Glen Ellen Historical Society prepares its own plan for SDC

After months of critical comments at public meetings and a protest over the county’s plans to redevelop the Sonoma Developmental Center, the Glen Ellen community took matters into its own hands.

During the Sept. 21 meeting of the North Sonoma Valley Municipal Advisory Council, the Glen Ellen Historical Society presented a new plan for the property, which calls for significantly less housing and little oversight from the state or county.

The plans were submitted Sept. 9 to the California Department of General Services, which oversees the historic Eldridge property, just hours before the department’s deadline for accepting proposals on the site.

Proposal-for-the-Next-100-Years-at-SDC.pdf

Glen Ellen Historical Society representative Bean Anderson said Permit Sonoma had ignored “key principles” highlighted in public meetings to create a rural scale of development, protect open space and guarantee the local community guides the future land use on the site.

“As you well know, the proposed (county) Specific Plan didn't incorporate any of these communities, plans or principles, especially as it relates to scale,” Anderson said.

A new plan for the ‘Next Hundred Years’

Anderson shared aspects of Glen Ellen Historical Society’s proposal, entitled “The ‘Next Hundred Years’ at SDC,” that aim to ensure local ownership and independent control of the land, in most circumstances, through the creation of a community trust.

“This proposal envisions the creation of the Sonoma Mountain Community Services District to manage the land and development projects, and it also creates a community trust to develop responsible policies for the development and stewardship of the site,” Anderson said.

The plan calls for 470 housing units, fewer than half the housing units proposed in the current Specific Plan. The new district would be able to access government funding, according to the plan. The board overseeing the trust would be made of democratically elected residents of Glen Ellen and the Sonoma Valley.

“It was clear to us that we couldn't trust Permit Sonoma to act on behalf of the people of Sonoma Valley,” Anderson said. “And with apologies to Blanche DuBois (an actress from the film ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’), we could not depend on the kindness of developers.”

Ten days before the deadline for proposals, a small group of volunteers created a plan to contrast the existing proposal by Permit Sonoma, Anderson said. The historical society’s plan proposes the state transfer the property to the district to oversee and develop the land through private contractors, supplanting the state’s role in guiding redevelopment.

The state is seeking to sell the property to a developer to build, said Bradley Dunn, a Permit Sonoma policy manager who is overseeing the SDC process. Dunn has cautioned county critics that the state may revoke Sonoma County’s place in the planning process if the financial feasibility of a project is not met.

“If they proposed a project to the state, and the state selects them, they can do whatever they want within the guiding bounds of the specific plan,” Dunn said. “This is assuming we adopt a Specific Plan on time and the state doesn't walk away and preserves our local voice in the planning process.”

The historical society’s proposal said financing the estimated $100 million redevelopment will be secured through “the revenues and the value of the development on the land, with no financial obligation to the voters of the district.” The report notes the community trust will likely contract projects with the same developers currently bidding on the property.

These contractors would build a proposed day care center to the south of the property, an agricultural incubator for young farmers and a health clinic in the Nelson building. In addition, plans call for a micro-grid for solar power and rehabilitation of the iconic Main Administration building with “second skin” technology.

The proposal asserts that Permit Sonoma’s redevelopment project will be more expensive at 1,000 units compared to development on a “village scale.” Though the historical society’s proposal does not identify a total estimated cost for redevelopment, it asserts cost savings can be found through smaller-scale construction and technological innovation.

“If (Glen Ellen Historical Society) propose a financially viable option that the state selects and they can make it work, I'll tip my cap,” Dunn said.

SDC’s final stretch

After the Sonoma Developmental Center closed to clients in 2018, the state tasked Permit Sonoma to create a plan that considers the acute affordable housing crisis, protects open space and preserves historically significant buildings. It marked the first time a local agency was allowed to take the lead on a state-owned piece of land.

The project has blown past the initial two-year timeline for the planning process, which was set to finish at the end of 2021, largely due to complications stemming from the pandemic. Still, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors is set to identify a Specific Plan for state approval by the end of the year, according to project documents.

Permit Sonoma first released three options for the site, including a historical preservation alternative with fewer housing units than other designs. After public input, Permit Sonoma combined aspects of these plans, but staunch opposition to the number of housing units remained among certain respondents.

In a survey of the three designs rendered by Permit Sonoma, older white respondents preferred the historical preservation alternative that had the fewest number of units while a “majority of young respondents, regardless of race” preferred the alternative with the highest number of housing units. The current proposal by Permit Sonoma has 1,000 units, which is on the lower end of units from the set of alternative proposals, of which 25% would be affordable.

“Those are (for) families that would have a place to live in Sonoma County in Sonoma Valley that they could afford,” Dunn said.

On the other hand, the historical society says its proposal is the only way to ensure public ownership of the SDC’s 945 acres in perpetuity, which would be “permanently lost in a sale to a private developer.”

When a Specific Plan is finalized and approved by the Board of Supervisors, followed by the state’s approval, developers will bid on a contract to develop the land based on the plan. With just months to go before the supervisors’ vote, the proposal by Glen Ellen community members is a last effort to reduce development at a future SDC.

“The time to debate the details will come after the district is in place,” the proposal says. “So now it is up to us all to help make this happen.”

This story has been updated to clarify the percent of affordable housing in the Glen Ellen Historical Society proposal, and to clarify the property would be transferred to the Sonoma Mountain Community Service District, not the community trust.

Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.