GUEST OPINION: Railroad Square project needs open meetings

<p>On Sept. 1, the SMART board will consider renegotiating a contract with the San Francisco-based John Stewart development team. This would allow the developer to use state grant funding to finish his private development by shifting affordable units from the SMART site to his private parcel.</p><p>The developer applied for an $11 million grant last summer to build 68 units of affordable senior housing above a public market on the Santa Rosa Railroad Square station site. This meeting, discussion and decision needs to be open to the public. Right now, it is scheduled to be held behind closed doors.</p><p>SMART has required the developer to negotiate with the Accountable Development Coalition, a group made up of unions, environmental groups and affordable housing advocates. This makes the ADC the major stakeholder, as it professes to fight for justice for the less privileged among us, while making the surrounding neighbors and businesses secondary stakeholders.</p><p>Since the beginning, the ADC has ignored input from other stakeholders regarding the number and type of affordable units to be built on the SMART property. The public grant application called for 68 affordable senior housing units to be built above the new public market hall on the SMART property.</p><p>The ADC has not yet publicly agreed to the 68 units of affordable housing being shifted from the SMART parcel to the adjoining privately owned parcel. Without the ADC and the SMART board publicly signing off to allow the units to count for the required affordable units for the project, the neighbors have to expect additional affordable units to be built on the SMART property, with additional requests for changes to the project.</p><p>A course of action that targets more affordable units being dumped in an area that is already below the medium average for Santa Rosa would likely shift the debate to the courts.</p><p>The West End Neighborhood is made up a wonderful mix of people, and, over the years, it has come together as a community. This community has many differing viewpoints, and we do not claim to speak for the viewpoint of the neighborhood. However, the facts are clear that the west side of Santa Rosa has a greater concentration of affordable housing units than most parts of Marin and Sonoma counties. </p><p>The developer has still not submitted to the city of Santa Rosa any plans for the Railroad Square site, leaving the neighborhood to wonder what's next as the “concept” plan shifts from food and wine ideas to a high-end athletic club with affordable housing on the upper floors. The phrase “bait and switch” comes to mind when we look back as to what has been promised on the site.</p><p>The SMART board should focus on providing rail transit, as the name implies. Special interest groups are distracting the focus of staff members who should be dealing with closing the reported funding gap and providing an alterative to Highway 101. The SMART board should want and need staff to complete a very difficult task to provide rail service to the North Bay by 2014.</p><p>It is also true that the SMART board has spent time and resources working behind closed doors with the ADC to include the group in the development of the Railroad Square Station. The special interest politics on the SMART board needs to stop now.</p><p>We ask for this work to be done in public. One of the fundamental rights that citizens have is the right to speak to elected officials in public prior to public decisions being made. Without public input, the SMART board will lose any hope of credibility with the voters and taxpayers.</p><p><i>Carol Dean is a former member of the Santa Rosa City Council. Allen Thomas is a former member of the Santa Rosa Planning Commission. Both are residents of the West End Neighborhood.</p>