Letters to the Index-Tribune editor, March 29, 2022

Affordable by design check-up

EDITOR: Seven housing units of one and two bedroom modular apartments will be built at 19370 Highway 12, each 500 to 700 square feet. Seven “affordable by design” or “market affordable housing” units. But how can this be possible if the city’s Senate Bill 9 (lot split/ duplex state housing law) ordinance postulates that “affordable by design” is impossible in Sonoma and the only way to get affordability is to deed restrict?

We’ll have to see how much these modulars go for. For now, any thought of actual affordability is pure talk. Market rate developers never say the price point and will take all they can get. The market in Sonoma is through the roof inflated; they will get a lot.

The upshot? If affordable by design is really possible here, the city should take the deed-restriction requirement away from the SB-9 ordinance, as the 800 square foot ordinance limit is legitimately “affordable by design” too. What am I missing?

The inconsistency about “affordable by design” in city housing policy points to trouble with the SB-9 ordinance. This may come back to haunt the city in that it looks like the city’s SB-9 ordinance is really more about low density, single family home character protectionism than it is about addressing the housing crisis and honoring the law’s intent to create more “affordable by design” housing.

Why can there be “affordable by design” on Highway 12 but not in city’s single family home or low density zones? Reality check: in the Springs and mobile home parks, there is no “affordable by design” either. Prices are all sickly high. All the market is going to do is keep ripping us off. There is no reason to expect otherwise.

What is to stop second home buyers from running up the price and getting these Highway 12 modular units as Wine Country Zoom telecommuting huts? Nothing.

Who cares about the “scale” being “appropriate” for Sonoma? This project could be twice as dense and still not make a dent in the true affordability need. “Scale” and “character” end up as weapons to block attempts at the density that would actually address the housing needs here. My prediction: this project will be just one more market rate nail in the coffin that further displaces the median income and below cohort in Sonoma.

Fred Allebach,

Sonoma

Bad neighbors

EDITOR: What does a driver from Walnut Creek pointing a can of pepper spray at a resident have to do with the Sonoma City Council? Or strangers picnicking on a resident’s lawn? Or a woman changing dirty diapers on private property and leaving them behind? Trespassing? Name calling? What does the City Council have to do with these incidences? The council’s benign neglect is responsible for the degradation and destabilization of our Sonoma neighborhood.

Located near TrainTown, our neighborhood is swamped by its customers every weekend. Its lots are full before 10:30 a.m. and drivers cruise the streets looking for parking — not just a few drivers, but 100 and more. There is often a second wave, which begins at 2 p.m. The vehicle parade causes safety issues, prevents children from playing and riding their bikes in the street and displaces residents who leave their homes to run an errand.

Residents have submitted reasonable solutions that would work to curtail TrainTown traffic, but we have been ignored.

TrainTown customers have overrun this neighborhood for 20 years and we alerted the City through meetings, letters, photos and videos. City managers, city planners, public works directors and City Council members have failed to act not because they don’t have enough information, but because they don’t care or they don’t know what to do.

If they were waiting for conflicts to ripen before resolving TrainTown’s continuing intrusion, the council should let the image of a customer wielding pepper spray sink in.

Lynn Fiske Watts

Sonoma

‘Putin is a barbarian’

EDITOR: After listening to a few thousand news media pundits and social media self-proclaimed foreign policy experts I've come to the following conclusion: Vladimir Putin is a barbarian. He rules the people of his country through fear; the fear of incarceration or worse if they disobey his dictates or dare to question him or his decisions. He permits no, not any, political opposition, or competition. Put simply he is a tyrant. He does not love his people, he subjugates them.

Proof of this assessment is Putin's history and the unquestionable war of terror and destruction he is currently conducting. He has done this in Syria, Crimea, Chechnya and elsewhere. It is his modus operandi. He presents bogus excuses for his murderous actions. In this he is not unlike other nations, including our own — Iraq and Vietnam — but that is no justification for his being a barbarian and autocrat. It is just pointing out the reality of what Putin is.

It is irrelevant in these comments to propose explanations as to why Putin is now raining hell on Ukraine. That's for all the foreign policy experts out there to proffer endless speculation about. It's also irrelevant in my estimation to dredge up other historical barbarians or even current prototypes. This is just the expression of the reality of who this man is and it's plainly visible before our eyes every day and night.

Whatever might happen is not known, but we can only hope that this criminal violation will soon cease. Permanently.

Will Shonbrun,

Sonoma