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PrintGroup plans petition to limit hotels
Seeks 25-room limit
A local petition drive designed to limit hotel development in Sonoma was unveiled Monday at the Sonoma City Council meeting.
Speaking under “oral communications,” former mayor and retired bed and breakfast owner Larry Barnett announced that a group, called the Preserving Sonoma Committee, would be circulating petitions soon. The petitions, which can only be signed by registered voters living within the city limits of Sonoma, seek to put an initiative measure on the ballot that would stop the development of hotels larger than 25 rooms until the actual occupancy rate of existing hotels in Sonoma exceeds 80 percent. The occupancy rate is less than 65 percent now.
“Large commercial hotels and their substantial impacts on traffic, noise and crowding risk destroying unique small-town charm and character,” said Barnett. “This ballot measure, like Sonoma’s existing Growth Management Ordinance regulating the pace and size of large housing developments, requires linking future growth of large hotels and motels to measureable standards so that we do not overbuild.”
Barnett insisted the initiative measure is not focused specifically on the proposed Chateau Sonoma, a 59-room hotel project being planned by Sonoma developer Darius Anderson, a managing partner in Sonoma Media Investments, which owns the Index-Tribune. “It’s not about Chateau Sonoma,” Barnett said, “it’s a much bigger issue.”
Whether or not it is specifically targeted, Anderson’s project – which has dropped its French name and architectural style – is the only new hotel project currently making its way through the development process in Sonoma. Slated for the 100 block of West Napa Street, the project has been the subject of both praise and criticism since it was first brought to the public’s attention.
“We’ve worked with the community and made a series of changes to the project,” said Anderson. “Before people pass judgment, we want an opportunity to unveil all the changes. We believe we have addressed most of the criticisms and we think we’ve done a good job. I know we can’t please all the people, but we’ve heard them and addressed their concerns.”
A successful petition drive must collect signatures from 15 percent of registered voters to immediately qualify for a special election. If that happens, according to California election law, the City Council has the choice of either adopting the ordinance itself or of immediately ordering a special election, which must be scheduled within 88 to 103 days from the date a successful petition is reported. If only 10 percent of registered voters sign, the City Council may either adopt the ordinance or submit it to the voters at the next regular election, in this case Nov. 2014.
According to Debra Russotti, Sonoma County Election Services supervisor, there are currently 6,774 registered voters in Sonoma, which means 1,016 valid signatures would be required for a special election this fall.
Russotti estimated the cost of a special election at between $3 and $5 a voter, making the full cost of a special election range from $20,322 to $33,870.
If successful, the ballot initiative could halt development of the West Napa Street property, while allowing others, such as the expansion of the Inn at Sonoma and the rumored development of a hotel on the old Sonoma Truck and Auto site on south Broadway, provided they meet size restrictions.
Barnett said he believes there are additional properties large enough for hotel projects within the city limits even though they may be currently used for other businesses. He did not specify which properties he had in mind, but he insisted the ballot measure is needed now to protect Sonoma’s small town character.
”To me, as a resident, I don’t think of Sonoma as a tourist town,” said Barnett, a native of New York. “I think of it as home. I want to keep that homey feeling.” And he thinks that “feeling” is actually what draws tourists to Sonoma. “We’re trying to hold onto this for a few more years, to make Sonoma a refuge from the rest of the world.”
Members of the committee include Barnett, Marilyn Goode, Ed Clay, Bob Edwards, Will Shonbrun, Georgia Kelly, and Jerry Bernhaut. They are sponsoring an information and petition-signing event on April 21 from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Vintage House. Full text of the initiative is not yet available, but will be released on the group’s website at preservingsonoma.com.
Hoping to be as successful as the group that successfully opposed the Rosewood Development on Norrbom Road more than a decade ago, the group has chosen to call for a special election in the fall.
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I appreciate Pam Gibson's reasonably accurate account of my interview with her, but would like to clarify a couple of points. While I was indeed born and raised in New York, I left there 45 years ago for Northern California, spent four years residing in the Napa Valley and have lived in Sonoma for 23 years, well longer than I lived in New York. It was not mentioned that I served 12 years on the Sonoma City Council. My wife and I sold our Bed and Breakfast inn a decade ago, in 2003, but our 13 years of ownership and daily contact with guests provided great firsthand insight into why visitors like Sonoma and the dynamics of the lodging business in town.
