.
A: I didn’t know it was “our city.” My wife and I only own our house and lot.
B: I didn’t know there were “values of our City.” Do you mean property values?
C: If Measure O doesn’t reduce our water and sewage bills, will you leave town?
Why would I believe anyone who says that Measure O will lower my water bill and why would I trust a City Council who said to expect my monthly water bill to go up by just $35. Measure O is a money grab that will do nothing to bring affordable housing to Healdsburg. It will bring large-scale development.
The City Council should spend its time finding a steady, plentiful, and cheap source of water for our town. Thanks to a lawsuit from the Russian River folks, we already have an expensive sewage treatment plant. Does the sewage treatment plant have plenty of excess capacity? Humans do produce excrement every day. Some people in town work hard at it.
The Zoning Genie can’t be put back into the bottle. Once the City Council went into the central planning business and abandoned free markets, the current discord in Healdsburg was inevitable.
I moved back to California from Illinois to be closer to my aging mother. My wife and I moved to Sonoma County three years ago because it was too expensive to live near my mother in Palo Alto. We rented the first floor of a duplex on Fitch Mountain because it was the cheapest thing we could find, and we were then lucky enough, later, to buy a fixer-upper on the north end of town. We love Healdsburg, and we’re good, active citizens here. We love all the music, the farmer’s market, and the locals (and we’re super excited about the new movie theater . . . coming soon). But I think if Healdsburg wants to encourage more younger residents like us to move to town, it needs to create more housing for people like us. I’m not talking about subsidized housing, I’m talking about market-rate housing that people with decent salaries can afford. I share a lot of my older neighbors’ concerns about rich tech people taking over the town (on Fitch Mountain, we lived near a Facebook executive who owned two houses on the mountain and one in town). I think it’s a valid point. I grew up in a town like that. The solution, though, isn’t to resist new housing, but to provide more housing for people who can keep the town vital and vibrant – people who might make a decent salary but aren’t extremely wealthy. These are people who would share the town’s long-standing values, people who might want to have families here, send their kids to school here, maybe even work here – people who might inspire more affordable restaurants in town to open, enliven the culture, and continue to make the town the special place that it is. As the population ages out of town, older retirees and rich tech people will be the only ones buying houses here, as most of the houses here are so expensive (full disclosure – my wife and I aren’t wealthy. We have remote-work, non-profit sector jobs with decent salaries). I understand the concern about water too, but I think denser housing without lawns is a lot better than many of the houses I see around town with lawns (still?) and elaborately irrigated gardens – those are the water culprits. As far as parking goes, I’m not so worried about that either. My wife and I ride our bikes downtown. And when the SMART train finally gets this far north (fingers crossed), a new, working population will be able to commute to work by train, and those tourists visiting town won’t need a car to come to Healdsburg. And my understanding is that most of the new housing will be near me, on the south and north ends of town, not downtown. I’m ok with that. I welcome it, and frankly I would prefer the city to make these decisions over the state (which, as I understand it, would force the city to create new housing anywhere and everywhere if we don’t start building). Maybe I’m just being selfish, but along with all the wonderful people we’ve met and befriended here (many of them 20 or 30 years older than us), I would like to see more people like me. I will be voting for measure O.