The Santa Rosa Planning Commission convened a regular meeting on November 14, 2024, at 4:30 PM. The meeting included a public hearing on the General Plan 2050 Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR), a continuation of the Elm Tree Station item to a date uncertain, and a public hearing on the Lance Drive Housing Development project, which was approved unanimously. Commissioners also heard public comments on non-agenda matters, approved the October 10, 2024 minutes, and received a department report.
Chair Weeks announced that this item, previously continued from October 24, 2024, was being continued again to a date uncertain. No further discussion occurred.
Staff from the Planning and Economic Development Department (Amy Nicholson, Supervising Planner; Nancy Woltering, Senior Planner) and Placeworks consultants (Terry McCracken, principal) presented the Draft EIR. The 45-day public review period closes November 20, 2024. The EIR evaluates impacts of the proposed General Plan 2050, which includes land use changes to accommodate growth, a greenhouse gas reduction strategy targeting 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and 85% by 2045, and carbon neutrality by 2045.
Key findings: The EIR identifies significant and unavoidable impacts in five areas: agricultural resources (conversion of farmland), air quality (exposure of sensitive receptors to pollutants), noise (construction and traffic), residential vehicle miles traveled (VMT) (increase of 57.9 million additional VMT per year, or about 158,630 daily VMT), and wildfire risk (exacerbation due to development in high-risk areas). Mitigation measures and policies are included but some impacts remain unavoidable at the program level.
Public testimony:
Commissioner questions and comments focused on VMT mitigation banks, autonomous vehicle considerations, consistency with the South Santa Rosa Specific Plan, and requests for clarifications in the final EIR (e.g., definition of “established community,” inclusion of street sign standards, updates on police and fire facilities, and corrections to school district references). Staff and consultants (Zach Matley, W Trans) responded, noting that VMT mitigation banks are in early development and that individual projects will still be held to VMT thresholds. The commission took no action; comments will be included in the final EIR.
Staff (Connor McKay, Senior Planner) and applicant representatives (Andrew Rosenberg and Sean Murphy, Pacific Development) presented a proposal for a 672-unit apartment complex, 98 single-family homes (small lot subdivision), and 4,800 square feet of community-serving retail on approximately 34.93 acres. The project is within the North Santa Rosa Station Area Specific Plan, near the SMART station. It includes 1,414 parking spaces, a 10-foot-wide Class I bike path along Guerneville Road, two new bus stops, a community garden, and 562 new trees. The project is planned in three phases, with all units electric. The applicant noted that affordable housing will be provided on-site (inclusionary units in phases 1 and 3, in-lieu fee for phase 2). The project is exempt from further CEQA review under the Specific Plan EIR.
Public testimony:
Staff and the Fire Marshal (Paul Lowenthal) and Traffic Engineer (Rob Sprinkle) responded to evacuation concerns, citing improvements since 2017: zone-based evacuation system (project falls in Northwest 2 zone), battery backups at traffic signals, real-time camera monitoring, and phased evacuation plans. The Fire Marshal noted that during the 2020 Glass Fire, the east side of Santa Rosa was evacuated in about 2.5 hours due to these improvements.
All seven commissioners expressed support, stating they could make the required findings. They noted the project aligns with the North Santa Rosa Station Area Specific Plan, provides much-needed housing near transit, and incorporates thoughtful amenities.
The decisions are final unless appealed within 10 calendar days.
Okay, uh it is now 4:30, so I'd like to call uh the meeting of November 14th, 2024 to order. Um can you please take roll call? Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Carter. Here. Commissioner Sisko. Here. Commissioner Pardot. Here. Commissioner Peterson. Here. Commissioner Sanders. Here. Vice Chair Duggan. Here. Chair Weeks. Here. Let the record reflect that all commissioners are present. Thank you. And I would like to make an announcement that item 11.1 is continuing to a date uncertain and new noticing for the project with the new hearing date will go out when that date is set. So if any of you are here for that item, I wanted to let you know that before we started the rest of the agenda. Okay, so with that, um approval of minutes, we have one set of minutes from October 10th. Are there any changes or corrections? Okay, doesn't look like there's any. So if you are in the audience and have any comments on the October 10th, 2024 minutes, please make your way to the podium. Seeing no one going towards there, we'll go ahead and uh move on to item number four, public comment. This is an item for non-agenda matters. Um this is a time when any person may address the commission on matters that are not listed on this agenda, but which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of this committee. So you'll have three minutes to make your statement, and if you'd like to make your way to the podium, and I see Mr. DeWitt up there, so um, the overhead if I may. Okay, and we'll get that set up in the timer. Thank you kindly. All right. Are we ready? Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt. I'm from Roseland. What I've brought you here today is a strategy from Copenhagen, Denmark involving what they call intelligent transportation systems that dealt with the bicycle approach. Now, as you can see, this picture of all those people, that's actually rush hour. Most of the time there's not that many folks. But the main point of it is is that they have been spending lots of time on what they call the rhythm of the street, and they've been looking at these intelligation systems to get less people driving in cars, especially fast near bicyclists and pedestrians. And you know we've had a lot of people killed on bikes and pedestrians here in our city by cars. Those collisions are called accidents, but you might think it's just neglect on the part of many of these folks. The reason I bring it to you is because you can advise the city council, whereas they might not listen to us regular folks as much. You could tell them if you're gonna be doing general plans and making these big specific plans, such as the downtown specific plan, you should be looking into this type thing. Over in Roseland, a portion is actually in the downtown specific plan now. It's on Sebastopool Road with Dutton Avenue as its end point going towards the east. And there's a lot of acreage there that has the Joe Redota Trail and a section along Roberts Avenue where in the future you might be able to get some really good housing and building going in there that's truly transit-oriented development where people wouldn't have to drive cars. They could walk into the city and do good stuff. Now, with that in mind, here's another one that's from Denmark also. And unfortunately, it's in Danish.