Council punts on hotel EIR

The Environmental Impact Report for the Hotel Sonoma Project is going back to the city’s Planning Commission to be amended and recirculated.

By a unanimous vote on Wednesday, the City Council upheld an appeal of the EIR and sent it back to the Planning Commission for changes that include alternatives and another look at the traffic study.

The council was supposed to vote on the appeal of the EIR at the meeting, but last Friday, the attorneys for Kenwood Investments, the developer of the proposed 62-room hotel and 80-seat restaurant, which would be built on West Napa Street between First Street West and Second Street West, sent a letter to the city asking for a supplemental EIR to address the concerns that had been raised by the appeal.

The developer, Kenwood Investments, is owned by Darius Anderson who is also a principal in Sonoma Media Investments which owns the Index-Tribune and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

The hotel has been in the pipeline since June 2012.

Three of the five council members – Gary Edwards, David Cook and Madolyn Agrimonti – wanted to send it back to the Planning Commission for the revisions while Amy Harrington wanted to keep it with the City Council because there will be too many new members on the now depleted Planning Commission. Mayor Rachel Hundley didn’t specify a choice.

Edwards, who has been watching the project since he was on the Planning Commission in 2012, said he can’t believe that there’s still no decision on the project. “I’m concerned that we’re kicking this down the road,” he said.

One of the issues opponents have raised is the lack of a housing element in the project, but Edwards noted that there is plenty of housing going up including 80-plus units on Broadway.

Harrington wanted the council to uphold the appeal and retain jurisdiction over the EIR instead of sending it back to the Planning Commission. “I don’t think it’s a good step for a novice Planning Commission to handle,” she said. “It’s burdensome to ask people to go through this again. It’s in everyone’s interest to review it here.”

Cook was concerned with using more staff time if the Council kept jurisdiction. And he’s concerned that the perception of the council is that it doesn’t make decisions. “What I heard the other day (Monday) is that the Council needs to start doing something,” he said.

Cook wondered how long it would take to recirculate a supplemental EIR, and Planner David Goodison told him it would probably take until February of 2018. Cook echoed Edwards and said the council has to “quit kicking the can down the road.”

Larry Barnett, former councilmember and one of the people who filed the EIR appeal, urged the council to keep the EIR. “You have more information than the Planning Commission,” he said.

Barnett was one of 13 people who addressed the council.

Bill Hooper, president of Kenwood Investments, said, “We don’t feel it’s flawed. But we feel the community wants more information … we’ve made some radical changes and we want to put in the extra time and effort.”

When it came back to the Council for final comments, Hundley was concerned with the bulbouts and the traffic and wanted to know about getting peer review on the traffic study. Goodison told her that the city doesn’t want to do peer reviews just for the sake of having peer reviews. “There’s cost and time associated with peer reviews,” he added.

Harrington suggested refunding the appellants’ fees since it was decided in their favor.

And Edwards told the council that “developer isn’t necessarily a bad word.”

“We need to get past this so we can get on with other important issues,” he added.

Email bill at bill.hoban@sonomanews.com