I appreciate your concern about having a friendly downtown environment for walking and biking. I spoke out publicly against the hotel and would have done the same about the CVS but I was living out of the area at the time because in my mind the cons of those projects outweighed the pros for my hometown.
If we weren't in the extreme housing crisis we are in I would probably not be in favor of this housing project, but I believe that the reality is that the crisis is so extreme that we need to take advantage of the limited opportunities to build housing where we can or many more people will be pushed out of our communities and/or end up on the streets. I would love to see this and other projects actually 100% affordable housing too.
This project will likely have added benefits that the tenants will live downtown and be able to easily walk, ride bikes, and take public to many places. The bus that goes to Santa Rosa as well as to Graton, the River and Occidental passes right by this site and of course there is the bike trail to Santa Rosa and Forestville. And yes, I regularly took those buses myself to get to the SRJC and Sonoma State and sometimes also commute on those bike trails to work.
I think given the housing crisis that is affecting so many people myself included we have to think about changing our hopes and expectations.