Hey! Nobody approved Deer Creek yet!

[ConnieMadden]

Hold Your Horses! Deer Creek Plaza (Petaluma mall) project doesn't even have its app completed with the City, yet they link our Petaluma360 to "Deer Creek Village will be one of Petaluma's premiere mixed use centers": Deer Creek Village (https://www.deercreekproject.com/)

As of the Mon May 4th Petaluma Council meeting, Deer Creek Plaza project didn't even have its application to the City stamped - and yet PD and Argus headlines have the project practically a done deal - with a possible Friedman's no less! While I'd welcome a Friedman's Home Improvement here - after all, its a Sonoma County business icon - we don't know that this is the right project OR the right site until we know what we'd be getting in terms of tenants, square footage of various sales categories, salaries, basic economic data. But the nice gentleman, Mr. Kennedy, from Bay Area Economics (BAE) who prepared the Fiscal and Economic Impact Assessment (FEIA) didn't include that data in this, his 2nd FEIA report (first was for Regency Centers - the old Kenilworth site.)

What I heard at Council as the Deer Creek FEIA was reviewed, we're not even CLOSE to a decision on this project - so Hold Your Horses, Deer Creek pr folk (and PD/Argus reporters)! According to the much-quoted Retail Leakage Study (now a dated 2004 doc which asks WHERE new retail should be, not IF we need more), the Deer Creek site is something like number 5 of 7 on a desirability scale for sites for a mall. Not, as Dave Glass pointed out, our first choice or even third or fourth for that matter!

I thought Vice Mayor, Teresa Barrett, was brave and witty when she said "I must be a strict teacher because I'd have to give this report an F," saying this 2nd FEIA made "bogus" claims, empty position statements not backed by fact. She read one sentence that obviously puffed up the project with no data with which to justify its claim and wondered aloud if we should be paying for this kind of reporting.

Mayor Pamela Torliatt jumped in, stating she was glad for the opportunity to discuss the impacts of proposed projects that the FEIA process brings, but future FEIA reports would need to make the data more relevant and the city should consider hiring more than one consultant to report on a project. Mayor Pam picked the data apart. "Mr. Kennedy, of the xxx millions you state will come to Petaluma (in the BAE FEIA), "looks like $41 million would come from existing businesses." So glad she caught that! Take $41 million from existing businesses and what have you got? OUCH!!!
David Glass stressed great changes he experiences in his work as a financial counselor - and quoted this week's Barron's - airing his apprehension that our economic future may look more like the 1920's than the dawn of 2000.

At public speaking, I spoke up, off the cuff, hoping to make sense of economic soup. Following up on Dave Glass's comments, I said "You really are an orator some times," and began with a reprise of something an earlier guy said "We really should trust the development process." "My whole life I've been told real estate will always gain in value," I said. Just may not be so. Then quoted my read of the weekend, NYT Mag interview with our fine young Prez. Obama, After the Great Recession, which struck me with its similarities to challenges we face here. Obama called first for transparency in financial matters. Yes? And then that we need to help build our middle class with good education and jobs. Yes. Nothing about more shopping opportunities.

City Planner, Scott Stegeman, representing Living Wage Coalition, said the data was inconclusive and inadequate and a Petaluma city planner, Tim Leyman, agreed.

While I know of nobody who insists Petaluma needs NO new developments, I agree with Council member David Glass, "we want the best bang for our buck!" Mayor Pamela Torliatt added this Council WILL be approving new development - but that development needs to serve the needs of the town. Come on, Chamber types and columnist Don Bennett - we value your opinion - AND we want projects that conform to our guidebook General Plan - so that new projects shall provide a "net positive" to the City - economically, for our community.

This FEIA is just at the baby "beta" stage now. Process started as a Community Impact Report (CIR), after all - a serious work aimed at giving us a break from the hot breath of ambitious construction companies and developers anxious to make money while the going is at least better than it will be down the pike. But isn't that down the pike the POINT? If we're putting in something that changes the landscape for many decades to come, we'd better look at how that landscape is changing now. Two gas stations closed lately, did you notice? Global warming hanging out in the wings.

Lots of projects look good at first brush. Circuit City looked like a good bet for an electronics store but they went bust. Big chain stores are suffering in this economy, too, and we want to add only businesses that help us stabilize our Petaluma economy. Who cares most about us? I'd say think local first and fill the vacancies in existing properties - Theater Square, Redwood Center, Historic Downtown. Court businesses you want here.

