PD Editorial: Mid-year report card, Part II

On Sunday, we took a look at progress on The Press Democrat’s Editorial Board’s top priorities for 2015. Today, we complete the report mid-year report card. Readers are invited to comment or offer their own grades by posting their thoughts on pressdemocrat.com/opinion or by sending them to letters@pressdemocrat.com.:

THE HOUSING CRISIS – D

Much has been said and written about how local rents have soared 30 percent on average over the past three years and how the vacancy rate is negligible, leaving many renters and wannabe first-time buyers out in the cold. But little has been done about it. Faced with strong opposition by landlords, a divided Santa Rosa City Council last week rejected, for the second time, a proposal to block big rent increases. This time the proposal called for a ban on rent increases of more than 3 percent per year. The council expressed an interest in other options, including fast-tracking multifamily housing projects and cutting permit fees for affordable housing developments, and city staff is expected to come back with proposals on July 21. The story isn’t much better in other areas, including Windsor where opposition to a 387-unit apartment complex proposed for an area west of Highway 101 threatens its future. More than 1,000 people have signed a petition saying the rental complex would “degrade” the community. Please.

But there is some positive relief for those most in need. Petaluma’s Committee on the Shelterless, for example, recently reopened its family homeless shelter, which was closed three years ago due to funding cuts. The center, will serve homeless families with children. It’s a start

Sutter, Sonoma Sites - Incomplete

By all rights, this deserves an F, if only for the state’s misguided effort - now championed by Gov. Jerry Brown - to fast-track plans to close the Sonoma Developmental Center by 2018 and relocate its 400 remained residents to community-based homes and care centers. But facts and logic don’t support such a hasty mothballing effort. It also is an affront to the hard work a coalition of local leaders and parents of SDC residents have done in developing an alternative plan that promises better care for the residents while preserving the 1,000 acres of prime real estate and historic nature of the Eldridge facility. When this coalition hosted a workshop in May and invited the public to participate, it drew a packed house. We give this issue an incomplete in hopes the SDC Coalition’s work will yet be recognized and adopted. State officials need to do more homework. As for the effort to determine the future of the former Sutter Hospital site on Chanate Road in Santa Rosa, that certainly deserves an incomplete. More than eight months have passed since Sutter moved into its new $292 million campus next to the Wells Fargo Center. And while we hear there have been some discussions behind the scenes, there’s been little public dialogue about what should happen with this critical county site. As we’ve said before, we believe it’s vital that the public be included in these discussions as soon as possible.