PD: Candidate's views on Sebastopol NE Plan

[Barry]

Article on PD website


Vote likely to shape apple-district plan


By ROBERT DIGITALE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.

Three of the four candidates seeking election to the Sebastopol City Council are calling for significant revisions to a controversial redevelopment plan for the town's old apple-packing district.

The winners of the two council seats in the Nov. 4 election likely will help decide the fate of the proposed Northeast Area Specific Plan. And regardless of the outcome, it seems increasingly likely that a majority of the new council would favor revising the plan.

Three of the current council's five members have voiced strong support for the redevelopment plan, which would bring mixed-use buildings of up to four stories in height to the area between the current downtown and the Laguna de Santa Rosa.

The three supporters of the plan are Larry Robinson, Jen Thille and Mayor Craig Litwin. While Thille is seeking re-election, Litwin is not, opting to leave the council this fall after eight years in office.

The two other current council members, Linda Kelley and Sarah Glade Gurney, have expressed reservations about many elements of the plan.

Council members, city officials and candidates say it is increasingly unlikely that the council will take a final vote on the plan before the new council takes office in December.

Thille, appointed to the council in May, is seeking her first four-year term on the council. But even if she wins one of the two contested seats, the three other candidates have voiced support for revising various parts of the plan.

The other candidates are Colleen Fernald, an artist and sustainability consultant; Kathleen Shaffer, a Palm Drive Health Care Foundation board member; and Guy Wilson, an attorney and Sebastopol school board member.

The redevelopment plan would allow 300 residential units and nearly 400,000 square feet of new business and civic space between the Laguna de Santa Rosa and downtown.

Supporters have touted it as an environmentally sound approach for boosting the local economy. But critics have said the plan allows too much development.

Wilson has raised the most strenuous objections, saying it would bring too much traffic and allow tall buildings that are out of scale with the rest of the town.

"We're going to kill the town," Wilson said. "And the Northeast area plan is going in the wrong direction."
Fernald said she supports in concept redeveloping the northeast area, "but I believe there needs to be a modified plan that the majority of Sebastopol residents and the people who frequent Sebastopol would support."

She expressed concern about the scale of development, as well as the resulting impacts on traffic and ground water.

Shaffer characterizes her position as somewhat in between the plan's supporters and critics. She said she previously supported the plan "wholeheartedly." But she began to have reservations, in part because she said the plan would in essence create "two downtowns," the current one and a new one closer to the Laguna.

"This is really going to hurt our existing businesses," Shaffer said.

Thille, who like Shaffer won the Sierra Club's endorsement, said the northeast area already is zoned for a downtown-style development and the plan provides more environmental safeguards than currently exist. She maintained that the combining of retail and residences in the same buildings would promote less reliance on cars and add vitality as has occurred along Petaluma's riverfront and in other cities in the county.

"We're going to die as a city if we don't do something," Thille said.

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or [email protected]

[shellebelle]

Didn't Guy Wilson say he wanted to implement 25 units every year for the 20 years? And I am not like genius in math but that adds up to being more than the 300 units currently allowed under the general plan. And isn't the goal to put in place fewer units which in the NE Plan goes down to 200? Why would the Preservation Coalition choose to have more


Didn't Kathleen say if it had been called takes 4 seconds (okay really 40 is closer but she said 4 seconds) to walk down McKinley to Morris from the Plaza. And even at 40 seconds how does that create a second down town?

I walk to Coffee Catz and Starlight why would I not walk to the new area? I walk to El Tarasco Restaurant and to Aubergine's again why wouldn't I go just as far for the expereince of the new area.

Seems to me that many are just pandering to the misinformation of those who have created a fear factor in Sebastopol. Worse part is these are supposedly educated and informed persons with community respect.