Santa Rosa officials have agreed to consider expanding the Roseland annexation area but not enough to include the neighborhood where 13-year-old Andy Lopez was killed by a Sonoma County sheriff's deputy.
City and county officials have been at odds over just how much of the unincorporated area in the city's southwest ought to be added to the city during the current annexation process.
The city favors focusing first on annexing only the 620-acre chunk of Roseland that remains unincorporated. But the county wants to see a "comprehensive annexation" of all six unincorporated areas — totaling about 1,450 acres — inside the city's urban growth boundary in the southwest.
Two weeks ago those divergent views came to a head during a meeting of the joint city-county Roseland subcommittee. The meeting became contentious when officials from the county and the Sonoma County Local Area Formation Committee pressed for a more expansive annexation effort, according to Mayor Scott Bartley.
"We were getting the impression at the last meeting that clearly the county was pushing for more," Bartley said.
County Administrator Veronica Ferguson stressed that the county was particularly interested in seeing the city annex the Moorland Avenue area along the west side of Highway 101 south of city limits, several attendees said.
That's the neighborhood where Lopez was shot in October by a deputy as the teen carried a plastic pellet gun designed to look like an AK-47 assault rifle.
The shooting has focused attention on what some view as disparate service levels and law enforcement practices between areas inside city limits and those outside, distinctions not always clear to residents.
Ferguson this week said the county has been concerned that Santa Rosa, by focusing solely on the annexation of Roseland, was putting off annexation of other unincorporated areas in the southwest.
"We wanted them to acknowledge that there is a broader issue," Ferguson said.
City officials have confirmed that they intend to look at annexing all the unincorporated areas in the southwest, just in phases, Ferguson said.
"I think we were just not hearing each other as well as we could have," she said.
Thursday's subcommittee meeting was more collegial. Mayor Scott Bartley stressed that the city does "want to look comprehensively" at the "islands in the southwest." He stressed, however, that "we've got a piece we can handle right now."
Supervisor Shirlee Zane appeared to accept that position, and emphasized that the county had committed to make improvements in the area regardless of the annexation scope and timeframe.
"We get it. We heard you," Zane said. "And we're coming to the table with some significant economic investments for the vitality and the sustainability of this whole region."
And in a concession to LAFCO, which approves annexations, Santa Rosa Community Development Director Chuck Regalia said the city was willing to explore adding two small non-contiguous areas to the Roseland annexation.
One is Brittain Lane, a 16-acre area between Highway 12 and Sebastopol Road near Corporate Center Parkway with 21 parcels developed in 1940s and 1950s.
The other is West Hearn Avenue, a 30-acre area west of Stony Point Road with 47 parcels and homes mostly built in the 1950s and 1960s.
Both, like Roseland, are true "islands" of unincorporated land in the sense they are fully surrounded by properties in the city. Other larger areas in the southwest, like the 167-acre Price-Chico area beyond the western edge of the city and the 480-acre Moorland-Standish neighborhood just south of the city, are technically "fringe islands" on the edge of city limits, explained Richard Bottarini, LAFCO' executive officer.
"I think we are understanding each other's positions a little better," said Peter Rumble, deputy county administrator.
Santa Rosa's historical pattern of annexing certain properties in the southwest but not others has been driven by development interests in the 1980s and 1990s seeking more space to build homes, and the city's long-standing policy of only annexing properties whose residents want it, Regalia said.
In the past some residents of Roseland have expressed strong opposition to annexation. But two such residents, Duane DeWitt and Bill Haluzak, both told the subcommittee Thursday that opposition has faded since an oak woodland many worried would be developed into high-density housing has been purchased by the city and will be preserved as a park.
"I believe your concern and fear about opposition to annexation is a bit overblown," said DeWitt, who believes annexation could be accomplished faster than the 3-1/2-year timeline proposed by the city.
(You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @citybeater.)
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