Santa Rosa Together Calendar

Sunday, September 24, 2017

S.R. City Council Agenda, Sep 26th

Greetings!

Once again, our thanks to Anne Seeley, of Concerned Citizens For Santa Rosa, for her analysis of this week's City Council meeting agenda:

Friends:    There is a Study Session, held in the Council Chambers, at 3PM.
  3.1 Overview of Homeless System of Care.      Staff from City Community Services and the Sonoma County Community Human Development Commission will provide information on current homeless needs and the effectiveness of the existing system of care.   
https://santa-rosa.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=5439590&GUID=8F37FC7C-028F-4ABC-A374-8FF123140380 Homeless Care System
4PM Council Meeting

 10 Mayor's and Councilmembers' Reports
     10.1  Sonoma County Secure Family Fund.  As a result of the President's actions concerning immigration, the Sonoma County Community  Foundation is leading an effort to provide grants to eligible non-profits for deportation defense and other programs to aid at-risk families to take advantage of protections available to them under current law.

Consent
  12.3 Multiple Bid Award and Approval of 3 Professional Service Agreements for Temporary Help Services for a period of 3 years with up to 3 years of extension options for an amount of $1.5 Million to each company or $4.5 Million total.  Read below about all the job types to be covered. 

Report
  14.2 Acceptance of the City's Violence Prevention Partnership's 2017-2022 Strategic Plan.

  14.3 Proposed Renter Advocacy and Legal Representation Services.
  The Council could contract with Legal Aid of Sonoma County to provide renter advocacy and legal representation services.
My note:  With the defeat of the Rent Stabilization and Just Cause Eviction ballot measure last year, some members of the Council have been looking at ways renters might still be helped.

See you there!
Anne

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Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Santa Rosa Welcoming Downtown High-Rise Development Proposals

Greetings!

I attended two meetings recently at which the City told local business owners and developers that it is courting developers of potential housing projects.  At the Downtown Subcommittee and the Economic Development Subcommittee, the Mayor and three members of the Council heard staff presentations which outlined both the housing developments currently being approved, as well as the opportunities being discussed with developers involving City property which it hopes developers will buy and turn into housing projects.

Approvals for six hundred and thirty-two units are being processed by the Council now, in addition to 306 new hotel rooms.  On four City properties (Ross & B, 2nd & E, 3rd & D, and the City Hall), it is hoped that developers will take advantage of generous density bonuses and height limit variances to retain existing parking and build 7-10 story residential buildings.  Here is a link to the Downtown Development Update PowerPoint presentation used in the meeting.

Why the interest in raising the roofs?  If you'll remember, a series of workshops was sponsored by local architects last year in which the case was convincingly made that the best combination of increased tax revenues to minimum public infrastructure expenses was to build up in the city's core area.   Given also that Santa Rosa's budget has a $5 million deficit, and it owns several large vacant or under-utilized parcels downtown, and you can understand some of the motivation.

Over the next few months, the city will be asking its citizens to comment on key components of the incentives offered to developers to get them to partner with the City on these projects.  David Guhin, Director of the Planning and Economic Development Department, told the Subcommittee that he hopes to issue his "White Paper" soon on proposals for density bonus elements, low income inclusionary requirements in for-sale developments, and accessory and junior accessory development ordinances.

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