Sonoma City Council wants options on residential building requirements

When it comes to “residential component” requirements in development proposals that come before Sonoma, city council members want to keep their options open.

The Sonoma Planning Commission, however, pushed for a plan requiring developers to build housing to have their commercial projects approved.

“What we’ve been offered here by the Planning Commission is a stretch. It’s a big bite,” Councilmember Madolyn Agrimonti said April 6, comparing the strict on-site inclusionary housing requirement to “tying the hands” of developers.

“And I don’t want my hands tied by anything.”

Sonoma City Council last week sent proposed amendments to the city zoning code back to the Planning Commission, with directions to reconsider its prior approval of amendments that would, in most cases, demand new commercial and mixed-use developments build their required housing components on site.

The amendments under consideration are part of a broader effort by the city to tighten its development code by adding objective standards to improve clarity.

The Planning Commission in February and March considered several staff recommendations regarding the so-called “residential component” of the code, such as requiring 50% of the proposed building area in a mixed-use zone be housing.

The commission, however, at its March 10 meeting recommended requiring up to 80% residential development and up to a maximum of 20% commercial development in the mixed-use zone.

Meanwhile, staff also recommended “providing market flexibility to the development community” by offering housing waivers, or alternative ways to fulfill the residential component,including land dedications, off-site housing construction, an in-lieu fee or rehabilitation and conversion of existing market rate-units to affordable units.

But the Planning Commission directed staff to simplify the proposed recommendations to the City Council by not including any of the alternatives and requiring the residential component be built on site in both zones, with an in-lieu fee option only in commercial zones.

At the April 6 council meeting, the lack of residential alternatives and the requirement for on-site housing on new developments proved too much for both project applicants and City Council members.

Joe Walsh, spokesperson for MacArthur Place Inn in Sonoma, said his company’s recent purchase of the former Sonoma Truck & Auto site, located across the street from the inn, was intended as an off-site location to fulfill the required residential construction required with MacArthur Place’s plans to build 11 new guestrooms at 29 E. MacArthur St.

Walsh said if the off-site alternative for inclusionary housing is off the table, his company will have to “rethink” whether to proceed with the project.

Bill Hooper, spokesperson for Kenwood Investments, which has proposed building a hotel at 153 W. Napa St., urged the council to continue allowing off-site construction to fulfill the residential component. Kenwood Investments was founded by Darius Anderson, who is also managing partner in Sonoma Media Investments, which owns the Index-Tribune.

Hooper described the Planning Commission’s recommendation as “effectively a rezone.”

Hooper said that Kenwood Investments has been working with affordable housing developer Burbank Housing on a plan whereby a 5-acre parcel on Broadway would serve as a site for 100 low-income units which would fulfill the hotel project’s residential component.

“Staff’s ordinance allows us this flexibility, the Planning Commission’s does not,” Hooper said. “An in-lieu fee or the ability to build elsewhere could actually accelerate the development of housing.”

Sonoma resident Carol Marcus, however, said the Planning Commission’s recommendation to remove the on-site housing waivers isn’t a “departure” from the development code at all. “It’s just clearer,” she said, adding that the residential requirement in mixed-use zones has always given priority to building on-site housing on new projects.

“The proposal that the planning staff has put before you is not to ‘offer flexibility’ to the housing community, as their recommendation to you states,” said Marcus. “It is to offer flexibility to the commercial development community so that they may choose options other than to include the required housing in their development projects — which is no guarantee that housing will be built at all.”

Still, Councilmember Bob Felder urged the Planning Commission to “take a step back” and reconsider its recommendation.

“To write a development code that restricts any options in uses in a commercial or mixed-use zone is a mistake,” Felder said, describing his “reluctance” to eliminate the flexibility of housing waivers, in-lieu fees or the ability to build off-site. “You lose that ability to react to an individual project or developer in a way that’s going to benefit the city more than just a simple set of rules.”

The council agreed, voting 5-0 to send the zoning amendments back to the Sonoma Planning Commission, with direction to include residential-component alternatives in a revised recommendation.

“The Planning Commission put an emphasis on housing and I think that’s right,” Councilmember Sandra Lowe said. “But we should not close the door to all of the different ways where we can meet these needs.

“I don’t think one size fits all in anything, and I don’t think it does in our codes either.”

Following the meeting, Planning Commissioner Larry Barnett predicted the commission will re-examine its recommendation with “an eye toward increasing developer flexibility” as the council indicated.

“The Planning Commission‘s intent was to strongly encourage housing by providing mandates for its inclusion and alternatives, in some cases, to actually building it by funding the affordable housing trust fund instead,” said Barnett. “I don’t think anyone, planning commissioners or City Council, wants to sacrifice an emphasis on housing.”

Email Jason Walsh at Jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.