Long-term process will occur over series of special public meetings
After a series of SDAT meetings, community work groups and talks that span several months of 2018, the analysis and study of Healdsburg’s most pertinent issues, goals and their solutions by the Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) and Healdsburg 2040 have lurched closer to reality.
The city of Healdsburg announced last week that they would work to integrate the report’s findings into the city’s strategic plan.
The announcement came during a Tuesday, Jan. 22 city council meeting in City Manager David Mickaelian’s report.
The in-depth, 60-page SDAT report is broken down into various sections, including social fabric, arts and culture, connectivity, housing and master plan.
“We want to have an engaged and facilitated discussion on what the importance of the report is,” Mickaelian said. “We want to set a tentative date for a special meeting to roll out what the SDAT report is, and to have a chance for subcommittees, council members, residents and staff to speak together.”
After the series of meetings, city staff would take those key findings and a consultant would come back with a drafted report, which would then be presented to the city council.
“At the end of the day, the things that rise to the level of importance to the community and the council will be heard in meetings and those things will be brought forward in the report and council would adopt it at a later meeting, which will drive the strategic plan for the next five years,” Mickaelian explained.
Tim Unger, one of the SDAT work group leads, is thrilled about the integration.
“For the city to accept and incorporate the findings of the SDAT represents a significant step forward,” he said. “It creates a pathway for the dozens and dozens of people who have been working together to understand and prioritize those recommendations to enter into a constructive dialogue with the city.”
And while there are still elements of the report for the city to integrate and work on, Mickaelian reported that the city and SDAT members have already started to meet, plus, there are a few projects taking place that fall under the aforementioned report categories.
“(Healdsburg Community Services) Director Mark Themig is currently working on the arts master plan and the kickoff is underway. As far as housing goes and the affordable housing master plan, we will be beginning that process in the near future with regards to city facilities. The North Entry Plan, which is currently in progress, will also have housing components,” Mickaelian said.
As far as the river, parks and the plaza, the city manager said Themig is planning Montage Park and is narrowing down consultants for the project.
Some project the strategic plan to be complete sometime during the summer season, whereas the results of the strategic plan and the SDAT solutions may take longer to come to fruition.
Ariel Kelley, an SDAT work group lead, said one of the reasons they decided to dub the integration project Healdsburg 2040 is because it is meant to be a long-term process with time to make thoughtful decisions and take stock in what is being done.
“Part of why we set 2040 as a time horizon is instead of a 36-year-long process with the RUDAT (A similar study led by the community in the ’80s that outlined the future of Healdsburg), we can pick up our heads and ask, ‘How’s it going? Are we on the right track? How did we do?’” Kelley said.
When the American Institute of Architects (AIA) conducted the RUDAT, it worked to create more tourism and hotels, a way to put Healdsburg on the map and help improve city financials, according to Kelley.
“The RUDAT did just that. However, a lot of citizens say it is too much, so with a shorter 20-year process we can get the opportunity for the city and the SDAT team to pause and ask if they are going about it the right way,” Kelley said.
To Kelley, connectivity and housing is key.
“I think in the last decade the city has done a good job in creating park infrastructure, but you have to get in a car to get (to these places) to recreate. We should connect those dots for people to be able to recreate from one place to another,” she said. “This is just a great intersection point in time because we have the report and the city’s strategic plan process.”
And it’s not just SDAT members excited about this strategic plan and report fusion.
Following Mickaelian’s report, council members said they were excited about the prospect of working together with the community and SDAT members to hash out a plan that sets the city on its track for the future.
Councilmember Joe Naujokas said of the strategic plan announcement, “This is really exciting. This is such a wonderfully constructive way for our citizens to engage with the city and help steer the direction of the city … It’s one of the best things I’ve seen with community engagement.”
To learn more about the SDAT process and its findings, check out the Tribune’s previous article about the report here: https://bit.ly/2ThpusZ
To view our ongoing series of articles analyzing each section’s findings, visit the following links: https://bit.ly/2Uu3awL, https://bit.ly/2WsSLD9, https://bit.ly/2RV9yA1.
