New homes at Skyhawk subdivision in east Santa Rosa raise neighbors' concerns

The final phase of a large hillside subdivision in eastern Santa Rosa rumbled to life recently after a decade of dormancy, as massive earth movers began reshaping the landscape for new homes, dredging up old battles in the process.

APM Homes purchased the 26-acre property known as Skyhawk 9 and 10 from another developer in 2013 and in recent weeks has begun grading the site in preparation for 35 luxury homes.

The company hopes to finish an access road and bridge on an adjacent agricultural property by the fall and begin construction of the homes by the end of the year, said Aaron Matz, president of APM Homes.

“What’s going up there has been approved for a long time,” Matz said. “This shouldn’t be a big surprise to people.”

And yet the prospect of a new batch of hillside homes being built after such a long period of suburban serenity has generated a range of reactions from neighbors, from fretting over the loss of hillside views to allegations that open space has been improperly bulldozed by the project.

“After 15 years of looking out on that pasture, I would like to have seen it stay open space,” said Dan Madigan, whose Mountainhawk Drive home overlooks the development on the other side of a small protected ravine.

The case illustrates how building projects are beginning to rear their heads years after initial approval as the housing market’s recovery advances - taking some new residents by surprise or stoking long-cooled embers of opposition.

Though Madigan is not too thrilled about having 35 new homes between him and his views of oaks on the hillside beyond, the retired pilot said he supports people’s right to develop their property and says he always knew additional homes were part of the plans for the area.

Others are just stunned to see construction on such a scale after so many years. Rio Nido residents Michelle and Jim Gruele, who have friends in the area, last week were so surprised to see the bulldozers and graders that they stopped on a bluff and took photos.

“Tell me, where are they going to get the water for all those new homes when we don’t have any water for the ones we’ve got?” Michelle Gruele asked.

Fred Greenstein, who fought a long and ultimately losing legal battle against this phase of the project, remains vehemently opposed to it. He argues, among other things, that the city inappropriately approved an access road across protected pastureland without full review.

“This is a situation where local government has failed to follow the proper process in order to accede to the needs of the developer,” Greenstein said.

Greenstein, who owns a home on Futura Way but no longer lives there, was one of several plaintiffs who in 2005 opposed the project when it was owned by Christopherson Homes and sued after the city approved it.

By the time Greenstein and others had exhausted their appeals in 2009, the housing market was in a shambles and no one was building anything, let alone $1 million hillside homes.

He argued that two access roads the city required to improve fire safety had been built without full environmental review or public debate. The case is complicated by the fact that project sits at the edge of the Santa Rosa city limits, and infrastructure for water and fire access required going across property in the county - namely, a 215-acre ranch owned by the Stashak family.

The county let the city take the lead in permitting those improvements, but Greenstein argued that the county’s Williamson Act agreement with the Stashak family required certain procedures the city, and perhaps the county, ignored.

That agreement provided the family tax breaks in exchange for preserving the property as agricultural land.

“The landowner is obligated to protect the land and the county is responsible for making sure that the landowner protects the land,” Greenstein said.

The city cited exemptions to the typical Williamson Act contract revision, for cases where “there is no other land within or outside the preserve on which it is reasonably feasible to locate the public improvement.” The courts agreed, but Greenstein said he believed the county still needed to revise its contract with the Stashak family before allowing work to proceed.

The access road now under construction will connect Sunhawk Drive with Yerba Buena Road, allowing residents another exit route in the case of fire. A grass fire in 2003 burned a Skyhawk home to the ground.

The new road and bridge will cross Austin Creek and must be completed by the fall because the permits only allow such work when the creek is dry.

“We’ve got a busy summer,” said Dave Hanson, president of engineering firm Carlile-Macy, which has had a hand in creating the 515-home Skyhawk development since the 1970s.

The developer must still apply for new building permits for the homes, which will be between 2,800 and 3,400 square feet and will likely sell for between $850,000 and $1 million, Matz said.

The first environmental report on the subdivision was completed in 1988. It was later revised and a tentative map was approved by the city in 1994. More than 400 homes, a school and park were constructed between then and 2004. But phases 9 and 10 at the upper reaches of the project took more time because of the water and access issues, Hanson explained.

It will be satisfying to see the project finally completed after nearly 30 years, he said.

“We’re excited. We like to see things finished,” Hanson said.

The developer paid for ?significant upgrades to the infrastructure of east Santa Rosa, such as upgrades to the intersection of Farmer’s Lane ?and Fourth Street and a commercial center on Highway 12, he noted.

Neighbors have known, or should have known, that the nearby pasture would become homes much like their own one day, he said.

“Many people like to live in that rural area at the edge of town, but things change,” Hanson said.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.