Proposed Kenwood resort faces scrutiny

Neighbors question viability of 12-year-old permit for 52-acre luxury estate|

Now they’re calling it “the Resort at Sonoma Country Inn.” That’s the project planned on a 52-acre property on Highway 12 near Kenwood that’s proposed as a 50-room hotel spread among 19 cottages, a 125-seat restaurant, 11 residential lots, 102 parking spaces, plus vineyards, a public winery and a retail store.

The project comes before the Sonoma Valley Citizens Advisory Commission on Wednesday, Sept. 28, for public comment and design review – but, at this point, it’s almost formality: the project is riding on a permit dating from 2004. Indeed the developer’s most recent application dated Aug. 4, 2016, has sections of required information such as new structures proposed, number of employees and vehicles, hours of operation and such, filled in simply with the term, “See approved use permit.”

The parcel has passed through several hands over the decades from the Gray family to Auberge Resorts, Save Mart and now Tohigh Investments of China, through its office is in San Francisco.

How a 12-year-old permit can still be viable through at least one change of ownership is a question that was posed to the county’s Permit and Resource Management Department, and the answer from project planner Marjorie Grosch is straightforward: “Once something substantial has been constructed then there is no longer an ‘expiration date’ on the permit.” As to the project’s “substantial construction,” Grosch cited improvements to the Highway 12 access and on-site private roads, improvements made by the property’s previous owner between 2007 and 2011.

First District Supervisor Susan Gorin’s aide, Pat Gilardi, also spoke to the question. “Revocation requires a hearing in front of the hearing body that originally approved the project,” said Gilardi. “So (that would be) either the Board of Zoning Adjustments or the Board of Supervisors.” Gilardi said a revocation hearing would normally only come after a “prolonged effort to get the operators into compliance.”

“To my knowledge this project is not out of compliance,” said Gilardi. Supervisor Gorin was unavailable for comment.

Yet there remain serious questions about the Resort at Sonoma Country Inn as currently proposed and up for review at this week’s SVCAC meeting. Kathy Pons, president of the Valley of the Moon Alliance (VOTMA) neighborhood group, submitted on the group’s behalf a nine-page document of questions about Tohigh’s application, focused on many of the same quality-of-life issues that have recently received the attention of PRMD and the public at large.

VOTMA’s current argument holds that the “process required for this project to proceed must incorporate and reflect the substantial changed circumstances and the new information that have arisen over the last decade the project has sat virtually dormant.”

The group draws attention to the over-concentration of events, dramatically increased traffic, the four-plus years of severe drought, even the potential impact of an earthquake such as that experienced in the Napa/Sonoma area in 2014, as well as the declining health of trees and other biological inventory.

“A use permit issued more than a decade ago does not obviate the physical requirement that design be melded and framed in terms of the project conditions that actually exist in and around the resort site today,” reads their letter.

The Alliance goes on to itemize a number of design issues that might be “subject to reconsideration due to the changed circumstances resulting from the passage of time since 2004” – though they caution that their list is not necessarily exhaustive.

Pons was one of 20 members of PRMD’s Winery Events Working Group, which met several times in 2015 to evaluate concerns about the over-concentration of events in certain parts of the county including the Kenwood corridor. Their concerns about traffic, noise, and other event byproducts are reflected in the VOTMA letter, as they are relevant to a large resort such as the one in Kenwood. Along with these concerns, the group highlights two other issues: the health of the natural environment and light pollution.

The planning for the resort has always relied on visual and even audio screening from the road by trees and other vegetation. However, two factors have changed in the last 12 years: many of the saplings that would have been easily removed in construction are now larger, about 9-inches in diameter, and some may be in the “protected trees” category. Additionally, the five-year drought has severely impacted the overall health of the woodlands.

“It seems likely, if not almost certain, that a number of those trees are stressed and probably in various stages of dying,” reads the VOTMA letter. “The design review application does not address this critical design issue directly.”

Other objections raised include light pollution from the redesigned resort, its parking, and its atypically late hours of operation (to midnight, much later than other nearby wineries and restaurants). Reduced groundwater availability is also addressed – all design issues that should be considered in more depth, according to VOTMA.

“VOTMA views the design review process as one that necessarily includes addressing environmental issues raised by design because it is the environment that is being redesigned in this proposal.”

The Sonoma Valley Citizens Advisory Commission is a joint advisory agency with representation from the County of Sonoma and the City of Sonoma to share responsibility for local planning in the Sonoma Valley, and while SVCAC votes are not binding its recommendations are often weighed in final decision-making. Ironically the area west of Kenwood, where the resort is located – on the north side of Highway 12 where Lawndale Road meets the highway – only came under the SVCAC’s area of concern in 2013, when their boundaries were expanded to embrace the Sonoma Creek watershed. As such, this is the first time the SVCAC has considered this project.

When plans for developing the property were first proposed over a quarter century ago, the project drew opposition from its Kenwood neighbors, among others. Now, with the on-going anxieties about the plethora of high-end housing and vacation properties, winery events and traffic concerns, the project looms as an inevitable game-changer for the Sonoma Valley.

The SVCAC will meet on the Resort at Sonoma Country Inn on Wednesday, Sept. 28, at 6:30 p.m. in the city’s Community Meeting Room, 177 First St. W.

Contact Christian at christian.kallen@sonomanews.com.

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