At the Feb. 2 Windsor Town Council meeting, council members will receive a presentation on accessory dwelling units, review the Climate Resilence Plan, receive a status report on the Keiser Park Master Plan Update and consider amendments to the municipal code regarding enforcement.
Presentation: Napa Sonoma ADU Center
The town council will receive a presentation from the Napa Sonoma ADU Center, a nonprofit that works with homeowners and public agencies to encourage the construction of accessory dwelling units (ADUs).
ADUs, formerly called “granny units,” are additional units that can be added to a residential property in a variety of forms, including as detached or attached units, or by renovating part of a home, such as a garage, to convert it into a separate unit. The construction of ADUs is being encouraged across the state, as municipalities recognize them as a quick and cost-effective way to increase housing availability.
The presentation slides included in the agenda report specify that ADUs benefit homeowners by providing financial security, while helping municipalities like the Town of Windsor meet their RHNA numbers. The Town of Windsor permitted 25 ADUs between 2016 and 2020, conducting only 6 final inspections in that same time frame.
Climate Resilience Plan
The engineering department will present a draft of the town’s Climate Resilience Plan to the council for comments or questions to be incorporated into the final plan.
According to the staff report, the plan has been in development for 18 months, and provides analysis and recommendations on how to enhance climate resilience in the community. The project began in May 2019, when the town was awarded an Adaptation Planning Grant from the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). The report contains potential resilience strategies and adaptation-related capital improvement projects “designed to support or enhance the resilience of community members, the town’s multi-modal transportation and critical infrastructure, buildings, environment and economy.”
“The Town of Windsor is on the front lines of the climate crisis, which is increasingly disrupting daily life,” the report reads, citing the Tubbs, Kincade and other wildfires and the recent droughts.
The plan acknowledges the importance of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while also preparing now for likely future impacts of climate change. “This Climate Resilience Plan builds on the town’s forward-thinking approach to wildfire preparedness, emergency response and land-use planning, all of which have been strengthened and improved in recent years,” it reads.
Status report: Keiser Park Master Plan Update
Consulting firm Gates + Associates (Gates) will present a status report on the town’s ongoing efforts to expand the boundaries and infrastructure of Keiser Park, in collaboration with the Windsor Unified School District (WUSD).
The project has been broken into four tasks, with the first task of data collection and review completed last July. The town has since acquired three private properties (450 Duncan Drive, 475 Ginny Drive and 635 Wall Street) to incorporate into the park.
The status report comes just before the staff and consultants begin working on the second task, community outreach and engagement, and the third task, preliminary site design and alternative selection. Work on the second task is expected to run from March through October, and work on the third will run from February to December. The actual preparation of the Keiser Park Master Plan Update including environmental reports will begin in January and end in May of 2023.
Following the status report, staff will finalize key stakeholder lists and interest groups, and begin to schedule engagement events as part of the second task.
Code enforcement ordinance
The town council will introduce and hold a first reading, by title only, for an ordinance that would amend the Windsor Municipal Code to improve the effectiveness of the town’s code enforcement program, in response to an uptick in code enforcement complaints and enforcement actions over the past five years.
The ordinance would add a section on “administrative citations,” which would allow staff to more efficiently issue citations for code violations for transitory violations such as smoking ordinance or parking violations, and another, which would provide framework for notifying property owners regarding code violations.
