Last week’s City Council meeting, and the buildup to it, received a fair amount of regional coverage, including in this publication and a local television news spot. At issue: a revision of the city’s municipal code to limit “formula business” in the downtown business area and to prohibit “big-box stores” or “outlet malls” from locating anywhere in the city.
This was not a new discussion, however: the city’s General Plan includes exactly those prohibitions already, although the limitations to formula stores addresses those directly facing the Plaza. Furthermore, in 2011 the city set off down the path to formalize those restrictions—including the ban on big-box stores and outlet malls—in the municipal code, going so far as to commission and receive input from the Planning Commission.
The results of that study and its recommendations, however, disappeared: For a reason no one can now determine or recall, the proposed ordinance was never brought before the council for ratification, and the discussion died.
Until last August, that is, when several local downtown businesses—including Rete and Ereloom—objected to the appearance of a Faherty’s beachwear store at an address on Healdsburg Avenue just steps from the Plaza, since they carried the Faherty line in their shops.
Faherty’s—with its 60-some stores nationwide—met the common definition of a formula retail store, a store that follows a formula: defined as a business having a “standardized array of services and/or merchandise, employee uniforms, decor, facade design, signage, color scheme, trademark or service mark, name, or similar standardized features; and which causes it to be substantially identical to ten or more other businesses in the U.S.”
Not So Unique
However, while that definition is almost exactly the one used in the new ordinance passed by the City Council on March 3, it is in fact the verbiage used by the City of Sonoma, which in 2012 adopted similar limits to those proposed for Healdsburg.
Efforts to control formula retail are not unknown in city planning: in Nevada City, all formula stores, chain stores and franchises are prohibited in all zones. And San Francisco’s Van Ness Avenue is under a decades-old ban on chains or formula stores—although that city is actively considering lifting that ban, to rejuvenate the struggling corridor.
In Sonoma, the ordinance initially led to some tension between formula stores and the city, but the ordinance prevailed: Peet’s Coffee, a popular alternative to Starbuck’s, had to open its new cafe a block away from the Sonoma Plaza. Lifestyle kitchenware shop Williams-Sonoma was likewise pushed outside of the city’s Plaza Retail Overlay Zone—despite the brand’s association with the city itself.
What’s In, What’s Out
The original no-formula zone, as outlined in the General Plan, was around the Plaza and affected only storefronts facing the park. The revised formula-free zone, proposed by senior planner Ellen McDowell at the December City Council meeting, grew that zone by one city block in all directions. It includes a wider area bordered by Mill Street, Healdsburg Avenue, North and East streets.
At that Dec. 2 meeting, public comment and councilmembers’ questions expanded the exclusion to include the “north side of North Street,” the block face including Taste of Tea and the Raven Theater. Proposals at both that City Council meeting and the Planning Commission meeting a couple of months later to expand the exclusion zone all the way to Piper Street were ultimately rebuffed, and the new exclusion zone was passed by the council last week.
Along with the downtown limits on formula stores, the new ordinance formalizes the longstanding ban on big-box stores (think Walmart) and outlet malls (think Petaluma) throughout the city. Such a ban does little to impinge on consumer opportunities, as Walmart, Home Depot and other similar big boxes can be found just down the road in Windsor.
Nor does the localized ban affect franchise operations elsewhere in the city—such as Vineyard Plaza, replete with formula stores including Verizon, UPS, Carl’s Jr., Subway and Safeway.
Finally, the new ordinance includes a built-in escape valve: If too many empty storefronts emerge in coming years and/or a specific business need is not being met by local retail, an applicant can seek a Conditional Use Permit from the city to open, despite the embargo.
“We’re happy we got somewhere with it. There’s at least a foundation now,” said Merete Wimmer, owner of the Matheson Street shops Ereloom and Rete. Her complaints to the council and city manager initiated the conversation and eventual ordinance.
“I feel good that we now have something concrete, because before I felt like they didn’t really go by the guidelines,” she said, referring to the guidance in the General Plan. “Now, okay, we got the ordinance, and it’s a good part of what we wanted. So I think we take that and say thank you.”
