Commentary: Building affordable co-housing at SDC

Officials should move quickly while buildings are still in decent shape.|

We are the SDC Campus Project. “Campus” means the already developed area of the former Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) in Sonoma Valley, 180 acres on either side of Arnold Drive. Our goal is to create housing for people who are typically not served by affordable housing by adaptive reuse of the existing residential buildings as co-housing.

We have studied the site for two years, consulted with energy professionals, inspected the buildings, received documents and plans from the State Department of General Services, and researched the State’s SDC Existing Conditions Assessment report.

A person earning $15 per hour, if they work full time, makes $2,400 a month, usually without healthcare. To rent just a room in a house in Sonoma Valley costs $900 to $1,200, if it includes a private bathroom, and if such a rental can be found.

Businesses and public agencies are finding it difficult to hire workers at minimum wage or even above. Housing is too expensive for folks to pay local rents. The number of applicants on waiting lists is in the thousands for Section 8 housing and affordable apartment complexes.

They are first responders and essential workers who keep our community safe and thriving. They are young people who want a place of their own to start their independent lives. They are artists and musicians who give us joy. They are teachers and childcare workers who mentor our kids, and farm workers who put food on our table. They are seniors who desire friends and community, and folks who are being evicted. They are all of us who want our adult children and grandchildren to live near us. We all need a place in our community to work, achieve, pursue dreams and thrive.

The good news is that we can find solutions for how our people can work and live here so they don’t have to commute for hours from Vallejo or American Canyon or Rohnert Park, or even move away.

Our small group of local people has a plan that can ease the problem for some. We have to start somewhere and we need to think outside the usual box.

Our proposal is to adaptively reuse the existing residential buildings at SDC for co-housing, which has become a solution to the workforce housing crisis around the country. Some think that the buildings are huge dormitories and not suitable for housing. That’s not true. Most of the buildings are perfectly suited for co-housing.

Each of the buildings has large bedrooms, 14-by-20-foot (280 square foot), with an attached private half bathroom; a shower is down the hall, shared with three other rooms. Amenities include large common living rooms, meeting rooms, offices, a kitchen and large communal dining hall, laundry facility, rooms for study, yoga, music, and other purposes, as desired. Each building will have space for an organic food garden from converted lawns. Our proposal for co-housing will build a diverse, safe, and vital community in beautiful surroundings.

By providing housing for people who work in the local community, traffic is reduced, lifestyles are enhanced, and the economy is improved, creating a housing/jobs balance.

The main water line comes into the campus near these buildings and the sewer main line is nearby that feeds into the treatment plant, making infrastructure easier and faster to keep functioning than the rest of the campus.

Historic agricultural land on the southeast side of the campus, near the residential buildings along Railroad Street, well away from the wildlife corridor and wetlands, should be available for organic farmers. Regenerative agriculture provides healthy organic food for the community, creates jobs, sequesters carbon in the soil, and provides a fire break, as vineyards have done during wildfires. The 700+ acres of open space on both sides of the campus will be preserved, with public access.

Sonoma County has hired an urban planning consultant to come up with three options for the development of the SDC campus, and the plans will be made public later this summer for the Board of Supervisors to vote on. They have our proposal. We’ve asked that it be included in all three options. The consultant is hearing from conventional experts and developers in tourist industries and conventional housing. Our proposal needs grass-roots community support now.

Writing to all five Sonoma County supervisors and the consultant with your support of this proposal will be significant.

This is our community and we all have a say in determining its future.

To demolish these buildings or let them sit unused for five to 10 years while the rest of the site is planned and developed is a waste of our public resources that we have paid for, and does not respect their historic legacy value.

Use subject line SDC Campus Project Proposal and write your support to the Board of Supervisors. Click here to see our entire proposal. Contact us at sdccampusproject@gmail.com.

Bonnie Brown and Frank Windes are co-chairs of the SDC Campus Project.

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