Growth in Windsor is key issue in Town Council election

Nearly a quarter-century after an explosion of new housing helped Windsor become Sonoma County’s newest city, the debate over growth is again center stage.

Debora Fudge, the five-time mayor whose political career was launched as part of a council majority that helped apply the brakes to the housing boom, finds herself having to defend criticism that Windsor is again growing too fast.

Five candidates are running for two seats on the Town Council, including incumbents Fudge and Bruce Okrepkie, who are in the crosshairs for their handling of two large downtown apartment projects that would add almost 800 units as well as a ?147-home development on the town’s periphery planned by an Indian tribe.

Candidate Mike Wall, a health care consultant who once threatened to recall the incumbents, is the most vocal critic, referencing “prevailing sentiment” that the growth rate is “too much, too fast.”

Rosa Reynoza, a vineyards business manager running for office for the first time, is concerned about downtown becoming overcrowded, saying growth needs to be slower.

Julia Donoho, an architect and attorney mounting her second campaign for Windsor Town Council after losing her first try 10 years ago, is comfortable with the current growth trend and the transit-centered approach Windsor and other cities have adopted, clustering new development near train stations where passenger service is planned.

But the Princeton-trained architect with a high-powered portfolio is critical of some of the design allowed in Windsor, including the buildings around the Town Green, which she said would have looked better with small touches such as cultured stone and different windows.

“I do believe design quality informs the quality of the community and how people feel about each other,” she said.

A subtext of the race is the view shared by challengers that the council needs new blood.

But Fudge and Okrepkie point to Windsor’s robust budget reserves, an enviably low crime rate and the best streets in Sonoma County, as rated by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

The debate over growth has been stoked by two apartment projects in the pipeline, both proposed by Southern California developer Bob Bisno.

One approved by the Town Council earlier this year is Vintage Oaks, ?387 apartments planned to the north of Bell Village and the new Oliver’s Market.

The other approximate 400-unit, Windsor Mill, south of Windsor River Road and east of the railroad tracks, has been granted “allocations,” a tentative allotment of the 150 market-rate units permitted per year under Windsor’s growth cap.

But neither the Planning Commission nor Town Council has given the necessary approvals to the project.

“Those opposing Bruce and I are misleading the public,” Fudge asserted of the statement by Wall that “we have almost ?1,000 homes in the cue for the coming year” because of Town Council actions.

“They think the town is changing,” she said. “The town is not changing and it’s been consistent for years.”

She said the units will not be built all at once, unlike the late 1980s and early 1990s, just before Windsor incorporated, when 1,000 new homes were constructed annually.

Fudge noted that Windsor’s growth rate over the past decade or so has been less than the 1 percent maximum allowed under the existing town policy she helped establish.

Okrepkie said Windsor has few existing apartments and more are needed, along with other dwellings, to address a lack of affordable housing.

“We’ve done a pretty good job of not overbuilding,” he said. “Growth is inevitable. We just have to manage it.”

But the incumbents also took some heat for not forcing developers to build a portion of affordable housing within their projects and instead allowing them to make a financial contribution, or “in lieu fee,” to affordable housing programs.

“I don’t like that they get to pay a fee,” said the bilingual Reynozo, who wants to help represent the Latino community that makes up 30 percent of Windsor’s population.

She said new housing projects need to be more inclusive, with a certain percentage of units set aside for seniors and low-income people.

Fudge also talks about the need to create “housing affordable to all” but emphasizes an approach encompassing more diverse housing types, such as smaller cottages and lofts.

One of the most contentious issues surrounding growth has been the plan by the Lytton Rancheria Band of Pomos to create a “homeland” for tribal members on the southwestern edge of Windsor.

Ultimately, it will be the federal government’s decision whether the tribe gets permission to take more than 500 acres into trust and build up to 360 homes, along with a large winery and resort hotel. But the Town Council faced intense criticism after refusing to oppose a bill sponsored by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, that would have created a reservation on the condition the tribe never build a casino.

“It’s not healthy for the community to have a large piece of land adjacent to the town that is a sovereign nation,” Wall said this week. “They have a sovereign nation in San Pablo they chose to own and operate a casino on.”

Huffman’s proposed legislation has stalled in Congress, but there is still the possibility the Bureau of Indian Affairs could approve the reservation next to Windsor through an administrative act. All the council candidates approve, or are open to the idea of, extending Windsor water and sewer lines to the tribal housing complex - if the land goes into federal trust - as opposed to having the tribe build a small sewer plant in a meadow west of Windsor and drill its own wells. But extending town utilities would need to be approved by voters because it lies outside the urban growth boundary.

You can reach Staff Writer Clark Mason at 707-521-5214 or clark.mason@pressdemocrat.com.