Good afternoon.

I'd like to ask the interpreter currently on the Spanish channel to commence interpretation of the meeting.

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It looks like a globe.

Thanks for your patience, everyone, and happy happy new year to all the folks who uh have come for this item.

Thank you very much for coming out.

We will reconvene into open session.

Madam City Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers is absent.

Councilmember McDonald is absent.

Councilmember Fleming.

Councilmember Ben Wellows?

Here.

Councilmember Alvarez?

Vice Mayor O'Krepke?

Here.

Here.

Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Council Members Fleming, McDonald, and Rogers.

Thank you very much.

We'll move on to our study session for the evening, item four point one, which concerns gas station land use regulations.

So we are here today to do a study session with the council on gas station land use regulations.

So we will be going over some of the background, some initial research and findings that we have done to prepare for the study session, and then we will be going over our prior regulations as well as the existing regulations for gas stations, and then some potential options for council to consider along with some potential impacts with those options.

So as a reminder for council, in January of 2020, the City Council adopted a resolution that declared a climate emergency and elevated climate issues to the highest priority.

Sonoma County's nine incorporated cities as well as the county of Sonoma have adopted similar climate resolutions.

Then in September of 2021, the Regional Climate Protection Authority, known as RCPA, adopted a resolution that recommended that the county and the incorporated jurisdictions within the county cease acceptance of all applications for new gas stations and expansion of existing gas stations and their infrastructure in each jurisdiction.

In September of 2022, the City Council adopted an ordinance that amended our zoning code to prohibit new gas station land uses and expansion of existing gas stations and fossil fuel infrastructure.

It included some language that existing projects that were deemed complete prior to the effective date of that ordinance could continue through the process.

There were two such applications that were in, one of which was a 7-Eleven on Highway 12, which was ultimately withdrawn, and the other was the Elmtree Station project, which council approved on appeal in 2025.

And then in June of 2025, Council moved to add a future agenda item to discuss potential changes to the zoning code, addressing gas station modifications, which is why we are here today.

The three that have not are Cloverdale, Healdsburg, and the City of Sonoma.

And of those three, the City of Sonoma is the only one that is currently looking at pursuing an ordinance to ban both new gas stations as well as expansion of existing.

And again, a little bit beyond the Bay Area.

We've got Sacramento and Los Angeles included in here.

It shows 44 stations within the city of Santa Rosa.

13 of those are in northwest Santa Rosa, 16 are in northeast.

We have seven stations currently in Southwest.

One is currently approved, and that's the Elm Tree Station, and then eight in Southeast Santa Rosa.

So I'm gonna hand it over to uh Director Osburn for the next three slides.

Thank you, Jessica, and good afternoon, Mayor and Vice Mayor.

Uh the next few slides I'll give you a snapshot of what we've seen in the gasoline distribution industry within the city over a period of time.

We do not see a number of gas station applications come through on a regular basis.

It's actually fairly uncommon.

So what we looked back at is really the last almost 30 years and the types of applications and where that we've seen come through the system.

So we have seen back in 1996, Mendocino Avenue as a bit of a unique situation that was an existing gas station that when Safeway occupied that site in the early 2000s, rebranded and took over that gas station.

We saw in 1990, Costco added gas and then extended the pumps in 2014.

That would constitute a new gas station since it did not exist in that location.

In 1997, Bennett Valley Road, we saw a chevron move forward.

This is probably the most common request.

It was a gas station replacing an existing gas station.

Through that process, the gas station can do something as minor as rebranding, which would be pain and signage, but quite often it's a full scrape of the site and a redevelopment.

From a policy standpoint, oftentimes that either is constitutes a new gas station or it must meet the requirements of an expansion of an existing gas station under the regulation.

So it can be a bit limiting under the current policy.

On 2012, we saw in Farmers Lane a similar occurrence occur where it was a replacement of existing gas station, and then we saw that again in 2018 on 255 Dutton Avenue.

The most recent new gas station, as Miss Jones mentioned, is Elm Tree Station.

The entitlement was approved for that recently.

It is yet to be seen if that goes through permitting into construction, but that would be the first new gas station the city has seen quite some time.

So really the themes that we see is this is there does not seem to be a significant demand for an increased distribution that the gas station industry is responding to.

Most of the relocations of gas stations are very strategic locations, oftentimes located on major highways or major intersections.

The one unique aspect that we have seen is a transition from retailers that are not typically in the fuel business to the fuel business is a secondary measure of increasing revenue on the site.