Special needs children’s activity program starts Saturday
EDITOR: This Saturday marks the start of the winter season of the Special Needs Activities Program presented by the city of Healdsburg Parks and Recreation department in conjunction with Rotary Cares, a combination of the Cloverdale, Windsor and both Healdsburg Rotary Clubs.
The program is open to all special needs children between the ages of 5 and 20, and there is no cost to the parent or caregiver. The various activities are designed to improve spatial and motor skills, body control and coordination, peer interaction, plus other functions in a fun and welcoming environment.
All sessions will be held at the Healdsburg Community Services Department, 1557 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg. For more information, please contact Angelica Garcia at
ag*****@ci.us
or call 707-431-3186. We hope to see you there.
Robert Redner
Cloverdale Rotary Club
Cloverdale
Hotels and housing
EDITOR: The planning commission met last week and approved the Replay Mixed Use Project for a 53-room hotel and 206 residential units. They did not recommend more middle income and affordable housing to meet the city’s targeted housing goals. It was very disappointing. Approximately 146 units (70 percent) will be high-end market rate homes, speculated to be over $1 million each. This will encourage out-of-town and second-home buyers. About 80 percent of the residents will not be able to afford these units. They also recommended 40 affordable units (less than 80 percent median income), and 22 middle-income units (120 to 160 percent median income) — very few in the big picture of 208 units. What has been the recent community discussion on affordable and middle-income housing? In the past two years there has been an emphasis on this type of housing by the city council, the community housing committee, ballot measures and other public processes. This is reflected as follows: Housing Action Plan, Measure P passage (more middle income rental units) city sponsored community survey (extreme concern on high housing costs), the SDAT (recommendations for affordable and middle income housing), and rejection of Measure N in 2016 (residents not wanting more market rate housing). Replay is well aware of all this. If the community wishes to encourage housing affordability and homes that are “affordable by design,” they need to be pro-active and write letters and show up. This is the largest proposed residential project since the late 1990’s with Parkland Farms. The developer is proposing a minimal number of affordable and middle income housing units. There are recommendations that Replay should provide another 20 to 40 middle-income units, especially since most of the market rate units (146) will likely cost over $1 million each and are unaffordable to most of the residents. They have a right to make a profit, but the city needs to tell them what also needs to be built in order to meet our housing goals and aspirations. The next step is for the city council to review this in March. All of the council members ran on pledges of more affordable housing. They have both a challenge and an obligation to help the City meet its housing goals with this 208-unit project. Let’s see what they can do. (Bruce Abramson is a member of the Community Housing Committee.)
Bruce Abramson
Healdsburg
