Downsized hotel proposed near Sonoma Plaza still controversial

From some of Sonoma’s earliest days, there have been hotels surrounding the historic plaza, some of which are still standing today.

The Blue Wing Inn, the Swiss, Toscano, Sonoma and other hotels were all built on the plaza’s periphery, in some cases prior to the Gold Rush more than ?165 years ago. But a new hotel proposed a half-block off the plaza is not so easy to build these days, at least not without an extensive public review process that resumes Thursday.

The 62-room hotel, 80-seat restaurant and spa off West Napa Street is the latest version of a project that has divided the town and stoked an ongoing debate over whether too many tourists and too much traffic are overwhelming Sonoma.

Building a hotel in the stagecoach era was a lot more straightforward than now, when on many weekends a stream of tour buses disgorge passengers close to the plaza and cars crawl around it searching for parking.

More than five years after it was first proposed by Sacramento lobbyist and developer Darius Anderson, his hotel project is again moving forward with a Planning Commission hearing scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

Commissioners will decide whether to give approval to a final environmental impact report that stretches to 1,000 pages and also grant a use permit for the four-star, three-story hotel on 1.25 acres on the south side of West Napa Street, on an L-shaped site that wraps behind the Lynch and Sonoma Index-Tribune buildings.

Planning Director David Goodison is recommending approval, saying the project has been carefully designed “to respect and evoke the historic character of the plaza, including nearby historic structures.”

In addition, he said it will incorporate numerous features aimed at conserving energy and water, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The applicants estimate that over its initial five years, the project will generate $9.7 million in occupancy, property and sales tax revenue. But many residents are not convinced it’s a good fit, saying it’s too big, or should include some affordable housing at a time when people are struggling to pay rent or buy a house.

Others, particularly those in the hospitality industry, say Sonoma hasn’t built a new hotel in more than 15 years and needs more lodging, especially on peak weekends when all 500-plus rooms in town are reserved months in advance.

As an indication over how divided sentiment is, the Sonoma Valley Citizens Advisory Commission in October voted 5-4 to recommend approval of the project. But it did so with the caveat that if no residential units are included on-site, the applicant pay fees to fund new housing in other parts of the community.

Former Mayor Larry Barnett said it’s good the hotel project’s footprint has been downsized from its initial 120,000 square feet to about 67,000 square feet, with plans scrapped for an events center and second restaurant.

But “it is still larger than I would like to see,” said Barnett, who led a narrowly defeated ballot measure three years ago that would have effectively limited new hotels to 25 rooms or less. The ballot initiative was sparked by Anderson’s initial proposal for the hotel.

Anderson, who lives just outside Sonoma, is a principal in Sonoma Media Investments, which owns The Press Democrat, as well as The Sonoma Index-Tribune.

The hotel project is proposed under the banner of his Kenwood Investments limited liability corporation. Even though the company reduced the scope of the proposed boutique hotel project to nearly half its original dimensions, it has not appeased many Sonoma residents.

It’s like the sisters in a fairy tale “trying to put their size 10 foot into the size 6 glass slipper. It doesn’t work,” wrote Regina Baker in a comment collected during the environmental review process.

Georgia Kelly, director of the Praxis Peace Institute in Sonoma, said when hotels are built on the main square in Europe, the surrounding streets are pedestrian only.

The hotel project so close to the square is problematic.

“The wine and tourist industries are running the show. It’s time to reverse their power paradigm,” she stated in the report. “They are creating a Disneyland for wine drinkers and tourists and ignoring the residents and the needs of the residential community.”

But Bill Hooper, president of Kenwood Investments and chief operating officer of Sonoma Media Investments, said the idea that building a hotel will flood the town with visitors, or make traffic worse, is flawed.

Even aside from no new hotels having been built in the city for more than 15 years, “by any measure tourism has gone through the roof in the town of Sonoma,” Hooper said.

He said the city loses a lot of “overnight opportunities” to capture tax money and income. Tourists pass through on visits to the plaza, but end up staying somewhere else, such as Napa, he said.

“One point - one a lot of people and the City Council understand - is with or without this hotel, tourism will continue to grow in the city of Sonoma,” he said. “This hotel won’t be the driving force behind it. It will capture them and get them out of their car.”

He said a hotel close to the square makes it easy for people to go out to dinner or wine tasting without having to drive.

“There’s a need for another hotel in Sonoma,” agreed Bill Blum, general manager of the 64-room MacArthur Place and also a director on the Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau and Sonoma Tourism Improvement Board, who said he was voicing his opinion, not those of the organizations.

Without hotels, he said, people end up driving back and forth for events in Sonoma from places such as Petaluma, American Canyon and Vallejo.

Blum also sees the lack of new hotels as steering people toward short-term vacation rental homes like those offered on Airbnb.

“It’s created a negative effect on our housing stock,” he said. “It’s better for people to stay at a hotel, near a place where they can park and walk, rather than in someone’s neighborhood.”

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