In last week’s commentary a local group called on the city council to enact an immediate moratorium on hotels and tasting rooms while developing a plan for “Sustainable Tourism.” A follow up email threatened a ballot initiative to affect the moratorium. While I believe managing tourism is valid the suggested moratorium is misguided and dangerous. Full disclosure; I am an architect, former planning commissioner, responsible for the design of many downtown buildings and consulting on the new project at NuForest. So, take my comments with a grain of salt as they could be driven by economic self-interest.
Moratoriums are infrequent and employed in emergency situations such as halting building permits due to a sewer plant hitting its capacity. Addressing land use issues, which are complex with both intended and unintended consequences, are best left to a deliberative process.
Balancing resident and visitor needs is one of the guiding principles in our general plan. An example of how this has been carried out; Healdsburg has regulated the number of tasting rooms for the past decade and currently limits them with a guideline of one per block face.
You may recall last year a tasting room was turned down where Powell’s used to be located due to public comment and planning commission concerns about overconcentration. We don’t need a moratorium to make informed decisions; just dialog and common sense. At a recent city council/planning commission joint meeting the council gave staff direction to work with the commission on tightening up tasting room regulations. We have a very open council that listens to the concerns expressed by our community; our system works without threats and ballot measures.
We all know that Healdsburg has been discovered. We are the center of one of the most famous wine regions in the world, have fabulous restaurants, a classic plaza, interesting retail shops and galleries, great weather, have received national press and are easily accessible from the Bay Area. That is why people visit, not for our hotels.
If we don’t provide adequate rooms, more hotels will be built just outside Healdsburg in Windsor, Cloverdale and the county (think Salvation Army, River Rock, the Cloverdale resort, etc.) to serve our visitors. Hotels built in Healdsburg provide parking with visitors generally walking around town. The city collects the highest transient occupancy tax (TOT) in the state on hotel rooms, which pays for many of the services citizens demand. Visitors that stay outside Healdsburg will add traffic to our streets and impact our parking while we lose the TOT.
While on the surface one might think limiting hotel rooms will limit visitors, it wouldn’t. Further, we just voted to increase the TOT by 2 percent, with those funds going to affordable housing. With the state’s dissolution of redevelopment, we need that money to leverage our affordable housing programs. A moratorium on hotels would mean less money for affordable housing, worse traffic, less parking, with no real impact on the number of visitors. Unintended consequences.
And let’s not lose sight of the fact that, while we have seen a bump in the number of visitors, we still have quite a diverse economy. A 2012 study of our local economy showed: retail 16.5 percent, manufacturing 15 percent, professional services 10.7 percent, construction 9.3 percent, bars and restaurants 7.5 percent, with five more sectors before hotels came in at 2.4 percent. Many residents may not have been here in the 1970s when the local economy was in dire straits; no parks and rec department, high vacancy around the plaza and many more bars. Economies are fickle and outside forces regularly arise (think pension changes, state mandates, etc.). We must remain vigilant about protecting our revenues.
I support a study of sustainable tourism. Tourism is not going away and we should manage it in a way that benefits our town and supports our local businesses without sacrificing what makes Healdsburg great. But let our city leaders proceed in a deliberate fashion with adequate study in an open and transparent process, rather than under threats of simplistic ballot initiatives and misguided moratoriums that would tie our elected officials’ hands and damage our community.
Alan Cohen is a Healdsburg resident.