But Deer Creek folk want us to believe without looking at numbers. Their FEIA was nearly empty of any relevant numbers. WHO would be there? What would "new" jobs pay? Who would be out of work here because of those "new" jobs and businesses? Would jobs be part-time or head of household?

This FEIA process cries for better data. What Deer Creek and Regency propose currently sounds like a road to blighted shopping districts - both established and new. Theater District still has gaping empty storefronts; we have over 30% empty office spaces. Yes, our town, our county, is still growing a bit - but at a current slow down rate of 1%! Not enough population growth to sustain two or more huge projects AND existing businesses unless you can show me different - and the first "beta" FEIA - for Regency- was not convincing. That "report" gave some but little data about a proposed Target store - but nothing for the 13 other stores proposed. And this when we understand Regency has a national policy of locating up to 90% of its tenants before a project is approved! (Data found by Wayne Morgenthaler, Director, PIBA).

In fact, we don't even know for sure that ANY tenant is in stone in these HUGE proposed malls - we have to completely guess when Deer Creek says Lowe's is its anchor or maybe not. Both malls would have anchor stores with out of state headquarters. Lowes PR department is in Mooresville, NC, ex.

The Beauty of Discourse: You'll never know the value of a really great City Council meeting if you don't come in person. Even better if you challenge yourself by speaking! If you like passionate, articulate local government when it shines, you can see this meeting for yourself at Archived Video Resource (https://petaluma.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=3&clip_id=891)

[Magick]

Dear Connie, Thank you for this excellent assessment of the proposed DEER CREEK project. In Sebastopol we spend 5 years working to prevent a rezoning of our North East Area, and at the same time expressing our positive visions of what we love about our community. We succeeded in defeating the plan, demonstrating the power of grassroots organizing!
A key factor was maintaining the integrity of our small town and its direct connection to the Laguna de Santa Rosa, which is already the most impaired waterway in the state. Also, we spoke out in support of our current businesses and got 45 local business owners to sign a petition to express their concern that their businesses could be destroyed by such a rezoning that would have allowed 5 stories, retail the size of 7 Safeways, and high end housing.
We used many tools to stop this fiasco including going door-to-door to educate the people with a water assessment by our Sebastopol Water Information Group, SWIG, and a newspaper that outlined the impacts and how they would override the constraints of our General Plan.
The people of Petaluma have a right to resist being sold a bill of goods even if the people were hired by the city.
Our Specific Plan and Environmental Impact Report were paid for by the city to the tune of over $450,000 and there was pressure to go forward in order to make something of this money. But throwing good money after bad will not make it better.
Finally, using the electoral process, we defeated the pro-development candidate with a true representative of the people.
We took our information straight from city documents because the facts were clear and revealed the faulty logic.
We held many meetings, rallied hundreds of people and in the end we protected our town from a rezoning that could have created a traffic nightmare, a strain on our water and a loss of the Level of Service we now enjoy.
Keep up the good fight! Would be glad to share our experience with you if it would be of help in any way.
Scot Stegeman was a great help to us as well.
We have entered a new time in which community, nature, and sustainability are the bottom line.
Money can no longer be the engine that drives our decisions.
Yours in Truth, Magick



Hold Your Horses! Deer Creek Plaza (Petaluma mall) project doesn't even have its app completed with the City, yet they link our Petaluma360 to "Deer Creek Village will be one of Petaluma's premiere mixed use centers": Deer Creek Village (https://www.deercreekproject.com/)

As of the Mon May 4th Petaluma Council meeting, Deer Creek Plaza project didn't even have its application to the City stamped - and yet PD and Argus headlines have the project practically a done deal - with a possible Friedman's no less! While I'd welcome a Friedman's Home Improvement here - after all, its a Sonoma County business icon - we don't know that this is the right project OR the right site until we know what we'd be getting in terms of tenants, square footage of various sales categories, salaries, basic economic data. But the nice gentleman, Mr. Kennedy, from Bay Area Economics (BAE) who prepared the Fiscal and Economic Impact Assessment (FEIA) didn't include that data in this, his 2nd FEIA report (first was for Regency Centers - the old Kenilworth site.)

What I heard at Council as the Deer Creek FEIA was reviewed, we're not even CLOSE to a decision on this project - so Hold Your Horses, Deer Creek pr folk (and PD/Argus reporters)! According to the much-quoted Retail Leakage Study (now a dated 2004 doc which asks WHERE new retail should be, not IF we need more), the Deer Creek site is something like number 5 of 7 on a desirability scale for sites for a mall. Not, as Dave Glass pointed out, our first choice or even third or fourth for that matter!

