Seven candidates vie for three seats on Petaluma City Council

Three seats are open on the Petaluma City Council this year, and with two incumbents out of the fray and a separate race for mayor, voters will have a significant role in shaping the political landscape of Sonoma County’s second-largest city.

Seven registered Democrats are vying for those three seats, including six contenders who have never before run for elected office and incumbent City Councilman Dave King, who was elected in 2014. Councilwoman Teresa Barrett’s seat is open because she is running for mayor, and veteran City Councilman Chris Albertson is not seeking reelection.

City finances, road repairs, traffic, public safety and cannabis policy are among the issues at the forefront of discussions, but affordable housing is a rallying cry for all candidates. While all contenders place a high priority on creating housing for workers, seniors and families, their opinions vary significantly on how to make it a reality.

Petaluma saw its already-tight housing market constrict further after the October 2017 firestorm wiped out almost 5,300 homes in surrounding communities. Just over 2 percent of the 3,136 rental units in Petaluma’s major apartment complexes were vacant in April, a number the city’s housing administrator doesn’t expect will greatly change in this month’s survey.

Of the 2,161 housing units in various stages of development, only 75 are below-market rate. The City Council last month approved new rules that require developers of housing projects with five or more units to dedicate 15 percent of the units as affordable. Alternatively, developers can petition the City Council to allow them to pay a fee equivalent to the cost of building 20 percent affordable housing units, an increase in fees expected to spur on-site development.

Meanwhile, the median price for a single-family home on the city’s east side in August was $683,000, up from $651,550 a year earlier. On the west side, the median home price is $850,000, up from $778,500 the previous year.

The city is hundreds of units behind its regional allocations for affordable housing. The 2012 loss of state redevelopment funds, which kept portions of property tax generated in the city to use for development, eliminated key funding and left the city’s budget for such projects lean.

“If you don’t (build affordable housing), people that are going to be working in Petaluma are coming in from somewhere else. That even further congests the freeway,” said King, a 61-year-old employment lawyer. “It’s important to have people live and work in the same community.”

His top priorities include creating affordable housing, resolving traffic snarls and improving road conditions. He voted to approve the city’s new affordable housing policy, and highlighted his vote in favor of loosening restrictions on accessory dwelling units, or granny units built alongside existing homes.

He’s in favor of a “grow slowly” approach, holding public meetings to explore density bonuses to sweeten the pot for developers to build a greater number of smaller units and explore allowing higher buildings in select areas of the city.

Candidate Dennis Pocekay, a retired physician whose top priorities include affordable housing, balancing the budget and providing traffic relief, said he would seek grants from foundations to boost the development of below market-rate housing. He said he would propose a bond that would in part provide dollars for affordable housing and assist in leveraging state and federal money.

He sees further opportunities to fund housing in allowing cannabis dispensaries and exploring an increase in the tax charged to overnight visitors. A streamlined process for developers is key, though he was not able to provide specifics about how to execute such a plan. Incentives for developers who choose to build more than the required amount of affordable units is also an option, he said.

“We have this affordable housing crisis,” said Pocekay, 69. “There’s something wrong with a system in which two people can be working full-time for minimum wage and not be able to find a roof.”

Candidate Robert Conklin, who works in municipal fleet maintenance for the city and county of San Francisco, frames road conditions, affordable housing and the Rainier crosstown connector as his top priorities. He said he would first seek to provide more affordable housing for seniors to free up other housing stock.

He proposed moving the police station and city hall facilities to the fairgrounds and working with nonprofit developers to create walkable housing on that city-owned land. He would like to explore a program that gives Petaluma natives or longtime residents a way to opt in to a deferred down payment plan for homes, which he said could be accomplished by working with developers.

Also on his agenda is streamlining the development process, though he wasn’t able to provide specifics about how he would change it.

“Most people I’ve talked to in the past couple months (are concerned with) keeping a roof over their head, putting food on the table and getting from point A to point B,” Conklin, 40, said.

For Scott Alonso, vice chair of Petaluma’s Planning Commission and a spokesman for the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office, top concerns are housing, traffic, roads and public safety. New housing needs to come in the form of transit-oriented projects, with robust public discussion about proposals, he said.

Because of the urban growth boundary that precludes sprawl, infill developments must be dense and at taller heights, he said. He would seek to explore a density bonus to incentivize such projects, or lower fees if developers agree to build a certain amount of affordable units. He would consider a bond measure to address housing and infrastructure, he said.

“People want to come to Petaluma and we have to ensure that working families and seniors can stay in town. If we want to attract more economic development and employees to Petaluma, we need to have housing for their workers,” Alonso, 32, said.

Kevin McDonnell, a civil engineer who serves as the chair of the city’s recreation, music and parks commission, said housing, transportation and traffic solutions and dealing with the city’s stressed budget are his top concerns.

The city must incorporate a mix of all levels of affordable units in transit-oriented developments, he said. He would support dense projects with smaller units. One way to make it easier for developers to build smaller units is to explore changes to the city’s fee structure, charging by square footage rather than on a per unit basis, he said.

McDonnell would like to analyze the success of a policy change intended to loosen regulations for granny units, and revisit it if it hasn’t aided in providing units.

He would seek more community engagement in the development process, and he advocated for more interactions with the county to create a regional approach for seeking funding for projects.

“If we don’t invest in affordable housing, we change the mix, we change the demographic and we get a Petaluma we don’t like,” McDonnell, 61, said.

Candidate D’Lynda Fischer, a former urban planner who is now a nonprofit consultant, said her top priorities are reanalyzing the general plan, encouraging mixed-use projects near transit hubs and dredging, cleaning and protecting the Petaluma River.

She would like to update the general plan - the city’s guiding blueprint for development - on a more frequent basis, and would seek to reexamine city’s requirements for density, height and parking requirements in the document. She would also seek to bring the planning staff in house, rather than contracting with the Metropolitan Planning Group to run the department, a move she said would streamline the process for developers. She would seek funding from foundations to help facilitate affordable housing projects, she said.

“What I’ve seen in the time I’ve been here is building with a very suburban model, an outdated model of growth that contributes to traffic congestion,” Fischer, 59, said.

Density bonuses are a key to spurring development, as are reducing fees for developers who are willing to build a certain amount of affordable units, said candidate Michael Regan, who owns a mortgage lending business.

Streamlining the process for building affordable housing by establishing specific frameworks for development in the city’s general plan for projects to adhere to is also a critical strategy, said Regan, 39. Building housing around transit hubs and in the downtown core is important, and each project needs to be analyzed to understand the consequences and ultimate accomplishments, he said.

“We need to keep that diversity in our community,” he said. “We need to keep the people who want to be here.”

You can reach Staff Writer Hannah Beausang at 707-521-5214 or hannah.beausang@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @hannahbeausang.