Center Sebastopol

editor: Our community inquiry into the possibilities in the
Northeast Area took us to our easterly border, where we
contemplated a “new city” of up to four-story height built in the
flood plain next to the Laguna.
From that long process came several valuable insights. There are
other asphalted properties in town. These properties lie above the
flood plain. They have undetermined capacity for a variety of uses.
They are located nearer the downtown core and closer to our
geographic center. The City owns these properties outright.
These properties are the large lots on South Main Street, North
High Street, and South High Street, along with the smaller lot in
the theater complex across from The Plaza. For years, they have
been used exclusively for car storage during the daytime and early
evening, and left empty through the night. They are referred to as
our City parking lots: the downtown parking lot between Round Table
Pizza and the Chamber of Commerce; the Library parking lot; and the
parking lot across from the Vet’s Auditorium.
Our community has the opportunity to develop our own land —
these single story use parking lots to suit ourselves. The work
ahead involves brainstorming about our needs and wants, determining
which of those can be accommodated on the physical land, finding
funding, and seeing our own project[s] to completion.
The City Council supported this new line of inquiry in its 2009
Goal Setting and the Community Development Agency committed $20,000
in its 2009 budget for limited consulting services. The preliminary
tasks remain the volunteer work of our citizens.
Council Member Guy Wilson and I have volunteered to hold Town
Hall Meetings this Fall to start our community work examining the
potential of these properties for in-fill development in the City
Center. We have set a series of meetings to be held in the City
Hall Conference Room on:
• Wednesday, Sept. 23, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.;
• Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.;
• Wednesday, Oct. 7, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.;
• Wednesday, Oct. 14, 10 a.m. to noon;
• Thursday, Oct. 22, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.;
• Tuesday, Oct. 27, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
We have staggered the meeting dates and times over a six week
period to be available to as many citizens as possible. Please
attend a meeting and bring your answers to these questions: what
does our community need and what does our community want to have
located in the center of our City?
If we can formulate a list of needs and wants, we can use the
consultant fees to understand how the capacity of the individual
lots, as configured, can support our needs and wants. Once we know
what fits on the land, then we face the challenges of finding
funding and of turning our vision into reality.
Join us in this new effort.
Sarah Glade Gurney
Sebastopol Mayor