I thought Vice Mayor, Teresa Barrett, was brave and witty when she said "I must be a strict teacher because I'd have to give this report an F," saying this 2nd FEIA made "bogus" claims, empty position statements not backed by fact. She read one sentence that obviously puffed up the project with no data with which to justify its claim and wondered aloud if we should be paying for this kind of reporting.

Mayor Pamela Torliatt jumped in, stating she was glad for the opportunity to discuss the impacts of proposed projects that the FEIA process brings, but future FEIA reports would need to make the data more relevant and the city should consider hiring more than one consultant to report on a project. Mayor Pam picked the data apart. "Mr. Kennedy, of the xxx millions you state will come to Petaluma (in the BAE FEIA), "looks like $41 million would come from existing businesses." So glad she caught that! Take $41 million from existing businesses and what have you got? OUCH!!!
David Glass stressed great changes he experiences in his work as a financial counselor - and quoted this week's Barron's - airing his apprehension that our economic future may look more like the 1920's than the dawn of 2000.

At public speaking, I spoke up, off the cuff, hoping to make sense of economic soup. Following up on Dave Glass's comments, I said "You really are an orator some times," and began with a reprise of something an earlier guy said "We really should trust the development process." "My whole life I've been told real estate will always gain in value," I said. Just may not be so. Then quoted my read of the weekend, NYT Mag interview with our fine young Prez. Obama, After the Great Recession, which struck me with its similarities to challenges we face here. Obama called first for transparency in financial matters. Yes? And then that we need to help build our middle class with good education and jobs. Yes. Nothing about more shopping opportunities.

City Planner, Scott Stegeman, representing Living Wage Coalition, said the data was inconclusive and inadequate and a Petaluma city planner, Tim Leyman, agreed.

While I know of nobody who insists Petaluma needs NO new developments, I agree with Council member David Glass, "we want the best bang for our buck!" Mayor Pamela Torliatt added this Council WILL be approving new development - but that development needs to serve the needs of the town. Come on, Chamber types and columnist Don Bennett - we value your opinion - AND we want projects that conform to our guidebook General Plan - so that new projects shall provide a "net positive" to the City - economically, for our community.

This FEIA is just at the baby "beta" stage now. Process started as a Community Impact Report (CIR), after all - a serious work aimed at giving us a break from the hot breath of ambitious construction companies and developers anxious to make money while the going is at least better than it will be down the pike. But isn't that down the pike the POINT? If we're putting in something that changes the landscape for many decades to come, we'd better look at how that landscape is changing now. Two gas stations closed lately, did you notice? Global warming hanging out in the wings.

Lots of projects look good at first brush. Circuit City looked like a good bet for an electronics store but they went bust. Big chain stores are suffering in this economy, too, and we want to add only businesses that help us stabilize our Petaluma economy. Who cares most about us? I'd say think local first and fill the vacancies in existing properties - Theater Square, Redwood Center, Historic Downtown. Court businesses you want here.

But Deer Creek folk want us to believe without looking at numbers. Their FEIA was nearly empty of any relevant numbers. WHO would be there? What would "new" jobs pay? Who would be out of work here because of those "new" jobs and businesses? Would jobs be part-time or head of household?

This FEIA process cries for better data. What Deer Creek and Regency propose currently sounds like a road to blighted shopping districts - both established and new. Theater District still has gaping empty storefronts; we have over 30% empty office spaces. Yes, our town, our county, is still growing a bit - but at a current slow down rate of 1%! Not enough population growth to sustain two or more huge projects AND existing businesses unless you can show me different - and the first "beta" FEIA - for Regency- was not convincing. That "report" gave some but little data about a proposed Target store - but nothing for the 13 other stores proposed. And this when we understand Regency has a national policy of locating up to 90% of its tenants before a project is approved! (Data found by Wayne Morgenthaler, Director, PIBA).

In fact, we don't even know for sure that ANY tenant is in stone in these HUGE proposed malls - we have to completely guess when Deer Creek says Lowe's is its anchor or maybe not. Both malls would have anchor stores with out of state headquarters. Lowes PR department is in Mooresville, NC, ex.

The Beauty of Discourse: You'll never know the value of a really great City Council meeting if you don't come in person. Even better if you challenge yourself by speaking! If you like passionate, articulate local government when it shines, you can see this meeting for yourself at Archived Video Resource (https://petaluma.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=3&clip_id=891)