Santa Rosa floats drought-resistant garden plans for City Hall

As California’s water woes deepen, Santa Rosa is putting the finishing touches on a project it hopes will inspire people to embrace drought-resistant landscaping and smart storm water features.

The city has completed a preliminary design of a plan to remove two large lawns at City Hall and replace them with gardens irrigated with harvested rainwater while also showcasing landscape techniques that clean storm water before it enters nearby Santa Rosa creek.

The city won an $806,000 grant from the state Water Resources Control Board last year, and the City Council signed off on the $1 million project in the fall.

Since then city staff members have worked with landscape designers and engineers to draft a plan that accomplishes the specific goals of the grant. Now the city wants to hear what the public thinks about the design, layout and plants proposed for the site.

“This is a project for the community,” project manager Deb Lane said. “By no means is the design considered complete.”

It’s pretty far along, though. The city has been working with the San Ramon-based landscape design firm Gates + Associates, which held a “stakeholder workshop” in April. Input from that session has now been incorporated into several visions for the site.

The concept plan calls for the lawn facing First Street to be replaced with low water-use plants in a demonstration garden and a large rainwater capture tank to irrigate them. The lawn facing Santa Rosa Avenue will feature a similar garden and bio-swale, which slows runoff and gives water time to seep into the ground. And in the east parking lot, planter strips will be replaced with trees and plants that act as “bio-retention areas” that remove pollutants and sediment from the stormwater before it enters Santa Rosa Creek.

Public input on all aspects of the plan is encouraged, but because of the specific grant requirements and design process to date, the city is asking the public to focus on whether they like the layout and feel of the gardens.

For example, there is no question that rainwater harvesting will be included, Lane said. It was one of the requirements of the grant.

Bio-swales also need to be incorporated, and their design and location is somewhat dictated by hydrology and site constraints, Lane said.

Drought-tolerant plants are proposed throughout the plan, but what kinds and where they are located are open to public discussion and such input could have an impact on the design, Lane said.

The project is exciting, she said, because it combines several key landscaping concepts that help save water and improve watersheds into a single high-profile project that will help educate residents about those benefits.

“It is becoming more and more important to eliminate stormwater runoff, recharge aquifers, improve soil health, move from high water use to low water use landscaping, and improve biodiversity,” Lane said.

The public is encouraged to submit comments by May 25, to cityhalldemogarden@srcity.org or by contacting Lane at 543-4506.

There will be additional opportunities to comment on the project when it heads to the Design Review Board in the fall.

The city has set up a web page specifically for the project at http://srcity.org/DEPARTMENTS/UTILITIES/Pages/Chg.aspx.