Finally, and of greatest importance, is that the proposed initiative connects the city's annualized occupancy rate with the growth of visitor guest rooms, providing a rational statistical relationship between the two. In the absence of that, the lodging business in Sonoma will remain stuck in a cycle of chasing its own tail, requiring special funding to effectively increase overall occupancy while new hotel room construction simultaneously decreases it. This dynamic results in unsustainable growth, growing requests for public funds for promotion, continuous financial pressure on existing lodging operators and ultimately a town overbuilt with hotel rooms it can't adequately fill. Yes, it is hard to get rooms in September and October without planning in advance, but building to satisfy seasonal maximum demand is never healthy, whether its roads, retail stores or hotel rooms. This ballot measure will give Sonoma's residents the opportunity they deserve to lend their voice and vote directly to the question of how fast and how big Sonoma will grow going forward.
Well said. Thanks for taking taking up this issue which many Sonomans are very concerned about.....money isn't everything.
I learned only recently about the 59 room development at the 100 block of West Napa between 1st and 2nd streets in Sonoma. I can't believe this is already in the works. What a disaster. The merchants are told to leave and the traffic in that area around West 1st St. is already horrible on weekends. Can you imagine all the folks try to turn left or even right out of the exit? Put the hotel somewhere else, please!
This doesn't serve the residents or the community, only the people making a profit.
Where is the petition? I live outside the city limits but I will actively work to keep this from further advancement.
So lets get this straight Larry. You ran a bed and breakfast for over a decade yet you "don't think of Sonoma as a tourist town"!?! Yet you spent 13 years trying to attract tourists to Sonoma. Sounds like now that you are no longer profiting off of tourists you no longer want them in Sonoma.
Based on your logic, perhaps we shouldn't allow any more clothing stores to open in town until McCaulou's sells 80% of its clothing in a given year.
The new hotel proposed on West Napa St. provides visitors with a completely different type of lodging than is currently offered at any of the other hotels in town.
Not to mention the jobs and revenue it will bring to Sonoma.
Your petition is a thinly disguised scheme to stop one hotel in particular from being built.
We ARE a tourist destination..thankfully. That simple fact gives us locals the services that we enjoy..services that normally wouldn't be available in a town our size. The discussion about limiting hotels is a crazy time waste..we need to focus on reasonable growth that enhances our community while providing the jobs and services that we need and enjoy!. The anti-everything lobby here is a very vocal minority please don't let them hold our town back!
Some of the accusations mentioned above --- that this is an "anti-everything lobby" or that we are preventing the creation of jobs in our town by opposing mega hotels on the plaza --- need to be put to rest. It's certainly easier to generalize, over-simplify, and demonize than it is to seriously consider what the proposed initiative is all about. The jobs that will be lost are, for the most part, minimum wage jobs that will be held by people who cannot afford to live in Sonoma. So, that would mean even more commuting to and from the plaza. And, "anti-everything? This initiative is meant to preserve the character of our town. It's not so much against as it is FOR maintaining a quality of life, the reason why most of us chose to live or stay in Sonoma.
Well Steve, the beauty of democracy is that we will indeed discover which point of view is in the minority and which is in the majority. Our opinions differ, but the registered voters of Sonoma will decide.
For the clarification of some commenters: The initiative will NOT stop hotels from being built in our town. In fact, when it passes, an unlimited number of hotels - of 25 rooms or less - will still be able to be built and tourists will still be welcomed -as always. In fact, if the hotel currently planned near the Plaza were to be scaled back to 25 rooms, the initiative wouldn't stop it from being built either.
But Size Matters, and nothing destroys the feel of a small town like big hotels, with or without an "event center," whether on the very edge of the Plaza -- the heart of our City -- or anywhere else around town. It's our unique & historic small town charm that draws tourists here in the first place. Yes, there is wine, but Napa and countless other "corporatized" towns (with lots of big hotels) have lots more wine, and they are a lot closer to the freeways.
But none of them have what Sonoma has -- a delightful, livable, well-preserved human-scale place to be. Whether people decide to move here to live or just visit for the wine, that's what keeps them coming. If Sonoma loses its character, we'll be just another hokey wine-country Theme Park, without even a freeway exit. For Sonoma, Small is Big -- a big deal.